When Love Grows Cold

“What happened to your marriage?” the friend asked.
“I don’t know. We just drifted apart. We don’t love each other anymore. The divorce was final last week.”
That conversation is repeated thousands of times every day in America. The sexual revolution after World War II didn’t bring us happiness, it wrought havoc on the family. From 1960 to 1980, the divorce rate climbed from 10% to 50% before staying at about 50% ever since then. The percentage of single adults went from 6.5% to 20% in that same period, and single adults now number 30% and climbing, as fewer and fewer people are willing to commit themselves to marriage. (Willard Harley, His Needs, Her Needs, p. 9)
What is happening to marriage? What causes love to grow cold and die? Is there anything that can be done to turn it around?

[Read the full posting in the first comment below.]

Coon Hunting for Christ

My son and I at the annual "coon hunt" sponsored by the Baptist Church at Ebenezer, our mission church. About 100 members and friends camp out on a bluff overlooking the Savannah River (see picture of the river above) for this unique fellowship event. During the night, one guy with a gun and his dogs chase the raccoons up and down the ravines, and a bunch of campers follow him. Some years they shoot a coon, and some years they don't, but every year fun is had by all (except the coons).

Finding true love

Three times Solomon’s bride says it: “Do not arouse or awaken love until it so desires” (NIV), or “until the appropriate time” (HCSB). (Song of Solomon 2:7; 3:5; 8:4). She is saying, “True love waits until marriage! Don’t arouse sexual love until the proper time.” This is also implied several other times in the song, such as in 2:15 “catch the foxes that ruin the vineyards in bloom” (warning to stop the temptation to ruin the relationship too early) and 4:12 “you are a garden locked up” (referring to her virginity saved for marriage).
The Song of Solomon shows the shallowness of Hollywood’s view of love. Hollywood makes movies that say true love is all about sex. In the current movie, The Holiday, the stars of the movie hop in bed with each other almost immediately after they meet, and then after having sex many times, they discover true love.
I wonder what Solomon’s bride would say if she saw that movie? She would probably jump to her feet in the middle of the film, spill popcorn all over Solomon and shout, “Are you crazy? Don’t light the fire too soon or you’ll get burned!”
I know cohabitation is common in our society today, but it’s also common for Americans to eat too much and get up to their ears in debt. Just because it’s common doesn’t make it good for us.
You see, when you have sex with somebody, you have left part of your body with that person. You think that you can have sex with somebody you’re not married to, and then walk away from it without being hurt? You know what that’s like? Suppose it was 20 degrees outside, and there was a light pole covered in ice. Suppose you went up to that pole, stuck out your tongue, and let it freeze to that pole. Then you tried to rip your tongue loose and walk away. You could get loose, and you could walk away, but there’s no way you can do it without leaving a part of you behind. If you’ll forgive the pun, that’s just a “taste” of what it is like to have sex with somebody outside of marriage.
True love waits until marriage to give itself away.