I might be stepping off into some deep water with this post, but I feel compelled to write about love and marriage today…it is Valentine’s Day after all.  I have only been blogging for a few months now but I know one of the main factors in my success thus far is my wife.  We are coming up on our 9th wedding anniversary and have known each other since we were little kids.  We now have little children of our own and I can certainly say I am a very blessed man.

I believe that a happy marriage is built on faith and friendship.  My wife and I were best friends long before I finally wore her down and convinced her it wouldn’t be weird to date her best friend.  Our friendship allowed us to truly know each other since we didn’t have the ‘love blinders’ on.  The romanticized version of marriage we see in movies, on TV shows and ‘reality’ shows portrays marriage in an unrealistic light.  The descriptions of marriage in the Bible and the ones we see in media are pretty much at polar opposites.

Yesterday, Seeing the Everyday magazine (one of my favorite things to read) sent out an email titled, “Friendship, More Than Romance, Leads To Happy Marriage.”  Amen!  It was a short message with a teaser for an article that appeared in an early version of Seeing.  The author quoted a marriage scholar, John Gottman, who said, “The simple truth [is] that happy marriages are based on a deep friendship. By this I mean a mutual respect for and enjoyment of each other’s company.”

I truly enjoy being around my wife.  Sure, there are moments where we each need a bit of space, but on the whole I look forward to the time when we are both at home with our girls.  I believe that our girls, even at their young age, can see the love and friendship that Mommy and Daddy have.  I know of too many couples who purposely try to avoid each other, and it breaks my heart.

The email from Seeing also contained this quote – “A marriage and a family are rescued not by a passionate love scene and an idealistic dream but by friendship and the prosaic connections formed in the plain, ordinary work of everyday life at home. By sustaining real friendship from day to day, marital relationships will have the wherewithal to last a lifetime.”  There is so much truth in these two sentences.

Being a minister, I have talked with many couples who have lost their way over the years.  The rifts and fractures in their marriage happened over years, not days.  Sometimes they believe that a grand gesture of love will re-ignite their marriage, and it may be a good start, but it would have been better to have nurtured that marriage faithfully everyday over all those years.

It may sound really boring, especially in a romanticized world, but one of the things that I know my wife really likes is for us to tackle the work of the home together.  Not because she needs cheap manual labor, but because there is a sustaining power in sharing the everyday work of the home and family. The work of the home is not sexy and its not glamorous, but I know that sharing in the day to day work of raising a family and making a home is one thing that builds our marriage everyday.

I believe that even mainstream churches are buying into the Hollywood version of marriage, perhaps without even knowing it.  A pastor at a local mega-church recently delivered a series of lessons on marriage and sex from a bed that was wheeled out at the beginning of the sermon.  A designer we used in building our home told us that he mostly slept through church, only waking up when the sermon of the morning was about sex.  That prompted me to ask, “How often does your preacher talk about sex?” To which he replied, “Once or twice a month.”

Since when did the Bible start teaching that great marriages are all about passion and action?  Yes, there are passionate moments in our marriage, but both of our families and many church friends read my blog so we’ll stick to the things fit for a general audience.  The Proverbs 31 woman wasn’t credited for being sexy, seductive and passionate, she was lauded for being righteous, industrious, loving, nurturing, kind, gentle, trustworthy and so many other qualities.  Similar passages describing a good man focus on faith, work ethic, trustworthiness and other admirable qualities.  When those qualities abound in a marriage, the romantic matters happen freely.

Last night I was teaching the High School and Junior High class at our church, and broke away from our topic of study for the night.  With valentines on the brain for many of the teenagers I wanted to seize the opportunity to talk about long-term, lasting love.  The true love of a God-based relationship, not the fake stuff that they see so much of on television.  We had a truly engaging discussion.

Since the lesson was not really planned, we started off with a list of qualities that the guys and gals look for in someone they are interested in.  First off, I realized I’m getting old because they were using terms they had to explain to me.  (Do you know what bootleg and ratcheted mean in today’s teen vernacular?  I didn’t either.)  As we built our list, we found that the qualities they were looking for were similar.  Both boys and girls are looking for someone with similar beliefs, trustworthy, kind, smart, etc.

Most of the kids in class are on the younger side so they weren’t thinking about things like: this is the person who I want to be the mother/father of my children, this is the person I trust to help me get to heaven, this is the person I can picture myself with when I am old and wrinkly.  I could tell they were really connected with the lesson when we started looking at what the Bible had to say about the qualities we should look for in a spouse.  Their young minds were blown when I told them that some of the things that connect my wife and I the most are cooking, cleaning, folding laundry – the unglamorous tasks that make up the everyday effort it takes to run a home.

I proudly tell anyone that asks, that my best friend is my wife.  Our common faith, focus on our family and bond of love grows every year as we grow to be closer friends.  (As a bonus, she is good looking!)  We have taught our five year-old that Valentine’s Day is a special day where we make sure to tell the people we love how much we love them.  My wife and I exchange simple, thoughtful gifts with each other.  But this isn’t the only day we show love and affection for each other.  A happy marriage is built on faith and friendship everyday.

A few humble thoughts and suggestions…

• If you’re married and struggling, try to focus on the everyday things you can do to help, encourage and support your spouse.  This might mean skipping out on things that you want to do so you can help out around the house and with the kids.
• Pray together.  Not just a prayer at a meal, but really spend some time praying together for the needs of your marriage, family and spend special time praying for others you know of who are hurting and struggling.
• If you’re single, try to get past the fear you have of dating your best friend.  It’s worth it!
• Also for the single people.  I let my wife proof-read this post to make sure I wasn’t revealing too much.  She reminded me that many of her happily married friends, when they first met their husband, would not have remotely been interested in dating the guy.  There’s a lesson in there for the guys and the gals.

And finally, a bit of bonus material…

Two of my preacher friends have put out excellent blog posts in the last few days that tie in with my thoughts very well.  Jeff Jenkins, the preacher at the Lewisville church, wrote a though provoking post titled, “Be A Blessing“.  Make sure to start at home by being a blessing to your family then let the overflow of your heart be a blessing to others.  Kevin Langford, who has just joined the ministry team at the Lewisville church, wrote a post titled, “Will you be my valentine? -God“.  Valentine’s cards are nice, but God has written us an incredible love letter through inspired writers.  Both these men write excellent blogs and are well worth following.

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