The Exotic Fruit in Your Marriage

Growing up in Ibadan, Nigeria, apples were considered exotic.

You needed someone traveling to Lagos to bring them back. They came imported...neatly packed, four in a transparent plastic bag shaped like a diamond.

I don’t know which was more exciting...the apple or the packaging.

Some of those apples weren’t even fresh, but who cared?

You were cool if you had an apple.

My mum would cut one into four for us; a quarter apple each, and we’d savor it like gold.

Meanwhile, we had fresh fruits right there in Ibadan.

Oranges. Bananas. Àgbálùmọ̀. Mangoes so ripe you could pluck them straight from the tree.

But guess what?

We didn’t care for them.

Our hearts were fixed on the imported apple.

Fast forward years later, here in the US, apples are everywhere.

My neighbor has an apple tree...they fall to the ground for birds and squirrels to eat. My kids don’t even look twice at them.

Guess what they crave now?

Àgbálùmọ̀.

They’re rare here, expensive, and my little sister orders them all the way from Nigeria.

Every time I see the price, I shake my head...but to her, àgbálùmọ̀ is now the exotic fruit.

Made me think:

That’s exactly how we treat our marriages sometimes.

What’s ordinary to you is precious to someone else.

The spouse you think is predictable, another person prays for that kind of stability.

The man you say “doesn’t talk much,” someone else wishes her husband would even come home at night.

The woman you think nags too much, someone else longs for a wife who even notices what’s going on.

What you’re disregarding might just be someone else’s exotic fruit.

It’s easy to chase what looks foreign, glamorous, or new...while forgetting that God has already given us trees with good fruit right where we are.

Maybe the issue isn’t that your marriage lacks sweetness. Maybe you’ve just stopped tasting it.

The Bible says in Philippians 4:11–12 

“Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have… I have learned the secret of living in every situation.”

Contentment doesn’t mean settling for less...it means learning to see the value in what you already have.

The fruit in your garden may not come wrapped like the apple from Lagos, but it’s yours.

And it’s probably sweeter than you remember.

👣 Be Better. 💛 Love Better. 🙌🏾 Do Better. 💍Marriage Works.