The very first time I met Cheri, I knew that she was special. By the time I walked her back to her dorm after our first real date, I was in love. She captured my heart with her long blonde hair, her stunning beauty, and her confident wit. I never even thought about dating another girl after that night. I was in love, but that was only the beginning.
For the next three school years we were together every chance we could get. We attended formal events, walked to classes together, and met for lunch nearly everyday. We went to basketball and soccer games that we didn’t care about. We attended fine arts recitals for people we didn’t even know just so we could be together. The events around us simply didn’t matter. We just wanted to spend time together.
As we spent time together we progressed from being in love to loving each other. It only took an evening, at least for me, to fall in love. But to grow into a love relationship, we needed to spend time together.
I think that many couples who fall out of love do so because they stop investing the time in their relationship. It’s an easy trap to fall into when we have to deal with careers, kids, friends, church, and civic responsibilities. Those are all great things, but we can get so caught up in other things we forget to invest time in our love relationship. Without the investment of time, we lose sight of love.
Make time for love to grow. Love takes time.