First Love

They say that time heals all wounds, but, in relationships it seems that time has a way of opening up treacherous pitfalls beneath our feet.

The fifth year of marriage proves perilous for many couples. I, personally, learned this truth by experience.

I hear that the fifteenth is comparable. I sincerely hope not, because Toby and I are getting so very close, and I still have nightmares about our fifth anniversary.

It seems to me that as time passes by us, though the bonds of love grow deeper in so many ways, there is an inherent struggle in every relationship to hold on to the passion that initially ignited the flame of adoration in our hearts – the first love.

Itis so very easy to fall into a passionless pit of routine. Not only in our marriage, but also in our relationship with God.

In His letters to the churches, Jesus in the book of Revelation disclosed the one thing He had against the church at Ephesus....They had abandoned the love they had at first.

In response to this revelation, He encouraged the church to consider how far they had fallen and to commit again to do the things they did at first.

People talk all the time about falling in love, but the truth is that,if we're not careful to guard against it, we can fall out of love.

We run into love purposefully and passionately. Weseek out love. Because our heart's desire is to be in love.

But,when the newness of a relationship wears off, it's possible to fall head over heels out of love. Tumbling from the heady heights of romance to the despairing depths of a seemingly unremarkable relationship marked by everyday responsibilities.  

Jesus said when this happens, as it sometimes does, in any relationship, we should consider the heights from which we’ve fallen and commit to do what we did at first.

That begs the question: what do we do at first that ignites the passion of love in our relationships?

And, I think the answer is that we exercise faith.

We run headlong in to love because of our faith in the object of our affection. We trust them with our heart. We believe in them. Because they haven’t disappointed us…yet.

After a while, however, love sometimes grows old, because the person we believed in doesn’t seem to be all that we believed they were. Love fades because the person we trusted doesn’t seem to be completely worthy of our trust.

It happens in every relationship. Even in our relationship with God.

We feel betrayed, hurt, and misunderstood. Our faith crumbles down around us.

And we vow to protect ourselves. We lift our sensible head above our emotional heart, for our own good, we reason,and we become unwilling to believe or trust that person with our whole heart....again.

But that’s not the way love is meant to be lived out in our lives. Love is meant to overwhelm our heads with the fevered passion of our hearts. Love is meant to be an irresistable ocean that stretches out before us beckoning us to wade deeper and deeper into waters that rage beyond our control.  

To ensure that our love doesn’t grow stagnant in shallow waters of doubt, we must choose to trust someone even though we do not understand everything they do. We must choose to believe in someone even though we may be hurt by them…again.

We must continually wade into deeper waters so that we don’t drown in the superficialityof an insincere love.

We recapture the passion of our first love by doing what we did at first.

Exercising faith….again.


And again....


And again....


As often as it takes to keep our love like new.