In my honest opinion, marriage is about continuous education. This happens through finding role models but also from reading good books. 
We have read many marriage books through our time with our small groups and we feel like continuous education is one of the best things we can do to help our marriage. Neither of us have been married before so why should we expect to know how to do it? Every day that comes along presents the opportunity for new experiences and potential problems that we have never faced. We try to stay ahead of the curve by reading quality, Christian marriage books that will help us prepare for the curveballs that life throws. Below are some of our favorites – some of which have completely revolutionized our marriage!
Five Love Languages – Gary Chapman
Who knew that a book could be SO powerful? We read this as part of our 2-to-1 premarital mentoring and we couldn’t be happier that we did. For me, this was one of those books that just made something click in my head. Each of us is unique in the way that we want to love and be loved. Tuning into your spouse’s love language can be an ultimate game-changer – before reading this, there were times when I would do things for Mandy and be completely baffled as to why they didn’t have more of an impact. It had never occurred to me that I was doing things the way I would want them done for me and not the other way around.
Mark Batterson is the man. Let’s just start there. Circle Maker is one of my favorite books that I have ever read, but you can’t go wrong with anything he has written. This one focuses on the story of Honi from the Bible and how he prayed so big that he saved his nation from drought. We all could take a lesson from Honi to pray bigger, more audaciously, and more determined than we do on a daily basis. Mandy and I were able to implement many things from this book, the least of which includes completely circling the things we are working for in prayer. To quote MB: “work like it depends on us and pray like it depends on God”!
Bread and Wine – Shauna Niequist
Mandy had been dying to read this book for a while before she ended up caving in and just buying it. We had heard from lots of people how awesome it was (shoutout to McKenzie!) but Mandy could not put it down once she got started. Shauna talks about just how important it is to build community around the dinner table. One of our family missions is to eat together around the table as often as possible and this book hit the nail on the head. The recipes inside look amazing as well! Mandy even loved the book so much that she painted the art above with a quote from Shauna’s book “The table is the life raft, the center point, the home base of who we are together”.
What books are you reading lately?
Mandy and Conner 