Is Marriage A Choice Or An Emotion? 

PART 1

I wanted to start this blog by saying I believe that we get to choose to love daily and we have the awesome opportunity to express love to the one we have committed to do life with. I also believe that feelings are involved with loving a person but love is an action word. This is a hot button topic because this was the first discussion I had with my friend after my first year of marriage, and then I had the conversation again last week with another friend. I left the conversation with 3 take aways that prompted this blog post, choice, feelings, and development.

Let’s work through my first take away in PART 1-  The word CHOICE.

I remember in my first year of marriage having a deep conversation with my friend, and it was around the idea that marriage is a “decision” and a “choice”. Those words sound harsh and not the romantic fluffy words many people want to hear. I do believe in the all of the fluffy and romantic stuff, but in this blog post, I am talking about the idea of “choosing” or making a decision to spend the rest of your life with a person. The illumination moment I had last week was the understanding that throughout your entire union, you make a bunch of “choices” (As stated by another close friend of mine through conversation)! You choose every day to stay committed; you chose everyday to love without limits; you choose everyday to give more than the day before. In each day of marriage you are choosing your spouse!

I concluded that when one proposes or when the other accepts the ring, God is demonstrating the beauty of CHOICE in marriage, and we get to choose to work through the choices we have made. You get to choose to have a thriving marriage, a terrible marriage, a bitter marriage, a loving marriage, and fun marriage. You and your spouse get to choose together whether you are going to have a relationship that works, and you get to choose to let it fall apart. I often see marriage through the lease of my relationship with God. Essentially God chose us to be his kids and through our development he never threw us away. I am not writing this to say that absolutely anything goes in your relationship, but what I am saying is that God choosing us is what makes having a relationship with him amazing! He sees the depth of our hearts and still loves us the same!!!! (in my Kierra Sheard voice)

When my relationship hit some muddy waters I stood on the DECISION or CHOICE of my husband, and thought wow, he chose me, and we are going to work through it. Choice is a deep aspect of marriage that shouldn’t be overlooked, and when you choose to value, pray,  spend time, and esteem your spouse you are cultivating a deeper love. Feelings are apart of love & marriage, but CHOOSING love and commitment is an extremely intimate aspect of marriage that God sees and honors that choice.

Love is patient- It takes a decision to be patient with your spouse.

Love is kind– You have to choose to have kind responses.

Love does not envy– You have to choose to place spouse before yourself.

Love does not dishonor or is self- seeking– You have to choose to honor your spouse.

Love is not easily angered– You have to choose not to remain angry.

Love keeps no record of wrongs- Not keeping score is a choice!

I pray that you keep choosing LOVE!

#nooknote

Look for part 2 next week.