According to Harlequin publishing house, which has been in the romance business for half a century, more than 180 million romance novels are purchased each year, with Harlequin itself selling, on average, five-and-a-half books per second.

As an author, I was with my husband at my first book-signing at a secular bookstore. After explaining for the umpteenth time what an "inspirational romance" novel was, I was feeling discouraged.

Near the end of the day, as a woman waited in line, her husband blurted out, "I've never heard of a Christian romance before." Before I could reply, my gallant husband replied, "Well, I've been living one for ...

A love which depends solely on romance, on the combustion of two attracting chemistries, tends to fizzle out. ... A long-term marriage has to move beyond chemistry to compatibility, to friendship, to companionship. It is certainly not that passion disappears, but that it is conjoined with other ways of love.

Romantic feelings, as if by magic, make us want to be what we ought to be: entirely giving, thoroughly concerned with someone other than ourselves and wondrously joyful.

In his book This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence, pastor and author John Piper offers a memorable analogy for dealing with the highs and lows of marriage:

Picture your marriage as a grassy field. You enter it at the beginning full of hope and joy. You look out into the future, and you see beautiful flowers and trees and rolling hills. And that beauty is what you see in each other. Your ...

How often married women, ages 25-50, with two or more children, say they have a date night with their spouse:

• Once a week or more often: 4 percent
• Once a month or more often: 21 percent
• Once every 2-3 months: 21 percent
• Once every 4-6 months: 18 percent
• Once every 7 months or less often: 36 percent

Things dog owners can't live without:

• Significant other: 54 percent
• Computer: 50 percent
• Dog: 48 percent
• Coffee: 35 percent
• TV: 35 percent
• Car: 26 percent

The Waltons was a popular television series in the 1970s that told the story of a large family living in Virginia during the Depression era. An episode from the show's eighth season, entitled "The Lost Sheep," focuses on Erin Walton (Mary Beth McDonough), the fourth oldest of seven children. She has been dating a young army officer named Ashley (Jonathan Frakes) off and on for a few years. While on ...

Fireproof is the story of Caleb and Kathryn Holt, a couple that is considering divorce after seven years of marriage. In one last attempt to salvage their marriage, Caleb's father asks Caleb to try a 40-day experiment he calls The Love Dare. Caleb agrees. In this scene Caleb (Kirk Cameron), a firefighter, has reached the half-way mark of the experiment. He calls his father (Harris Malcom) to talk ...

The movie Wall•E is about a lonely robot who for 700 years has been cleaning up the trash left behind by humans on an abandoned planet. Wall•E stands for "Waste Allocation Load Lifter–Earth class." While we are never told so, it is likely that Wall•E is the last operating robot on the planet.

In this scene Wall•E arrives at his "home"—an old storage building on the outskirts ...