CHAPTER 1

Problems in Relationships

The marriage relationship was created to be the most united, mosthonored, most admirable, and respected union of human relationshipto ever exist on earth. I strongly believe this is true. Love is thepower that brings people together in peace. As the saying goes, "lovemakes every lion a pet". Love makes every difficult and dangerousperson a friend. Indeed, love reconciles differences in people; loveaccommodates, tolerates, gives selfless services, and love shares withothers.

Love gives birth to marriage; and marriage gives birth to aunion of children and parents, which is known as a family, designedby God for the continuity of the world. Love, therefore, is a pro-lifecreator. Everything that God created is good and beautiful.Among them all, God cherishes the union between man andwoman, and fellowships with them. God calls each marriage Hisfamily. Love is our connection to God and it cuts across all stagesof human growth and development. We humans look at love andare mysteriously attracted to its nature. Only those who recognize itwithin themselves in their relationship with God are able to definelove as "life". Love is life and it gives healthy life to your physical life.Love, in my own term is "an endless and selfless kindness one personextends to another person. It is not cruelty or wickedness one personextends to another, so a relationship that begins in love cannot turnto evil and destruction. The nature of love is always kind, simple,and transparent. Love makes every moment lively, hopeful, andinteresting. These characteristics of love create an excellent conditionfor marriage, which then empowers creation of a family unit, whichis often said to be representative of God's opinion that life shouldgo on.

The subject of love and marriage is very important and all-inclusivebecause everyone that comes into this world is directlyinvolved. Whether rich or poor, black or white, royal or subject,you must know that every love and marriage relationship has its do'sand don'ts. Together, they make a vital and profitable relationshipbut one without the other causes grief and pain. Let us look at itanother way. Have you ever sat down to ponder how and why peoplefall in love? This is a mystery. It is beyond chemical attraction. Mentalk about the existence and life of love, but not love's conceptionand birth. Most people out of ignorance, or half-knowledge, dosay that "love is blind," but to me, this blindness, or lack of visionand foresight is the genesis of all the broken love relationships anddivorces that have become a tradition of our society.

How can love be blind where it sees attraction, and beauty? Loveis not blind. People fail to see that love is beyond their temporaryvision. Love is not temporary attraction. Anything temporary fadesand dies but love is everlasting, Love never dies. Loves grieves to seepeople failing to it – and how people suffer as a result. Falling inlove and going into marriage is not and should not be consideredchild's play. Maturity is essential to a love relationship, and you haveto think and consider and study a relationship with both physicaland spiritual eyes open. Your senses must be very alert and yourknowledge about what the relationship means to you must be veryacute. Love and marriage is the business of your heart. There is noglory or honor in divorces and break-ups. Broken hearts are hard tomend; hearts must be handled properly with His divine laws andknowledge. Every faulty love or marriage relationship is aggressivelyhurtful, and devastating to the individuals involved and to the societyin which they live. Understanding the ethics of relationships is moreprofitable than that of sex education which so many schools haveincluded into their school curriculum. Instead they should teach lovewhich prompts sex. Any sex relationship done outside love ends inchaos and in a bitter experience to young lovers.

A real love and marriage relationship is a wonderful andsweet union. Two members of opposite sex, each of whom have arelationship with God, join in total agreement to build and design awonderful law-abiding part of the society and contribute immenselyto the peaceful co-existence of the world for the rest of their lives.The problem of broken homes, break-ups and divorces was not likethis in the beginning. We have thrown away divine laws, traditions,and every element of cultural unity that upholds the pillar of loveand marriage. We have fallen apart. Look around you and tell me,what do you see? I see single mothers, divorcees, street-children,able bodied people in the shelters, and widows and widowers, whohave murdered their spouses as result of ugly and complicated loverelationship. Yes, these are what I see and all are by-products ofbroken homes, broken relationships, and divorces.

Every one of us has wandered very far from God as a result ofthe liberty we want for ourselves. As a consequence, we have createdthis anarchy in relationship for generation yet unborn.

A diminishing crisis can be managed, and hopefully...