“I’d be lying if I said our relationship was as exciting as the unhealthy relationships I’d been in in the past. It wasn’t. But I’d lost the taste for drama. The backside of Hollywood passion is disappointment and loneliness—and more often than not, resentment and cynicism about the nature of love itself.”

—Donald Miller, Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy

Find someone who actually, really, truly believes marriage is a journey toward salvation; People get married for all sorts of reasons, not all of which are bad, but truly this is the highest calling and deepest meaning of marriage: to walk through life with a companion who shares your desire for union with Christ, who knows that the journey will not be easy but will be worth every step and any suffering, and who is seeking the Kingdom of God, proclaiming His good news, and becoming a light to the world. Find someone with this desire, dear ones. Life is inevitably full of joys and trials; marry a man who sees each happening through the lens of Christ, and together, you will reach heaven.

—Christina Andresen

One couple I know made a vow on their wedding day to “out-serve” each other.  My husband and I evolved a pattern of making decisions based on who feels most strongly about the matter.  If I want Chinese food, but he really wants Italian, we get Italian.  If I really want him to watch a Jane Austen movie with me, he does, until he falls asleep 45 minutes later.  It doesn’t matter who “won” last time, because a next time is always coming up.  The future just keeps rolling into the present, and more good things to give and to receive will always be appearing.

Glory and Honor: Orthodox Christian Resources on Marriage

“Getting married is about the most far-reaching, life-changing thing most people ever do, but they go into it knowing less than they would if they were planning to buy a ferret.”

—Frederica Mathewes-Green, Glory and Honor: Orthodox Christian Resources on Marriage

“Marriage, my dear friends, is a little boat which sails through waves and among rocks. If you lose your attention even for a moment, it will be wrecked.”

— Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra, Mount Athos, Marriage: The Great Sacrament, A Sermon delivered in the Church of St. Nicholas, Trikala, Greece, 17 January, 1971

“Because he loves her, he goes to bed last and gets up first in the morning.”

—Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra, Mount Athos, Marriage: The Great Sacrament, A Sermon delivered in the Church of St. Nicholas, Trikala, Greece, 17 January, 1971

“Just as steel is fashioned in a furnace, just so is a person proved in marriage, in the fire of difficulties.”

—Archimandrite Aimilianos of Simonopetra, Mount Athos, Marriage: The Great Sacrament, A Sermon delivered in the Church of St. Nicholas, Trikala, Greece, 17 January, 1971

“WHY DO SO MANY YOUNG PEOPLE FEAR MARRIAGE? BECAUSE THEY’RE AFRAID OF THE RESPONSIBILITIES. IT’S NOT THAT THERE AREN’T ANY GOOD YOUNG PEOPLE, BUT THEY FEAR RESPONSIBILITY.”

—ELDER GAVRIIL TSAFOS