What I remember most vividly from our marriage preparation course (yeah, that’s a long time ago by now) is learning that in most parts of the world and most times in history marriages were arranged.  You did not marry for love, you loved for marriage.  We are used to hearing horror stories about arranged marriages and how people are forced to marry someone they do not even love.  But we rarely hear about how successful most arranged marriages are.  I guess that is not newsworthy.

Recently I read a statement to the effect that in modern society we jump in with a red hot passion, and after the wedding day we slowly let it cool down, whereas in more “traditional” cultures, a marriage starts out cool and the couple spends their life making it grow hotter each day.

Of course not all arranged marriages end up growing hotter, just as not all “true love” marriages last a lifetime.

What are you doing in your marriage?  Are you making it hotter or cooling it off?  A marriage doesn’t have to be arranged to grow hotter – it simply has to have a spark and two people feeding the fire.  So keep feeding it.