Samantha Warren - Author

Lust. It's that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you see someone for the first time. It's the rapid beat of your heart as your blood heats up, pulsing through your veins at light-speed. It's the catch in your breath the first time they speak to you, the tingle in your fingers at their first touch. It's the uncontrollable smile that involuntarily spreads across your lips every time their name flits across your brain. It's the daydreams, the night dreams, dreams of future possibilities. It's the dizzy, wine-enhanced feeling you get when they commit their life to you. But it's just a feeling.

Love. Love is a choice, a conscious decision to press on when that wonderful, enticing feeling begins to fade. It's a determination to stick to those often spoken, but rarely heeded words--"in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, for richer or for poorer, forsaking all others, til death do us part." Feelings fade, lust can wane as the years and decades pass. But love is eternal, if you choose it to be.

We are inundated in this day and age with images of what a good marriage "should be." Young girls are assaulted with animated movies telling them that their handsome prince will come rescue them from the evil of this world and they will live happily ever after. No one tells these children that they'll have to work for that happily ever after. Movies tell them how to get the handsome prince, but no one shows them how to keep him. It's easier to just give up when the going gets tough, citing "irreconcilable differences" when that hot, exciting feeling fades with time. But they need to know that the feeling isn't love. It's just lust, a need, a craving. Nothing more. Love is what really matters, and if love persists, if you choose to give it the chance to blossom in the wasteland that lust left behind, that feeling, the lust, will return to reward your trust and persistence.