Messy Beautiful Love {Review and Giveaway}
Is your marriage struggling? Does it feel one-sided? Do you long for it to be more than it is?
Marriages are under attack as never before. Unfortunately, those attacks sometimes come not from without, but from within.
In Messy Beautiful Love
The biggest marital problems rarely begin big. Seldom are we slammed with something that materializes out of thin air. Our problems usually start out small and grow.
“If I were to pinpoint the one thing that led me to almost destroy my marriage,” Darlene writes candidly, “it would be that I was keeping a record of wrongs…. I took count of [all my husband’s] faults and kept track of each one.”
Do you ever do that? Do you harbor grudges against your husband or nurse resentment toward him in your heart? Be forewarned: doing so will lead you down a path you do not wish to follow.
“I had forgotten what 1 Corinthians says about love,” Darlene continues. “It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.”
Love is unselfish. It puts the other’s interests ahead of its own. While love heals wounds, unforgiveness causes them to fester. When we keep a record of wrongs, we do so to our own detriment. When we give root to bitterness, our love gets choked out and our hearts grow cold, hard, and impenetrable.
“The problem here isn’t your husband,” Darlene explains. “It’s that your level of expectation for him is outshining his character. When you measure him against the weight of expectation, you are left with an unbalanced scale.
“Accepting a person for who he or she is doesn’t mean that you excuse sin. I’d never ask or want you to do that. What I am asking you to do is to look past the human frailty of a man to seek his beauty by removing the weight of expectation you hold. I’m asking that you walk in the grace of messy, beautiful love.”
Darlene opens the book with a prayer that her testimony would bring glory and honor to God, and that it does. Hers is a powerful story of hope and redemption that will powerfully impact the life of everyone who reads it.
Messy Beautiful Love is a collection of important life-lessons learned — some of them the hard way — that you can take and apply to your own marriage. When you do, you will avoid many of the pitfalls the author points out along the way.
mum hi,we have waken up.mum i would like to comment to all post you normally post.to all that love life at home. they are very wonderful. encouragment. teachable. real in this life. continoue mum for that good job.keeping many family and home to God’s foundation.may God be whit you always ivon
My advice would be to keep your marriage prayed up.
Listen, really listen, to what your sweetie is saying. Don’t interrupt until he is finished. Discuss, not argue, but discuss whatever the situation is. Stop and pray before reacting, you’ll be glad you did.
I, too, was blessed by reading and reviewing this book. I recommend it for all wives no matter how old you are or how long you have been married.
I am constantly looking for encouragement from older women with many years of experience being happily married, either written or spoken. I write quotes in my journal to re-read that keep me focused on the good work of staying engaged in a joyful marriage. I keep your latest book by my side of the bed to peruse right before bedtime, then I read I Cor. 13 in the amplified version to remind me what HIS love looks like. I am made in HIS image and should be able to give and receive love. Re-learning respect/honor and kindness in our every day speech and actions has been the latest project. Thank you for your “running” encouragement for wives. Thank you for sharing the lessons God is teaching you.
Warmest regards,
Ruth
I think this was so beautifully said. My husband and I struggle to be gracious to each other and it’s such a hard lesson to re-learn.. sometimes multiple times a day. We are fortunate that our love supersedes our stubborn-ness, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t use help in getting past our issues.
The advice I would give a wife about avoiding pitfalls is to let go of expectations and to not keep a running tally of wrongs
This giveaway is awesome. I’ll be grateful if I win. But I hope The Lord blesses whoever is in really need. Blessings to you
I have written on the inside of my Bible these words : “Never use your love for a person to change them but to in order to change yourself.” Also, it’s more important to maintain unity and peace in a relationship than to be right.
My advice would be to keep focused on Christ and only listen to advice that would build your marriage.
Thank you for this wise post. In response to the question, over the past 11 years two big moments for me have been: Stormie Omartan’s reminder, “Lord change me” and Jennifer’s reminder to keep intimacy a top priority. God used both messages at key times. I look forward to what He will teach next and how He may allow me to minister to others.
I like the quote about love is what’s left when the selfishness is removed. So true. It’s hard to keep turning off your own needs and feelings to get to that. I’m going through a divorce now but have learned so much. I’m just really sad our marriage couldn’t be saved.
Philippians 4:8
I was just listening to an old broadcast of Elenor Page on BBN yesterday where she used the Amplified version of 1 Corinthians 13 to gently open a young wife’s eyes to what real love is about and use that as a standard for her actions of love. I would live to read this book! I failed this test of loving my husband as in 1 Cor. just yesterday. Thank you, Lord for these reminders!