People often speak of romantic relationships as having a “honeymoon phase”. In this phase, people are so enamoured with each other’s presence and don’t possess enough shared experience for that wonderful love to be tested. There is nothing quite like falling in love, but as anyone who has been married long enough will tell you, it isn’t always easy. Life is complicated, after all, and consequently that can mean complicating simple and even holy things.

Life is such a rich and frantic whirl that I need the drink to help me step delicately through it.

Frank, Educating Rita

While I cannot endorse Frank’s alcoholism, he is essentially correct: life is full both of the richness of love and friendship, and the franticness of trying to live well. So it is that relationships pass out of the honeymoon phase and into something new. Love is tested, and it is either revealed to be true love rooted in sacrifice or not to be love at all.

Why does this happen? Well, surely there are many reasons to account for, but in God’s providence I believe he allows love to be tested in order that it might be made stronger, more authentic, and more holy.

Human beings don’t often appreciate the good things they have in life. Quite often, while we are blessed, our blessings go unnoticed, and we often don’t truly appreciate what wonderful blessings we have until the idea or reality of their disappearance dawns on us.

In the Sherlock Holmes story, A Scandal in Bohemia, the Great Detective fakes a fire in order to discover where Irene Adler is hiding something that is most precious to her. His logic was that in a fire one would run to save what is most important to them from the flames. Of course, anyone who knows the story knows that Ms Adler bests Sherlock in the end, but nevertheless the idea he put forth was sound. We seek to avoid losing what we value, even if we have grown complacent in our love of it. God sometimes “starts a fire” (or at least permits one to occur) in order that we are drawn to what matters in our lives and shaken out of complacency.

Ultimately, of course, He hopes to draw us towards Himself, but also towards spouses, family, and friends; and he does so in such a way that love is made stronger and more perfect out of tribulation.