Love and Respect: A Book Review

I've read Ephesians 5:33 countless times.  The reality?  The words never jumped off the page or made a dent in my heart. 

"...Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."

Love and respect within marriage seem like givens.  In my mind when I read this verse, I have always mentally checked it off.  I had that covered, right? 

After reading Emerson Eggerichs' Love and Respect: The Love She Most Desires; The Respect He Desperately Needs, I have realized that that is not the case.   I need to get intentional about my marriage.  How?  I need to step up how I demonstrate respect to my husband.  Do I respect him?  LIKE CRAZY.  Do I show him?  Maybe not as I should. 

Within the first few chapters of this book, my eyes were opened to how husbands and wives communicate.  What we communicate and what is in our hearts don't always coincide.  Life is tough.  It is packed with distractions that sometimes keep us from building into those we love.  Sometimes I think that I am communicating love, but I am might just be missing the mark. 

To Mark and I, our marriage is first behind our faith.  God, marriage, kids.  We believe that the state of our marriage is of the utmost priority.  It is easy to let two crazy toddlers take control of all things.  We get so distracted that we fail to take time for us.  Our lives are not perfect.  In fact, life in our house is pretty darn messy.   Parenting, the wild ride of international adoption, a job that requires travel, and a calendar with every box filled sometimes leaves us gasping for air.  To survive, we need to dig deeper into the partnership of husband and wife. 

This book is based on the simple scriptural challenge that men are to love their wives and women are to respect their husbands.  It is filled with lists of ways that we can demonstrate those things.  We FEEL them, but don't always show them.  Some of the book is very stereotypical of males and females.  Not every example fits us.  It doesn't meet our every need, but it will spur us on to deeper commitment to what we communicate to each other.  Overall, I am walking away with a profound new way to love my husband. 

I believe that the Bible has the answers for how to do marriage, and I am grateful at the opportunity to dig deeper.  Stay tuned for some fun ways that we plan to start shoveling!

**I was given the opportunity to review this book by BookSneeze.**