Last night my husband fell asleep on the couch. Three months ago that was a very unusual thing. Not so much anymore. I forgot there was something I needed his help with that needed to get done before today. So when I woke him up to move to our room I asked if he could help me. As tired as he was, he said, “You bet.” A seemingly small sacrifice, but for any exhausted person, there is nothing small about it.

I am understanding more and more why marriage is an essential part of our eternal existence. There are certain things we can only learn through committing our whole selves to another person. Marriage gives us the opportunity to develop traits and virtues that we can really only develop through unconditional sacrifice and love. As human beings, we don’t naturally posses the ability to unconditionally sacrifice and love. This is what makes marriage so difficult, and yet, so wonderful. It brings us the opportunity to give of ourselves more fully, more selflessly and more willingly. And there are two main reasons it does this. #1: We love this person more than anything else in the world. This drives us to make them happy and do things we may not otherwise do. #2: We have committed our life and our heart to this person. We promised to stick with them. This is the part that holds us together. It means that even when we don’t feel in love or don’t see their way or don’t want to do something, we still do it. Because we said we would. It’s not huge sacrifices and big expressions of love that normally make the difference.  It’s the willingness to live everyday (and night) for the well being of another. The little things that, at times, are really the biggest of all.