Have you ever been to the ocean? Seen the waves roll across the open blue? It’s mesmerizing to watch, but it can be terrifying to live.

There is big difference between being at the ocean and in the ocean.

The sea seems calm, peaceful even tranquil from the sand but in the midst of the waves it can be frightening. You loose all control as your body is thrown to and fro with the passing of each wave.

If two go out together, there is no guarantee you’ll stay together. The ocean has a natural way of drifting people apart. It takes nothing into account. In order to stay near one another you have to keep fighting the waves, pushing against the current, kicking, paddling, to stay together.

Marriage is much like the ocean. It takes fighting to stay together.

You see life has a way of becoming mundane. The ins and outs of daily living can become tedious. Those doing life with you can become a mere drifter alongside of you.

The sun rises, the sun sets. You wake up, you go to work, come home, go to bed and start all over again. It’s easy to get lost in the normalcy of life, in the repetition of day in day out. I love you, hugs and kisses become part of that routine, nothing more than the day before.

COMPLACENCY TAKES OVER.

Marriage becomes a drone steadily playing in the background of the day to day life that you live. Your husband can quickly become a roommate, just a person you live with, a drifter.

But the thing about drifting is, it’s never neutral. You are not standing still, stuck alongside one another. In life you are either moving towards a person or away from a person.

You might not be aware of the drifting but it’s happening. You and your spouse are drifting away from one another. Life’s currents are vicious and fierce. Even on a calm day the rocking of the ocean can drift two people apart. In this complacent world you live, you are actually moving away from one another.

You HAVE to fight. You have to fight to stay near one another just like in the ocean. You have to actively move towards the other person, intentionally pursuing them, loving them.

It takes a toll just as the waves crashing over your body takes physically exertion to stay afloat and stick the course, marriage takes energy.

It is easy to not put in the effort, to allow yourselves to become complacent, allowing marriage to drone on as you drift. But a good marriage takes fighting, it needs fighting. You need to fight for your spouse.

Now notice, I didn’t say fight with your spouse. Actively going against your spouse is moving in the opposite direction of towards them.

No you need to fight FOR your spouse. You’re a team! It’s you two against the world. Husband and wife. There is no one else that knows all the crevices of our soul, that understands the inside jokes, or shares the same memories.

It is so important that you remember that, that I remember that. I spend so much time fighting against B that I forget to fight FOR him. I forget to love him.

Marriage takes intentionality, it takes sacrifice, it takes love, it takes fighting. 

Are you fighting for your spouse? Or are your drifting, allowing the mundane to set the course?