Christian Marriage Quotes

“A marriage which does not constantly crucify its own selfishness and self-sufficiency, which does not ‘die to itself’ that it may point beyond itself, is not a Christian marriage. The real sin of marriage today is not adultery or lack of ‘adjustment’ or ‘mental cruelty.’ It is the idolization of the family itself, the refusal to understand marriage as directed toward the Kingdom of God. This is expressed in the sentiment that one would ‘do anything’ for his family, even steal. The family has here ceased to be for the glory of God; it has ceased to be a sacramental entrance into his presence. It is not the lack of respect for the family, it is the idolization of the family that breaks the modern family so easily, making divorce its almost natural shadow. It is the identification of marriage with happiness and the refusal to accept the cross in it. In a Christian marriage, in fact, three are married; and the united loyalty of the two toward the third, who is God, keeps the two in an active unity with each other as well as with God. Yet it is the presence of God which is the death of the marriage as something only ‘natural.’ It is the cross of Christ that brings the self-sufficiency of nature to its end. But ‘by the cross, joy entered the whole world.’ Its presence is thus the real joy of marriage. It is the joyful certitude that the marriage vow, in the perspective of the eternal Kingdom, is not taken ‘until death parts,’ but until death unites us completely.”
― Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy

“Sex is not about genitalia. It’s about relationship. When God said ‘the two shall become one flesh,’ he didn’t mean it only physically.”
― Sheila Wray Gregoire, The Good Girl's Guide to Great Sex: And You Thought Bad Girls Have All the Fun

“As a house can be only be built satisfactorily and durably when there is a foundation, and a picture can be painted only when there is something prepared to paint it on, so carnal love is only legitimate, reasonable, and lasting when it is based on the respect and love of one human being for another.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Walk in the Light and Twenty-Three Tales

“God created us in his image, male and female, with personhood and sexual passions, so that when he comes to us in this world there would be these powerful words and images to describe the promises and the pleasures of our covenant relationship with him through Christ.”
― John Piper, Sex and the Supremacy of Christ

“God created us with sexual passion so that there would be language to describe what it means to cleave to him in love and what it means to turn away from him to others.”
― John Piper, Sex and the Supremacy of Christ

“The first three years of our marriage were miserable. Until I got a divorce. A divorce from loving myself and seeking my own way. I was reading the book of Galatians one night when I stumbled on the verse, "I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (2:20), and the most profound thought hit me: If I am dead, and Christ lives in me, can my wife see Him there? Finding the right person, I have since discovered, is less important than being the right person. The happiest married people I know discovered early on that the "better" comes after the "worse".”
― Phil Callaway, Family Squeeze: Tales of Hope and Hilarity for a Sandwiched Generation

“Sin isolates. Truth restores.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“Betrayal rewrites your story without your consent. Truth gives you the pen back.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“Real repentance tells the truth without trying to control the consequences.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“You can stop now. You don’t have to lose yourself to find what you think you’re missing.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“You never fall for a person. You fall for the story they tell you—and the one you start telling yourself.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“It felt like love, but it was really just two people using each other to escape their own emptiness.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“The longer you hide, the heavier it gets.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“The hardest person to forgive is often yourself.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“An affair feels like freedom until it starts to feel like a cage.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“When someone hides you in the dark, they are not protecting you. They are protecting their own image.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“The people who stand by you in the aftermath are the ones who love you for real.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“Some people don’t fall in love with you. They fall in love with the way you make them feel about themselves.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“Affairs don’t happen in a vacuum. They steal time, energy, and presence from the relationships and responsibilities that actually matter—and they always cost more than you thought you were willing to pay.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“The person you become during the affair is not someone you would admire from the outside. And that disconnect between who you are and who you want to be can eat away at your self-respect long after the affair ends.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“You think you’re protecting people by hiding the truth, but what you’re really doing is delaying the inevitable. Truth doesn’t stay buried. It surfaces—messily, painfully, and often when you least expect it.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“Secrecy feels like safety at first. You tell yourself you’re protecting everyone. But the longer you protect a lie, the more it takes from you—your peace, your integrity, your ability to show up fully in your real life.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“One of the most devastating realizations isn’t that you lost the affair partner. It’s that you lost yourself somewhere in the middle of protecting something that was never real to begin with.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“When someone disappears without giving you the dignity of closure, you’re left holding conversations that never finished and questions that were never answered. That mental and emotional labor can consume you.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“You may tell yourself you’re just crossing a small line. But once you cross it, the next line comes faster, and the next, and the next. What feels unthinkable today can become routine tomorrow. That’s how affairs change who you are.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“Your mind will try to rewrite the story. You’ll remember the best moments, the thrill, the connection. But the truth is, if it couldn’t survive in the light, it was never built to last.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“When everything collapses, you’ll look for someone to blame. But if you’re brave enough to tell the truth—to yourself first—you’ll find the way out starts with taking responsibility, not assigning it.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“Every affair ends in a loss. Even if no one ever finds out, you lose part of yourself. You lose peace. You lose presence. You lose the freedom that comes from living fully in the light.”
― Iris Lennox, Affairs Never End Well: What Infidelity Destroys, and What to Do After the Truth Comes Out

“Marriage means leaving, cleaving, and becoming one—not about who moves first or who meets in the middle, but about joining hearts as one.”
― Prasanth Jonathan

“...for an ordinary layman the thing to notice is that the Churches all agree with one another about marriage a great deal more than any of them agrees with the outside world.”
― CS Lewis