I am the LORD, the God of all mankind.  Is anything too hard for me?” Jeremiah 32:27

When Larry Krusinski left the hospital after a stay of almost one year, he went home to a woman he couldn’t remember marrying but a woman who cared so deeply for him that he literally fell in love with her twice.

Here’s what happened.  Larry was involved in a near fatal automobile crash that left him more dead than alive.  When he arrived at the hospital, a priest gave him last rites, quite certain that he wouldn’t pull through.  Nonetheless, doctors went to work and patched up his body.  They knew that his brain was also injured but they were uncertain how the trauma would affect his memory.   Doctors didn’t know if he would make it, but his wife did.  She sat by his side day and night, and prayed, and prayed, and prayed.

Ten days later, Larry opened his eyes for the first time, and stared at the woman he had married three years before, but nothing clicked.  She was an absolute stranger to him.  Brain injuries are often hard to fathom.  Larry could remember his parents, even her parents, college friends, and things from the past.  But, for whatever reason, he could not remember their three years of married life, nor anything about her past.

They showed him pictures, and nothing clicked.  They talked about the past, saying over and over, “Don’t you remember….” or “Remember when we…”  But it just didn’t come to him.

During the long months of waiting, she never gave up.  Then one day as she said, “I love you,” he looked into her eyes and said, “I love you, too!”  That’s when they knew they had a future.  She said, “I think he fell in love with me all over again!”   And that is the kind of an ending that I would like to attach to the biographies of a lot of couples who have fallen out of love with each other.

“Can this marriage be saved?” headlines the tabloids as it tells of a marriage torn apart by strife or by adultery.  I, for one, am convinced that most people give up on a marriage long before it is dead and buried.  In pain and hurt they refuse to forgive, they refuse to even communicate, and something which is damaged but could be restored is trashed and discarded.

The one who cannot forgive, burns the bridge over which he or she must someday cross.

Long ago, God addressed the issue of our first love growing cold.  The context was that of a church which over a period of 30 to 40 years had lost their first love for the Lord.  But the formula which God gave them to restore love is exactly what is needed when the fire goes out in a marriage.

Guideline #1:  Remember.  When someone such as Larry Krusinski suffers from amnesia, friends show the individual pictures of the past.  “Remember this?” they ask.  Taking inventory, remembering how you met, remembering your first date, your first kiss, walking down the aisle, remembering your first child and the joy that came to you is good medicine for a loveless marriage.

Guideline #2:  Repent.  That means change your attitude.  Give up the hostility, the “holier than thou” mindset which makes you the innocent victim.  Forget who is wrong and strive to make a wrong right.

Guideline #3:  Return and do your first works.  Can you fall in love again with some who has fallen out of love with you?  Yes, it can happen. Gradually perhaps, remembering and reestablishing is God’s way. It’s the way to freedom and healing.

Resource reading: 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.