4197 Remember When?

Every love story has a moment tucked inside that changes everything. Maybe it was the way he looked at you from across the room. Maybe it was a conversation that went three hours longer than it should have because neither of you wanted it to end. Maybe it was nothing dramatic at all — just a quiet knowing that settled into your bones and whispered, this one. Whatever your moment was, it marked the beginning of something God had been writing long before you ever knew his name. Remember when? Because the best way to move your marriage forward is going back to the beginning.

Now, I know what you might be thinking. Kristianne, we are not the same people we were back then. And you are right.

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Life has done what life does. It has layered on responsibilities and routines, sleepless seasons and silent frustrations, moments of deep joy and stretches of deep exhaustion. The couple who once stayed up until two in the morning talking about everything and nothing now falls asleep mid-sentence on the couch by nine. And that is okay. Growth looks different than it feels.

Going back to the beginning isn't about pretending those layers don't exist. It is about remembering what is underneath all of them. Because underneath the bills, the carpools, the calendar that never seems to have enough room — there is a foundation. And that foundation was not built by accident. It was built by God.

Jeremiah 29:11 tells us, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

It's easy to think that verse is just about your individual life and what you are going to be when you grow up. But we forget that it's about your whole life, which makes it about your marriage too.

God had a plan when He brought the two of you together. He saw the beginning, and He already knew every chapter that would follow. When you go back to the start of your story, you are not escaping the present. You are reconnecting with the purpose that has been holding you together all along.

Think about it this way. When a tree is struggling — when its leaves are dry and its branches look tired — a gardener does not just look at the surface. She checks the roots. She makes sure the foundation is still being nourished, still being watered, still connected to what gives it life. Your marriage is the same. The fruit you see on the outside — the way you communicate, the way you serve each other, the way you show up day after day — all of it is connected to the roots. And your roots live in the beginning.

Song of Solomon 2:10–13 paints a picture so vivid you can almost feel the warmth on your skin: "My beloved spoke and said to me, 'Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.'"

Do you feel that? There is an invitation in those words. An invitation to come out of whatever cold season you have been standing in and step back into the warmth of what love was always meant to be. Not a love that ignores the hard things. A love that remembers it was built to outlast them.

Maybe your beginning was full of butterflies and big romantic gestures. Or maybe it was quieter than that — a steady friendship that slowly turned into something you could not walk away from.

Either way, there was something real there. Something true. And the beautiful thing about truth is that it does not expire. It does not lose its power just because time has passed. It simply waits for you to come back and draw from it again.

Thomas Merton once wrote, "The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves."

When you first fell in love with your husband, you were not trying to change him. You were captivated by who he already was — the way he laughed, the things he cared about, the way he made you feel seen.

Somewhere along the way, it is easy to trade that captivation for correction. To start seeing what needs fixing instead of what first made your heart skip. Going back to the beginning is an invitation to see him again — really see him — the way you did before the world got loud.

The K.I.S.S. ~ Revisit your roots!

So here is the question I want to sit with you today. What if the key to falling in love all over again is not learning something new — but remembering something you already knew?

1. Pull out a photo or memento from your early days together.

Open up that wedding album that has been sitting on the shelf untouched since your last anniversary. Dig out the box of old letters, ticket stubs, or that silly souvenir from the trip where everything went wrong and you laughed until you cried anyway. Find something tangible — something you can hold in your hands — and spend ten minutes looking at it together this week.

You do not have to plan a deep conversation around it. Just sit next to each other and let the memories do the talking. You might be surprised how quickly a faded photograph can make the present feel a little brighter.

One couple I know found their old wedding guest book in the back of a closet and spent an entire evening reading the messages people had written to them. By the time they closed it, she said it felt like their vows had been renewed without either of them saying a word.

2. Ask your spouse one simple question — "What is your favorite memory of us?"

This one requires something that does not always come naturally in a long marriage — genuine curiosity. Do not assume you know the answer. Do not fill in the blanks for him. Just ask, and then do the most loving thing you can do in that moment — listen.

• Listen without planning your response.
• Listen without correcting the details.
• Listen the way you used to listen when everything he said mattered to you because you were still learning who he was.

Here is the truth — you are still learning who he is. People are not static. The memory he holds dearest might not be the one you expect. Maybe it is not the grand vacation or the wedding day. Maybe it is a Tuesday night when you brought him coffee without being asked, or the way you held his hand in the hospital waiting room and did not let go. When you hear what he treasures, you learn what love looks like through his eyes. And that changes everything.

3. Recreate one small thing from your dating season.

This is not about booking a five-star dinner or planning an elaborate date night — although if that is your thing, go for it. This is about intention. Think about the little things that made your early days feel alive. Was there a restaurant where you always split the same meal? A song that played every time you were together? A drive you used to take just because being in the car together felt like enough? Pick one of those things and do it again. If that restaurant closed years ago, find a similar one and order something that reminds you of what you used to share. If the song is buried somewhere in a playlist you forgot existed, pull it up and play it in the kitchen while you make dinner. It does not have to be perfect. It just has to be purposeful. One woman told me she and her husband used to get gas station coffee and drive the back roads on Sunday mornings when they were dating. They had not done it in over a decade. So one Sunday she woke up early, filled two styrofoam cups, and told him to get in the car. She said he smiled in a way she had not seen in years. That is what revisiting your roots looks like — small, deliberate, and full of love.

One thing you must understand: the enemy of a good marriage is not conflict. It is not even distance. It is forgetfulness. When we forget where love began, we start to believe it has nowhere left to go.

But when we remember — when we go back to the well of what God started and draw from it again — something shifts. We stop measuring our marriage by what it lacks and start marveling at what it has survived.

Your love story is still being written, friend. Every single day. And the Author who began it is faithful to continue it. So this week, take a step back — not away from your marriage, but into its beginning. Let yourself remember. Let yourself feel. And let God remind you that what He started in love, He has every intention of finishing in love.

"Be present. Be incredible. Be YOU!!!"

 

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Cover Art by Jenny Hamson

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Music by Mandisa - Overcomer

http://www.mandisaofficial.com

Song ID: 68209
Song Title: Overcomer
Writer(s): Ben Glover, Chris Stevens, David Garcia
Copyright © 2013 Meaux Mercy (BMI) Moody Producer Music (BMI)
One Songs (ASCAP) Ariose Music (ASCAP) Universal Music - 
Brentwood Benson Publ. (ASCAP) D Soul Music (ASCAP) (adm. at CapitolCMGPublishing.com) All rights reserved. Used by permission.