"I fell in love with him. But I don't just stay with him by default as if there's no one else available to me. I stay with him because I choose to, every day that I wake up, every day that we fight or lie to each other or disappoint each other. I choose him over and over again, and he chooses me."
- Veronica Roth Allegiant
I don't know why this quote struck me the way it did. It was one of those moments that as soon as I read those words, I put down the book, stared off into space thinking on those simple words and knowing settled over me. I knew at that moment this defined true love. We've fallen in love many times throughout our marriage. We've also experienced the lulls of love, when it feels its waned a little too long. When the mundaneness of life dictates our routines.
Ann Voskamp said it so poetically when she wrote: "You would think that after a lifetime of Sunday sermons I would have known that this is what real love always does---goes to hell and back for each other."
Marriage is work and joy and heartache and utopia and forgiveness and disappointment and acceptance and desire and sacrifice. It is too many things all wrapped into one precious gift that becomes tested with time. It is the fusion of two hearts into one. Fusion requires a letting go of oneself in order to produce its desired outcome....a melding of two.
Love is a choice. An every day choice.
I choose you.
