We must love one another or die.
-Auden
I am not typically a fan of marriage books. I've read a few and more often than not have never made it to the end of any of them. So when my friend Judy (my read-through-the-Bible buddy) told me how the authors John & Stasi Eldredge offered to give away their most recent book on marriage to anyone who was willing to blog about it and write a review on Amazon, i swallowed that bad taste in my mouth and signed up.
Within weeks we had both received the book:
Love & War: Finding the Marriage You've Dreamed Of
Even the title kind of rubbed me the wrong way. But I opened the front cover and started to read.
They had a very casual tone about them. Lots of stories from their marriage and the marriages of their friends but a theme began to emerge. Marriage is hard. But it's worth fighting for.
Love is worth fighting for.
Love is worth fighting for.
To be honest, it was a difficult book to get through. But because of this "agreement" to blog about it for a free copy, i felt compelled to finish it.
I finished it last Thursday morning, while sitting in Pheonix Coffee, waiting for my weekly coffee date with Judy. I got there a half hour early, knowing i only had one chapter left. i was ready to be done. So as i sipped my small portion of alotted caffeine for the day, and read these words by Ruth Bell Graham:
A happy marriage is the union of two forgivers.
I stopped. I thought about how true that statement was, and how bad we are (i am) at it most of the time.
Since becoming pregnant i have thought a lot about the fact that marriage only gets harder with the addition of children. It, of course, is not a deal-breaker, but the antie goes up and the stakes get that much higher.
And as excited as i am to enter into this new stage of our marriage, i know it will be a whole new level of "Love & War."
So, now, in the next six-ish months of preparation for parenthood, i have entered a time where our marriage has become my priority. Because, as one friend so graciously reminded me, i will never be less busy than i am right now, and the habits i want in motherhood, especially in early motherhood, are the habits i must form right now, before becoming a parent.
so i am committed to putting my husband first, loving him even when he is unloveable (which is seldom) and when i don't feel like loving (which is much more often) and forgiving him without exception.
If a happy marriage is the union of two forgivers, then i want to make sure that i hold up my end of the deal.
Auden said, We must love one another or die, and i believe that. Maybe not physically, but spiritually, mentally and emotionally we will shrivel up and stop being, when we stop loving.
i want my children to grow up knowing that their mom loves their dad more than herself. i'm not there yet, but it's my goal.
I've got six months -- and if this book has done anything for me, it has opened up my eyes wider to my need of grace in order to love.
C.S. Lewis wrote:
Since becoming pregnant i have thought a lot about the fact that marriage only gets harder with the addition of children. It, of course, is not a deal-breaker, but the antie goes up and the stakes get that much higher.
And as excited as i am to enter into this new stage of our marriage, i know it will be a whole new level of "Love & War."
So, now, in the next six-ish months of preparation for parenthood, i have entered a time where our marriage has become my priority. Because, as one friend so graciously reminded me, i will never be less busy than i am right now, and the habits i want in motherhood, especially in early motherhood, are the habits i must form right now, before becoming a parent.
so i am committed to putting my husband first, loving him even when he is unloveable (which is seldom) and when i don't feel like loving (which is much more often) and forgiving him without exception.
If a happy marriage is the union of two forgivers, then i want to make sure that i hold up my end of the deal.
Auden said, We must love one another or die, and i believe that. Maybe not physically, but spiritually, mentally and emotionally we will shrivel up and stop being, when we stop loving.
i want my children to grow up knowing that their mom loves their dad more than herself. i'm not there yet, but it's my goal.
I've got six months -- and if this book has done anything for me, it has opened up my eyes wider to my need of grace in order to love.
C.S. Lewis wrote:
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