One of C.S. Lewis most famous books & probably THE most recommended apologetics starter books is "Mere Christianity."
"Mere Christianity" is actually a collection of transcripts from radio shows C.S. Lewis did and were originally published in 3 separate books in 1942-1944. Today, it is divided between those 3 books, each divided into chapters.
Chapter 6 of book 3 ("Christian Behavior") is entitled "Christian Marriage." Lewis does not disappoint with his wisdom. In this post, I wanted to share some of the the parts I found especially insightful. I would advise anyone & everyone, Christian, atheist, agnostic, fill-in-the-blank to read this book. If nothing else but to get a Christian's perspective on a multitude of topics.
So, without further ado....C.S. Lewis....
"The Christian law is not forcing upon the passion of love something which is foreign to that passion's own nature: it is demanding that lovers should take seriously something which their passion of itself impels them to do. And, of course, the promise, made when I am in love and because I am in love, to be true to the beloved as long as I live, commits me to being true even if I cease to be in love."
"...no feeling can be relied on to last in its full intensity, or even to last at all....If the old fairy-tale ending 'They lived happily ever after' is taken to mean 'They felt for the next fifty years exactly as they felt the day before they were married,' then it says what probably never was nor ever would be true, and would by highly undesirable if it were. Who could bear to live in that excitement for even five years?...ceasing to be 'in love' need not mean ceasing to love. Love in this second sense--love as distinct from 'being in love'--is not merely a feeling. It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by (in Christian marriages) the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God. They can have this love for each other even at those moment when they do not like each other; as you love yourself even when you do not like yourself. They can retain this love even when each would easily, if they allowed themselves, be 'in love' with someone else. 'Being in love' first moved them to promised fidelity; this quieter love enables them to keep the promise. It is on this love that the engine of marriage is run; being in love was the explosion that started it."
"...if you go through with it, the dying away of the first thrill will be compensated for by a quieter and more lasting kind of interest. What is more (and I can hardly find words to tell you how important I think this is), it is just the people who are ready to submit to the loss of the thrill and settle down to the sober interest, who are then most likely to meet new thrills in some quite different direction."
"Let the thrill go--let it die away--go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow--and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time."
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