6 Books That Will Transform Your Marriage
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Marriage can be a circus sometimes. The process of two becoming one is not as easy and magical as you expect it to be when you stand at that altar and make your vows. Even the truth that we actually made vows to each other is not a reality that is often thought about in the trenches of holy matrimony.
I LOVE marriage. I think it is a beautiful gift from the Father. I love that we get to do life with our best friends. I like that we get to knock the rough edges off of each other and make the other a little better each season.
I am also aware of the reality that marriage is not always easy. It takes a lot of work to help it grow, to keep it healthy, and to maintain connection and healthy communication. These books I am sharing today are not your usual marriage guru written books. They probably won’t be on a ton of other lists.
Nevertheless they have each transformed Mike and I’s marriage in some area or another. These are the books I will forever recommend to married people and singles alike. They are full of helpful tools that will work for any relationship but in a marriage they are super life giving.
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Keeping Your Love On by Danny Silk
This book will change the way you look at and approach communication. It helps you shift the objective from being right to understanding where the other person is coming from.
I probably have to credit the fact that Mike and I are married at all to Danny Silk and his teachings. He has video series called Defining The Relationship that Mike and I went through when we were just dating.
It was so profound and helpful we engaged shortly after. Then in 2016 when we began to fall apart and discuss divorce, we went through it again as a married couple and again it brought so much clarity and break through.
I HIGHLY suggest the series which you can check out here, but if you want a more condensed version this book, Keeping Your Love On, is super helpful.
The whole book teaches the value of connection and how to achieve and protect it.
We are big believers here that in order to show love you have to receive love. If you are in need of more focused study and a reminder of just how incredibly loved you are by the Father, then make sure to sign up for our free 6-day scripture writing challenge, Extravagant. Join over 1,000 other believers as we spend six short but powerful days focusing into the love the Father has for you!
A Love Worth Giving by Max Lucado
Mike and I are big believers in the Luke 7:47 principle. The verse says, “Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little..” KJV
The principle is the truth that your ability to give love and forgiveness is in proportion with your understanding and receiving of the Father's love and forgiveness towards you.
Basically, you can’t give what you haven’t received.
I have shared before that there was a season where our marriage almost fell completely apart. God helped us with a MAJOR breakthrough and afterward Mike, and I read this book in our healing process.
It is absolutely beautiful, and it teaches you that to show love you must first understand and receive love from the Father. It breaks down 1 Corinthians 13, and for us, it revealed quite a bit of baggage and healing we needed to work through.
It beautifully walks you through the different aspects of the Father’s love for you and in the process it reveals a ton of faulty beliefs that we have about Him and His nature.
This book. Most likely you’ve at least heard of this one, but just in case you haven’t read it yet I highly suggest it!
It teaches that everyone shows and receives love in one of five different ways. After reading this Mike and I realized we were speaking entirely different languages, both communicating love in our own ways and both feeling unloved by the other.
This book was so profound to me I sobbed when I read the chapter on my language because suddenly I realized that the things I was longing for weren’t strange or too much.
I also realized that there had been years where I thought I was unloved by different family members and friends when in reality I was being shown love in other ways.
this book is great for marriage but it is also super helpful for any relationships. I also have a whole post here on Why Love Languages Matter that you can check out if you want more information. (LINK)
This is our most recent life-changing book. We love this book so much we gave all of our closest friends and family a copy for Christmas.
These books teaches the Enneagram, an ancient personality typing system. Don’t think Myers-Briggs. This is so much deeper than that. This is the best book and system for personality I have ever found as it reveals what scripture would call the “false man.”
The enneagram isn’t just a personality system that explains and excuses why you do the things you do. It actually reveal patterns and mask you hide behind and provides paths of growth to become a more self aware and well rounded person.
The Road Back To You is a great place to start if you want to learn about the enneagram and The Path Between Us takes it a step further and teaches how to use the tool in relationships to be more compassionate and loving.
Dave Ramsey's Complete Guide To Money
Did you know that debt is one of the leading causes of divorce? Most fights within marriage are money related.
We are currently working our way through Financial Peace University which includes The Complete Guide To Money and for the first time in my adult life I am excited about getting serious with our finances and paying off debt.
We often are taught how to deal with money and how to use it wisely. At 18 I was taught that I needed to build my credit by getting credit which is crazy because we all now know the last thing most 18 year olds need is a credit card.
This book and course is a basic crash course in how to be wise with money so that you can be financially secure and have lots of money to give away and invest into others.
Now that we are parents and have a little guy to think about, we are loving this course and book! I will link to the course here on amazon if you want the whole shebang but the book is great if you don’t want to make that investment at the moment.
The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity by W.M. Paul Young
This book is fiction but it is one of the most influential books I have ever read in general let alone in marriage. The shack is a book about a man whose daughter is kidnapped and believed to have been murdered and the journey he goes on to find healing and relief from the great sadness that settles over his life.
It really examines what God is like and how He interacts with us in loss and in general.
Mike and I read this together a couple years after our first miscarriage and I have to say this book brought more healing than I think we even knew that we needed in that season.
It challenged the way we saw the Father and His love towards us in such a profound way that to this day we still think back on this book when we need a gentle reminder of how fond the Father is of us and how involved He is in our day to day happenings.
One of Mike and I’s goals is to keep reading books together that make us better stewards, partners or parents so this is a post I will continue to update as we find more treasures.
I would LOVE to hear from you! What book (other that the Bible because of course) has had the greatest impact on your life or relationships? Lets chat books in the comments below.
I hope you enjoyed this list and found a book or two to grab or add to you wish list. I want to remind you that if you haven’t already, you are invited to join over 1,000 women for Extravagant, our FREE 6-day Scripture writing challenge where we take a deep dive on the love of the Father. It is truly a life changing challenge and we would love for you to join us.
