Going Beyond Ordinary in Your Marriage
Our friends Justin and Trisha Davis have a beautiful story of redemption in their marriage and they recently released a book called Beyond Ordinary: When a Good Marriage Just Isn’t Good Enough
BeyondOrdinary from RefineUs Ministries on Vimeo.
From their site:
How safe is your marriage? The answer may surprise you. The biggest threat to any marriage isn’t infidelity or miscommunication. The greatest enemy is ordinary. Ordinary marriages lose hope. Ordinary marriages lack vision. Ordinary marriages give in to compromise. Ordinary is the belief that this is as good as it will ever get. And when we begin to settle for ordinary, it’s easy to move from “I do” to “I’m done.”
Justin and Trisha Davis know just how dangerous ordinary can be. In this beautifully written book, Justin and Trisha take us inside the slow fade that occurred in their own marriage—each telling the story from their own perspective. Together, they reveal the mistakes they made, the work they avoided, the thoughts and feelings that led to an affair and near divorce, and finally, the heart-change that had to occur in both of them before they could experience the hope, healing, and restoration of a truly extraordinary marriage.
Their book is next up on my reading list for 2013 and I’m excited to read it. Matthew and I have been married for eight years and I think it sometimes can be challenging not to fall into the rhythm of ordinary, you know? Kids. Work. Busyness in general.
We don’t want an ordinary marriage and I’m so thankful for people like Justin and Trisha who encourage couples to go beyond ordinary.
Have you read Beyond Ordinary? What are your favorite books on marriage?
I don’t think the problem is having an ordinary marriage. The problem is not keeping God at the center of your marriage, and keeping communication open. I also think that married couples need to be open to life. Closing off the gift of fertility (either permanently or through birth control) that God has given you closes you off from your spouse.
This is not the place to debate birth control.
I agree that communication and a relationship with the Lord are incredibly important.
Thank you so much Jessica for sharing this with your readers! We really appreciate it. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts as you read through the book. Thank you again.
Justin
I don’t know Justin and Trisha’s story completely, but I’ve caught glimpses of it through the years, and ANY time a marriage is redeemed and restored, it’s reason to celebrate and praise God! I know their perspective will encourage others by testifying that it CAN be done; their experience surely wasn’t intended to end with them only. “Ordinary” (and complacency) ARE HUGE dangers, and if their book gets others to recognize that BEFORE there are issues, well done :).
Without having read the book, however, and after 25 years of marriage, I’m a little hesitant to embrace absolute statements like “The biggest threat to any marriage isn’t infidelity or miscommunication. The greatest enemy is ordinary.” Of course, I presume that’s hyperbole intended to garner the attention of potential readers, and it IS true for their marriage (and likely others…just not a universal truth).
My inlaws once told me they have a goal of reading one marriage book/year and they’ve been married over 60!! I haven’t taken that advice, but I KNOW we’d have benefitted if we did. A story like the Davises reminds me that “slow fade” is real and often unrecognized until it’s tool late. To God be the glory theirs is a tell of “it’s never too late.”
Oh, and one book that impacted my husband and I the most was Love and Respect. Mercy. It helped us to see unhealthy patterns in our relationship; almost laughable because the book identified “us” in great detail at times. I also like Shaunti Feldhaun’s “For Men Only” because THAT was a FANtastic conversation starter for us! I couldn’t believe a lot of her findings and I gave my husband “permission” to be truthful and to talk about hard things…..
(And, ugh…anonymous comments. I never mind anyone disagreeing with something I have to say, I just have a problem with ANYONE hiding behind their own opinion. Unfortunately, it invalidates anything they have to say…((forgive me… but I just had to say it.)
I have not read that book nor read any other marriage books, but now I am interested! I did, however, attend a World Wide Marriage Encounter almost 1 year ago. It was great!
http://wwme.org/learn-more.html