Gift from the Sea

Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh (affiliate) is on my reading list. My short list. A friend posted this excerpt from it de udder day, and it just touched me, ya know?

“When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity – in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits – islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.”

This is a lake. I live in Michigan. Sue me.

Mike and I are in a wonderful place right now, but it would be crazy to think that one day things won’t become trying. We’re married, and the way I see it is kind of like the buddy system. Those of us who are called to marriage are asked to pick a buddy to stay with until the trip is over. Even as our feelings change for that person, we are still required to stick with them, and make sure they are safe, accounted for, and ready for heaven.

So, even as feelings wax and wane, we still choose to love that person by recognizing that we are helping him get closer to God. And, choosing to see your spouse the way God sees him may just be the secret to choosing to stay in love.

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