Don’t be scared off by the title!

Love and War by John and Stasi Eldredge is out just in time for Valentine’s Day.  And what else could Love and War be about other than marriage!  I mean where else do the terms love and war work so well together? lol.  I love my marriage, but sometimes you want to call war because of disagreements.

I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting to get much out of this book.  We’ve (Mr. C & I) been together for a long time, so I’ve read a lot of marriage counselling books over the years.    But to my surprise I was sobbing by the the end of chapter one.  They hit a sore spot for me, and there was no way that I could put this book down.  I realized they were talking directly to me… that God was using this book to help me discover some things about  myself.  I wasn’t expecting to find a book where others knew some of my issues — and the honesty they shared in this book just gripped me because I KNOW!!!!  I’ve gone through some of it!   I’m not sure I would even call it a counselling book as much as just wisdom from a couple whose walked down the road of marriage for a few years.

I love the humor and candid moments they share in this book.  It works well for my personality.  I think the main point I got out of this book was that we need God in our marriage and can not rely on each other to replace that empty spot in our own hearts.  We can not love each other intensely and fully until we acknowledge the baggage we come into our marriages with no matter how old or how long you’ve been married for.  We also need to be aware that our spouse is not the enemy, satan is and he will try and destroy our marriages if he can get a foothold into them (which is quite easy to do for him).

They basically break it down nicely into 3 points you need to get out of this book:

1. Find life in God.
2. Deal with your brokenness.
3. Learn to shut down the spiritual attacks that come against your marriage.

And I totally agree with them.  That is so important in a marriage to do those things before worrying about anything else in your life.

While this book works for me I know that some people probably will find this book not as great as I did.  They might have a few issues with the humor and the language in a few parts (which I admit I didn’t appreciate either… a  “oh my —” used in an example which I don’t think was necessary – chpt. 6 pg 93… not certain if the intent was to present a worldly view… or even taking His name in vein, but I noticed it and thought it was totally out of place in the book, and mention it b/c it may bother other people as well.).  I do think however, like all books on marriage and intimate issues, we need to take it with a grain of salt to understand the points they’re getting across — which is having a Christ-centred marriage.

For those of us who have “baggage” issues, this is a great book to work on some of the past and to allow God to shed some light on what you’ve been holding onto.  Their experience and honesty within the bounds of marriage and God’s guidance is incredibly touching.

Check out their site: http://www.ransomedheart.com

and even better, check out the first chapter!  http://www.ransomedheart.com

A complimentary copy was provided for this review by WaterBrook Multnomah.

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