Covenant Marriage By Gary Chapman

If you look along the left side bar, under the topic of "Marriage" you will find the book Covenant Marriage by Gary Chapman.  A few years ago I purposed to read a couple books a year in each category you see on the left for a couple reasons.  Firstly, admittedly, I don't know everything.  I am one of the biggest sinners on the face of the earth who is in need of the saving grace of Jesus Christ my Lord.  I need Him daily.  I can't do for myself what only He can do for me, so why not accept it and rest in that knowledge.



I had grown up in a traditional worldview mentality of marriage where if it is broke, just throw it away and try again.  People were looking out for themselves and not communicating with one another.  There were lots of hurt feelings, selfish accusations, and willingness to throw love away and move on to the next one.  Although it wasn't spoken, many of my relatives--grandparents during WW2, to my aunt who had many children-each with different fathers, to my own parents who between the 2 of them have been married 5 times.  Myself, I've been married twice.  With all the hurt and manipulation of my first marriage, I knew when I got married again that I wanted it to be for life.

I wanted marriage to last, but how when I didn't have the examples of what that looked like?  Where do I look?  There was only one problem--Where do I start and what is it called?  When I started looking around, in the past 17+ years, I'd found all kinds of books on 5 Love Languages, Venus and Mars, being a Powerful Praying Wife, Courtship, Respect and Love and the list continued.  While I had read all of those books, I just did not know or understand what it was that I had been seeking.  I was looking for something that was higher and greater than the traditional worldview of marriage--something more connecting, and spiritual.

When I started reading Covenant Marriage, I figured I would read a little bit each night and be done with it in a couple of weeks.  That was not the case.  There were times when I was just upset with my husband, not fully wanting to read, in a bad mood, had a stressful day and the excuses continued.  It wasn't until the past couple of weeks that life pretty much forced me to take a book with me to these appointments that I had to wait for an incredible amount of time for them to be completed, so I brought my books and my knitting.  I knitted until my carpal tunnel issues bothered me and stopped to read.  I found myself needing more with every chapter I read.  I was soaking up not just communication, but how I have not been so aware about myself before trying to communicate how I was feeling or what my own needs were.  This caused quite a few misunderstandings which could have been circumvented if I had just taken the time to read that book sooner.  Regardless, it was time to get moving on it.

Now I am on chapter 10 and I fully anticipate being completely through it by the end of this month, if not sooner.  I will update when I finish.  I promise.

Have you read this book?  Please share your thoughts on it!

God Bless,