Have you even tried to break a small looking branch on a tree only to find it doesn’t break? Maybe you have been at play in the woods, gathering firewood while camping, or out pruning in the yard. You see a branch it appears weak and small, you reach out and pull, give a swing with an ax, or a squeeze with the sheers to no avail.
To your surprise, no crack, no break; rather your efforts to cut, to remove are met with dynamic resistance. You find the branch bends with great elasticity. You can pull, twist, hang, and bend, but the little branch just gives and flexes with ease? Often below the main layer of bark the vein of the branch is green, moist, and strong.
Our marriage relationships may likewise be strong and dynamic, if we are willing to extend an olive branch or two in marriage. Olive branches don’t break!
I don’t know much about olive trees, and I know even less about vegetation in general. But, I do know that olive trees must be old (at least 70 years or so) and mature before they are fruitful. I also know that olive trees take a great deal of time and care before they bear healthy fruit. I also know that the fruit of olive trees have endless uses: food consumption, cooking, grooming, healing, to name a few. I also know olive trading dates back as far as written history has the ability to record.
The “olive branch” is a common used symbol for peace, prosperity, and longevity. It can be found on flags, in political rhetoric, and poetic pros. Often when one speaks of reaching out to another it will be said, “I offered an olive branch, or he/she offered an olive branch;” meaning that one offered a truce or desired to end a conflict with peace and good will.
The nature of olives, the time and care required to produce abundant amounts of quality fruit, and the endless application of the fruit all serve as powerful examples and metaphors for relationships and the work and harvest they offer in our lives, and in our marriage relationships.
If we desire fruitful relationships steep in longevity and prosperity we must be willing to do the work of the gardener: prune, dig, water, weed, fertilize and most importantly wait. We must be willing to offer olive branches to the others in our lives for whom we care and desire peace and abundance.
I think of olive branches in marriage as gifts, not material gifts, but acts of generosity and love. Gifts, or unbreakable olive branches, need to be exactly what they sound like; un-obligatory acts of kindness and love, born out of a bubbling desire to make your spouse feel of worth, special, and safe. They are extended without the expectation of reciprocation.
You don’t bring flowers home with the expectation of intimacy, you don’t take out the trash because you don’t want to get in trouble, and you don’t agree and say “yes dear” just to keep the peace. You do all those things and MUCH MORE because you love and adore your spouse and you want them to know it through and through, nothing doubting.
Concrete olive branch extensions or gift giving may look like this: speaking in kind tones even in stress filled moments, forgiving you spouse quickly without guilt, leaving a note or notes under the pillow or around the house, writing & send a note snail mail, doing your spouse’s most hated chores for them, seeking to really listen understand, respect, and honor what they need, making dinner, make a gift, send a text. Act out of love to serve and give with out expectation of return. Whatever it is, if it is done in the spirit of giving to express love, the branch will be extended and it will be unbreakable.
When your spouse knows you love them unconditionally and you know that he/she loves you unconditionally, then the strife, conflict, and difficulty of marriage dissolve into a warm embrace of assurance that bring the sweetest peace known only in love and a strong and committed marriage.
Does your spouse know you adore them through and through? Do they know why you fell in love with them and what you love about them? Do they know what you appreciate about them each day? Do you know what your spouse needs and wants in the relationship to feel more happiness and joy? Do you know what makes them feel special and safe? Do you feel deeply committed and in love with you spouse?
There is just not enough true gift giving in marriage! To often relationships are about reciprocity and fairness, what one wants, and cost benefit. Instead they need to be about acts of kindness, moments where one spouse wants to truly understand the other, healthy sacrifice, and regular spontaneous acts of love. The paradox is in doing and acting in this way, extending olive branches, it actually increases the depth of love and bond we feel for our spouse. Extending olive branches in marriage is act of transforming love from a noun to a verb. Instead of thinking of it as something you feel, rather let it be something you do, or something you create and grow through unobligatory acts of kindness.
