So, I’ve had a blog in some form or another for something like 6 years now and for most of those Valentine’s Day’s I have written an entry to share a number of quotes about love and marriage. I was going back and forth as to whether or not to do this quote collection this year and finally decided to go for it. I hope you all enjoy these quotes on love and marriage this Valentine’s Day J

“I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God's will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness...Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness...we shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armor. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it” – C.S. Lewis 

“All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest--never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principle of equal partnership.” – Ann Landers 

“Every marriage moves either toward enhancing one another’s glory or toward degrading each other.” – Dan Allender and Tremper Longman III

“Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.” – Mark Twain

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” – Friedrich Nietzsche 

“Happy marriages begin when we marry the ones we love, and they blossom when we love the ones we marry.” – Tom Mullen

“Allow your marriage relationship to stretch your love and to enlarge your capacity for love – to teach you to be a Christian. Use marriage as a practice court, where you learn to accept another person and serve him or her. And please don’t limit this ‘love’ to ‘spiritual’ things like praying, preaching and exhorting. Part of the experience of love is delighting each other in very ‘earthy’ ways. This, too, is a biblical truth.” – Gary Thomas

“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” – Mignon McLaughlin

“Marriage is not a ritual or an end. It is a long, intricate, intimate dance together and nothing matters more than your own sense of balance and your choice of partner.” – Amy Bloom

“Success in marriage does not come merely through finding the right mate, but through being the right mate.” – Barnett Brickner 

“A happy marriage is the union of two good forgivers.” – Ruth Bell Graham“

The goal in marriage is not to think alike, but to think together.” – Robert C. Dodds

“Once we enter the marriage relationship, we cannot love God without loving our spouse as well.” – Gary Thomas

Rejoicing in the journey - Beth Stedman