Is love the most important thing to consider when we are thinking of marriage?

My initial response is simply "yes"- love is the most important thing in any relationship. The difficulty comes with our definition, and understanding of the kind of love needed to make the relationship successful and how to achieve that success(for it takes effort - as any worthwhile endeavor does). This kind of love is give and receive (not give and give...not give and take)

If we look across the landscape of our society, one wonders what has happened to the kind of enduring love that brings a couple from a state of sweaty palms and rapid heart rates... to the love found in the gentle touch of a time worn hand, caressing the wrinkly cheek it has known for 60 years.

What kind of love brought them to this place? It wasn't one based simply on "feelings" alone...for emotions can change with something as simple as having too much wine with dinner, or a foggy day that makes us feel blue. We feel the wrong thing emotionally, and all of the sudden we think we fell out of love.

Bound in lifelong love there is faith, laughter, sympathy, tears, honor, trust, respect, patience, forgiveness (yes! Saying I'm sorry a thousand times), bending of wills and desires...so many things beyond that first ignited spark. It grows from the shallow end as we first step in, to the deep waters over time.

It moves past hurt feelings, disagreements, selfish demands, and unmet needs. On those long days of silence when you say, "whats wrong?", and she says, "nothing, everything in fine"... and then the roof blows off from some hurt, or wrong that had been brewing for days. It is in those moments of tearing apart that this kind of love clings to what is good. Having faith in the bond and the commitment will keep you focused.

It is the kind of love where you grow to know each other so intimately that you often finish each others sentences, and find yourself thinking what he just said.

Have you ever seen one of those trees that has two kinds of fruit growing on it? Like a peach and a plumb? The two were grafted together as little twigs and now share the same trunk and roots. Each still bears its own kind of fruit- retaining its individuality- but they are so entwined together, that to separate them would kill the tree.

That is the kind of love that is most important when considering marriage- "and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one" (Mark 10:8 NIV Bible).

This is the ideal picture that God had in mind when he designed a marriage...what he meant to be the greatest human relationship we have here on earth. Yes, love is important...it just needs to be understood better...and when it is, it is the most adventurous journey your life can go on!