re-Brad’s point, I get his point and yours I think…
I think I’d add…
‘being single can afford a person the opportunity/freedom to develop and keep deep, beautiful (pure) friendships with people of the opposite sex that you married people could barely begin to imagine…’.

Life is about learning to Love – and God will teach us one way or another eh!

Great article on the nature of marriage from the inside. I will test the welcome of your readers by adding that, as a gay Christian (a what?!?) who was recently married (was recently what?!?!) during the period when this was legal here in California, I agree entirely with your remarks. I would add for the record that not all couples are allowed to marry, but that doesn't mean they are not learning God's best lesson with each other. My husband and I have been together for 18 years, we didn't just start loving each other when we got married last August .

I agree, too, with others here that marriage is not the only way to express love of others — Mother Teresa comes immediately to mind as an example. Parenting, grandparenting, unlcing and aunting, even neighboring are all important ways to grow in love. And obviously the word "marriage" is not some kind of magic spell that improves everyone, every time. I know you weren't presenting marriage as a one-size-fits-all solution. It was a great meditation on the nature of marriage, all the same!

It's just different, is all. And it's nothing you can truly comprehend until you've been through it, same as with anything very intense that takes, say, ten years to experience or live through. I've never been at war, so it's a given that while I can IMAGINE I'd know what it's like, I can't really and truly know. That's all. No biggy.

Please allow me to offer one small piece of unsolicited advice. Don't give up. You are not alone, because He has your life in His hands, and because (and I'm not claiming to know you or exactly what you are feeling) there are many brothers and sisters in Christ who have struggled with having their expectations of people being let-down, with discouragement or with feelings of being spiritually off-track. Don't stop taking in His Word, believing it, and praying to Him. You seem to know that the love we need can only come from Him, that we cannot give anything to others until He supplies it to us. Sometimes we may just have to wait for it.

"'Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.'" (Matthew 5:6)

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.'" (Matthew 16:24-25)

"He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 'My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,' he said to them…" (Mark 14:33-34)

"He said to them, 'It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." (Acts 1:7-8)

Romans 8:18-30

Any born-again believer has entered into the greatest covenant of love this world will ever see or know. That in itself is a sufficient rebuke to your postulations, however I will continue.

To tell us so boldly that those who are not married or haven't married can't even begin to imagine the love a married person knows, or can know, is not Biblical in any sense, and in fact I find it grievous and misguided, if not misguiding, and I speak for both the soul and the spirit of man. The depths of love a person can experience with Christ is so beyond even our comprehension, that to limit such true knowing or learning to those who've found marriage (with a woman or man) is simply wrong. I am grieved for you that you think this and grieved that so many will read this and may accept it without knowing any differently.

I pray you would not limit the issue of "love" to your personal experience and what you've discovered through your marriage. Love is worked out in all of us daily, through every kind of relationship– if, that is, we walk in love. Do you walk in love towards everyone, and not just in your marriage? Does your love for Christ transcend your love for your wife? While I'm sure marriage could be wonderful and a place of refining for the Lord in our lives, and I would be glad to find someone to share special intimate love, you seem to falsely assume those whom are single are selfish, even to the worst degree. So, please read your article objectively and listen to yourself. Can you see how limited your perspective is or how offensive you may be coming off to people who don't hold your experience?

And what of Paul's exhortation? Did he not tell us it is good to remain single (1 Cor 7:8)? If marriage is such the crucible for love, the real love I speak of, perhaps not the love you are referring to, then why did God not marry Jesus off at a young age to let him grow in these depths of understanding and learning you speak of?

Please re-examine the limitations you've set forth for everyone in your article. I pray you will see and understand what I'm saying.

God is love. To know God is to know love. Marriage to another person is not necessary to plumb even the greatest depths of love.

To God be the glory!

Best wishes,

Brad