Are you squinting at the screen?

Maybe you need a trip to the eye dr.... or could it be that you aren't quite awake yet? Or perhaps it's the thick layer of dust or the half hazard cobwebs that are crossing the website as it's been left to sit for MONTHS!

I welcome you to grab a paper towel and wipe the grime off... or if you dare blow really hard and watch the particles fly off and the spiders scurry to a new corner!!!

Ok... a friend and I have taken on a new book to read. The book is called Sacred Marriage and it's written by Gary Thomas. I just picked up the book this weekend and have read the first chapter. I'm already feeling challenged. I can tell it's going to be different than all the other marriage books - even the best ones I've read - which give you step by step how to's at how to achieve that ever allusive "perfect" marriage. The reason I'm challenged is because I rather like the step 1-6 process with guaranteed results. I like order. I like sequential systems. Perhaps it's why sometimes reading books like that left me feeling more empty, more hopeless, feeling more and more inadequate to change ME or "change my husband". After all, isn't that what we're usually after? Surely the Lord has more work to do in his heart and life than in mine.... cough cough.... sigh. If only, right? :)

This will NOT be that kind of book. It's going to be all about ME and God and working on ME.

"Romantic love has no elasticity to it. It can never be stretched; it simply shatters. Mature love, the kind demanded of a good marriage must stretch, as the sinful human condition is such that all of us bear conflicting emotions.... her hatred is as real as her love is real... the reality of the human heart, the inevitability of two sinful people pledging to live together, with all their faults, for the rest of their lives...." (Sacred Marriage, pg 16-17).

The chapter goes on to talk about how we often find ourselves looking to our spouse with too many expectations. With too many ideas of how the other should and will meet our needs. And the entire point of the book is to challenge us with the question: What if God created marriage, not for our happiness, but as a means of making us more holy. What if we saw and took the opportunity in marriage as our spouse fails us (as he/she WILL do) to draw us closer to the heart of Christ and in turn our lives would reflect his likeness. Isn't that our true purpose here on this earth? Gary Thomas says, "I adopted the attitude that marriage is one of many life situations that help me to draw my sense of meaning, purpose, and fulfillment FROM God." (Sacred Marriage, pg. 24).

The chapter closes with the following thought. "The ultimate purpose of this book is not to make you love your spouse more - although I think that will happen along the way. It's to equip you to love your God more and to help you reflect the character of his Son more precisely."

Care to journey along? I will do my best to be candid as I write my thoughts and allow God to prune my heart... to clip away the branches that are intertwined and choking out new growth.