I will be 100 percent honest: If love was supposed to make me feel good all the time, I would have divorced my husband quicker than Kim Kardashian. I would have been out the door several times by now, regardless of my relationship with God and the fact that the Bible says divorce is not okay. If love was all about making me happy, I would have been looking elsewhere.
Because marriage is hard. It can be infuriating sometimes. I can't tell you how many dishes I have broken in fury or how many times I have locked myself in the bathroom in an effort to get away from my husband. Love is not easy. Love is not perfect. Love is far from a walk in the park.
Love takes work, and that work does not come easy.
Anyone can fall in love. It takes absolutely no effort to see a beautiful person and dream about your future. It takes nothing to kiss and have sex and have fun. You can make it by with little effort. But when you realize that he likes the bed made every day, and you could care less? As silly as it sounds, it takes the conscious decision to make a relationship work with that elephant hanging around.
When he leaves dirty clothes on the floor, and the basket is right beside his side of the bed. When you said you'd put gas in the car, and he calls you from the side of the highway. When you got $100 you were supposed to spend on food, and you spent half of it on magazines and makeup. When he asks you to clean the kitchen, and he made the mess. Tell me how easy that relationship is.
Ask any artist, and they will inform you that the most magnificent pieces of art the world has seen took long, hard years to produce. Did you know it took Michelangelo four years to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? It is one of the most famous paintings in the world, and the only reason Michelangelo was chosen is because his rivals wanted to see him flounder (since he was arguably better at sculpting than painting). He decided that, instead of being run out of Rome for failing, he would indeed prove to paint something magnificent and lasting, something that would prove his worth as a leading artist of the age. What did Raphael paint? What did Bramante build? I don't know either.
I want to create something that will last, something that will impact people long after I am gone. What better way to do that than with my marriage? I will have kids someday, and the way my husband and I act with each other will have some kind of impact on them. God forbid I leave a legacy of, "I gave up because I didn't feel good anymore."
Fall in love, by all means. Find someone who makes your heart race and your spirit soar. Find someone who is everything you have ever wanted. But when they turn out to be damaged, imperfect, human . . . Decide.
Make it magnificent.
Make it strong.
Make it last.
