Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.”
— Colossians 3:12–14 (NIV)
Dearest Daughters,
Love is the most important element in marriage. In fact, we might even say that love is the marriage.
Scripture tells us that marriage is the way in which God demonstrates His love between Himself and His bride which is the church (Eph. 5:22-33). And so, our own marriages should be a reflection of that beautiful design if they are to be true Christian marriages. In recognizing this, it’s important to realize that love is not a static thing, but living and growing, a delicate plant that must be tended.
If, after a year of marriage, you look back and see that your love has not grown, or worse, that it has shrunk, then something is wrong! Love shouldn’t barely survive; it should be thriving.
Look at your garden. If you plant peppers in April and return in May to find them looking exactly the same, you immediately know something is wrong. If you’re a good gardener, you don’t just sigh and let them wither up and die. You dig around the roots. You check the soil and compost. You weed and adjust how much sunlight the plants are receiving. You add water and do whatever it takes to help them grow and bear fruit.
This is how we must approach the love in our marriages.
The very first feelings when love blossoms are strong, so strong that you may think it will grow all by itself, but it won’t. That burst of life that makes a seed sprout is powerful, but the young plant is also fragile. And so is new love. It must be nurtured, guarded and fed.
So how do we do that? How do we tend the plant of love? We feed it and water it. We weed around it. We check the soil.
Let’s talk about the soil first. The soil of your marriage is the environment you build around it, what you fill your heart and mind with, who you spend your time with, the atmosphere that your home absorbs. Do you spend time with each other? Do you spend time with people whose love you admire, whose marriages you’d be happy to imitate, people of whom you say: I want a marriage just like theirs? If not, your love may be rooted in nutrient-poor ground.
Look for relationships that are further down the road than yours. Let your time and conversations be seasoned with things that edify, with books, scripture, stories that make your heart ache with longing to become more than you are. Let them move you to prayer. Spend time in homes where this longing is shared. This is the compost. This is the mulch. This is how you nourish the soil that you love is planted in.
And what about water?
Your words of kindness are like the water, so express your love often. Your dad and I speak words of love and affection to one another almost hourly. Every goodbye is said with a kiss, and returns greeted with affection and warmth. When your husband works long hours, don’t let him leave without sending him off with care, and welcome him home with joy.
These may seem like little things, but they’re really not. They are that daily watering that keep your plant alive.
And the weeding is just as important. Weeds are all those little things, like grumbling, irritation, sharp words or withholding affection and kindness. Of course, there will be some frustrations in any marriage. Dirty socks. The cap off the toothpaste. The clatter of dishes at the wrong time of day, but should these things matter enough to choke out love?
If the plant of love matters, you pull the weed.
You say: “This may be an imperfection, but this is exactly why God put us together. Only together can we be made whole. We need each other!”
Even the annoyances can become opportunities to overcome and fill in for each other. When we serve each other in the things we do not enjoy, we are truly loving, and in time, that service becomes a joy.
So let your every thought, your every action, your every word be a cultivator of love. Feed it. Water it and weed it. And place your marriage in a garden rich with light, air, and godly edifying company. Let the people around you, the pages you read, and the prayers you pray feed your love.
As it is written:
“Let all that you do be done in love.” —1 Corinthians 16:14
With all my heart,
Mom