When Love Hormones Fades…

Marriage.

I must admit I got married for selfish reasons. I chose my husband because he’s good-looking, smart, capable of providing for me financially, and good-natured, etc.

Years into marriage, when infatuation faded, reality sank in.

Marriage is a place where you can get NAKED.

Naked, literally, to make babies. I don’t think I need to expound on this.

Naked, spiritually. I imagine every person wearing some kind of trappings. It could be one of these: financial success, intellectual achievement, power, glamour, beauty, adulation, fame, etc. But with a spouse, I get to take all these off and be just who I am. It took humility to be able to take it all off. Knowing the depth God’s grace and love allowed me take the frills off. It is finding my self-worth on account what Christ did for me on the cross. That I am a child of God and I am precious. And nobody can take that away from me. I may become a pauper. Somebody else might be smarter than me. I may not be my own boss all the time. I may grow old and wrinkly in time. Nobody may admire me. But, it’s okay. Somebody died for me even when I had nothing good to give back. It’s enough to remind me I have a God who loves me. And I have a spouse whom God is using to remind me of His unfailing love.

More importantly, marriage taught me to see my spouse beneath his trappings as well. Marriage is not just for our happiness as a couple. It has a higher purpose. Marriage is an avenue where my spouse can feel secure that he is accepted and love for what God made him to be. It is a place where he knows he is not judged for his weaknesses and limitations. It is a place where he has a wife who will love him when he can’t face his own reflection in the mirror. And most of all, marriage is a place where he can become a better version of himself everyday.

A reminder for wives: Ephesians 5:22-23 Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior…I am the church. I should submit to my husband like I would submit to Christ. Not easy but should be done.

A reminder for husbands: Ephesians 5: 25-30 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church– for we are members of his body.

Husbands got the short end of the stick, eh? It’s not easy to love. And what is love anyway? It is not the hormonal rush you get way back in your courtship days. No, it is far more than the highs you get. Real love is better than that because it doesn’t have lows. You don’t wait for the thrill to come to you. You create love. And what is love? 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7  Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

Marriage.

Date first published: June 10, 2016