After thirty-plus years of marriage, raising children, ministry, publishing and speaking, my husband Bill and I realized we desperately needed to get away to reconnect. We didn't want to be like other couples we'd noticed who sit in a restaurant, silently eating. We knew it could happen to us. Did we have anything left to say to one another?
Over a year ago, we set aside one month for a marriage "Selah" (meaning to pause). Today, I write from a beach in Mexico with a fresh awareness of what it means to be in love. Here we are, two middle-aged people with wrinkles and dimples where we didn't used to have them, realizing we are more in love with each other than ever.
Is it possible to fall in love again? Yes, but we had to be intentional about it.
While Bill and I have always been committed to each other 'til death do us part, our relationship hasn't always been moonlight and roses. In fact, sometimes we didn't even like each other. Stress of life can quench the passion. And as the years piled on, we often took one another for granted and expected more from each other than we could give. There were times we wondered, "Who are you, and why did I ever say Yes to you?"
So we decided to go away together, to fall in love again.
When I was eighteen and married Bill, who was twenty-three, I thought I married a pastor (at least that's what he told me he was going to be). I fully expected that we would live in the same community for thirty years, as my parents had done before me-live in the same house, attend the same church.
Bill thought he had married a starry-eyed blonde who would be like his mother, the grand champion apple pie baker of Santa Cruz County. It didn't quite work out like that. I actually married a risk taker who loved nothing more than developing things and Bill married an independent, analytical woman driven to write. When I met Bill, I was impressed with his take-charge ways. He was charmed by my spontaneity. Five years later, his "take charge" ways felt like controlling; and my "spontaneity" seemed to Bill like a lack of boundaries.
Take a Lesson from Jesus' First Miracle (See John chapter two) When you have guests, there's nothing worse than running out of food or drink. And we don't like to run out of our "passion," but sometimes we do. We get tired. We are imperfect. Marriage can take a beating in midlife with growing up children, elderly parents, making a living. We get involved in many things and we wonder, "Besides the kids, what do we have in common?"
Jesus turned the water into wine at the marriage feast when the servants did what he told them to. Marriage can be better than ever, if we will do what Jesus says. We can be very complicated on how to restore love. We wait for "feelings." But we don't need to wait for the feelings of love-we can "do" love. Jesus says that we are to do what He says. What does it mean to "do" what He says?
It means to be kind to one another. It means we will lay down our lives for each other-which could mean truly listening to one another. It means we speak the truth in love to each other and treat each other as we want to be treated. These are not dramatic, new ideas. But love never fails. It bears fruit. The amazing thing about obeying Jesus is that feelings follow action.