Marriage Misnomers: Love is Enough.

Love is enough. Love will get you through. If I I've heard it once, I've heard it a million times, and I'm here to tell you it's just not true. Love is foundational. Love is crucial. Love is fun; but love alone is not enough to make a marriage last. Making a marriage last requires more.

Marriage requires choice. Marriage means choosing to focus one's attraction. There are plenty of attractive people in the world, but when you marry, you commit to a one and only. It's for this reason that I refuse to identify celebrity crushes or even discuss the attractiveness of people of the opposite gender. It's the reason I ask my husband before accepting friend requests from males outside my family. It's the reason I try to avoid work activities that put me alone with another man. I chose my husband when I married, and that means choosing to avoid anything that would tempt me away from continuing to choose him.

Marriage is also a commitment. Marriage has plenty of hard days, days when I would rather have my own way than die to myself and live for my marriage. I committed to marriage, and to a covenant marriage no less. It is that commitment to God and to my husband that keeps me going on the hard days, especially when I really don't feel loving and don't want to act in a loving manner.

Is love important? Sure it is! But it's just not enough. Love can wax and wane. Love can apply to everything from food to souls to God. But marriage needs love AND. Love AND choice. Love AND commitment. Love that is eternal, everlasting, and for believers, LOVE that mirror the love Christ has for the church, covenantal love great enough to sustain not only an individual marriage, but to give the life of a sinless man to pay for the insurmountable sins of a fallen world. That was the epitome of love in action!