Messy Beautiful Love (Hope and Redemption for Real-Life Marriages)
Darlene Schacht
About the Book:
Love gets messy.
Financial problems, sickness, aging parents, a chronically unhappy spouse . . . trials will inevitably come along to threaten your marriage. No matter how long you’ve been married or how strong your relationship is, sooner or later you are going to have a mess to clean up.
Messy Beautiful Love is about cleaning up messes God’s way, exchanging our ideas for his, and being prepared for both the best and the worst that marriage has to offer.
Perhaps you’ve picked up this book because your marriage is messy already-now is the time to make a change. If your marriage is tidy, thank God-there is no better time to prepare for the future.
Married life is never straightforward or simple for long. But the reality is this: when you surrender your relationship to God; when you lay your marriage at his feet; when you finally cede control; then and only then will you experience the blessing of marriage as he intended-this is the blessing of obedience.
Messy Beautiful Love is an invitation to that obedience. An invitation to surrender. The cynical world says marriages don’t last. God knows better. Tune out the world and tune in to him. When you do that, a beautiful marriage is not only possible-it’s inevitable. That’s something to be excited about.
About the Author:
Darlene Schacht is the original founder of Christian Women Online Magazine and The Internet Café Devotions and writes the popular blog Time-Warp Wife. She is coauthor of Candace Cameron Bure’s New York Time’s best-selling book, Reshaping It All: Motivation for Physical and Spiritual Fitness. Darlene has been married to Michael Schacht for more than 25 years. They have four children.
My Review:
I love to read Darlene’s blog, Time-Warp Wife, she writes some very great posts on marriage, raising a family and drawing closer to God. When I seen she had a new book coming out, I couldn’t wait to read it. Messy Beautiful Love is a book that every couple should be given as a wedding gift or engagement gift.
These days, marriage isn’t something that people hold on to, it’s more of something that people toss away like yesterday’s newspaper. God intended marriage to be long lasting, that He is the center of, and something we should put our heart and soul into. Darlene uses scripture and her own marriage as outlines for this book. She simply tells you like it is, how God designed marriage and the part that we should play.
She issues challenges at the end of each chapter, for example, at the end of the chapter, Appreciate Him For Who He Truly Is Darlene’s challenge is:
“Pay attention to the good qualities in your husband. What makes him different? What do you love about him? Take note of the good things he does and the kind things he says. Carefully notice the ways that he expresses his love, even if they seem insignificant at time. Start building him up by reminding him how much you appreciate him and the many little things that you love about him.”
Wow!! Those words really made me think how I see my husband and exactly how much I do appreciate him. Ladies, I highly recommend this book for yourself, a friend, a relative, someone you know who is getting married, or someone whose marriage maybe close to ending. You will not be disappointed!!!
Thank you to the publisher for providing me a copy of this book for my honest review.
We all long to have a strong marriage, one that is built on trust, honor, respect, love but most importantly, Jesus Christ. Through 20 years of marriage, we have tried different things but the one thing that works is having the foundation of our marriage built on Christ. When I had the opportunity to review a new study on marriage, I jumped at the opportunity. Growing a Strong Marriage study series is a wonderful tool that I highly recommend to all married couples and engaged couples. I had the privilege to review Volume 1: Starting Strong.
A Greater Yes 