Gravel Road Musings

A Couple's Guide to Relaxing, Refreshing, and De-stressing Needing some creative ideas for date night? This book is full of them. You could do one a week and then you have your year's worth of dates planned.   It was fun to read about all the different ideas that we could do on date night. In all honesty, we get pretty lazy and laid back on the few date nights we have and we tend to gravitate towards the same things every time. But this book definitely mixes things up a little, so if you are looking to spice up date night, check this book out.   You could do a micro-declutter and pick an area of your house you want to declutter. Along with that idea there is an idea for how this would fit into a quality time love language.  You can then end the evening with a devotional that talks about God being the God of order. There are questions to discuss to go along with that.  Or if that's not your thing, you can go on an impulse date which involves stepping outside...

5 Game-Changing Insights about Your Relationship, Your Money, and Yourself This is a very timely book to read right now with the world in chaos and the future looking uncertain and a bit scary. However, if you are looking for a how-to book on finances, go find a different book to read. This book is not on how you should handle your money, but rather your perspective of money and the value you place on certain things that pertain to money. We often do not value things the same way our partner values things. And that can cause a lot of issues in a marriage. Jeff and Shaunti do extensive research for their books and the book has lots of charts showing the percentages of things based on their surveys, etc.  It's kind of fascinating to see the difference between men and women. They are quick to point out that these things are not true straight across the board, but can be a generalization of how the majority sees it. "If you aren't thriving in the 'love' part ...

It's post-Valentine's Day and everyone is basking in the afterglow of a holiday filled with hearts, chocolate, flowers, and fancy dinners. Right? Or not? Isn't this what the holiday is made for? Isn't this what every young girl dreams about when they think about the day they will get to share Valentine's with their special someone? Is it really love if you don't do all of these things and experience all of the feels? I remember our first Valentine's Day. It was two weeks before our wedding and we were filled with all the hope and excitement of our life together. Everything was roses, though I couldn't actually tell you if I got roses or not, though I'm guessing I did, because, of course, that was expected. (And that was an awkward sentence.) We went out for supper at one of our favorite restaurants in Wausau, waited for an unremembered length of time, had our meal and left. What did we eat? I don't remember, though I'm sure we had cheese cu...

Secrets to a Lifelong Romance There are 13 secrets that Dr. Leman exposes in this book, 13 tips that can lead you to that intimate connection you crave with your spouse. Secrets like: "For your spouse to truly hear you, you have to talk in a way that encourages them to listen" or "Feelings pull you together, judgments push you apart." or "Acts of love create an unbreakable bond. If you want to change your spouse, try changing yourself first." Basically, I will read anything Dr. Kevin Leman writes. I've read a couple of his books over the past couple of years and have one more on my shelf to read and I enjoy every one of them. He has a way of writing that drives the point home clearly. Add to that the stories and humor he throws in and the books will hold your attention and make you want to read more. This book was no exception. I enjoyed reading it. I had started it early summer and got sidetracked by business and came back to read it all throu...

The Simple, Powerful Path to a Loving Marriage "But I had yet to learn that meeting the right guy is one thing - and loving him year after year is quite another." So says Lisa in her introduction. And I think she is so right. So what are those 100 ways and is Lisa really qualified to talk about them? Well, she has been married for 25 years; that definitely adds credibility to her words, in my opinion at least. She and her husband, Matt, have eight children, one with severe brain damage. Raising eight children, at least one with special needs, and still loving her husband through it all, also increases her credibility. This book is a fast read, I think it took me around an hour to read it. It is basically a numbered list, one per page, of ways to love your husband. Most items have a paragraph or so expounding on it, some have only a sentence and a few have a two or three-page story to go with it. Most are just common sense items that we think, of course, and yet I needed...

8 Commitments of Couples who Laugh, Love & Last Okay, so I think I will read anything that Kevin Thompson writes. I can't really describe what I like about his style of writing, but it really works for me. I read his first book, Friends, Partners, and Lovers and I thought it was one of the best books on marriage I had read. Then I read this book, Happily  and think that again. I'm not sure if it's the way he presents the information or what he says or how he says it, but I walk away from these books with a fresh view on marriage and renewed determination to make my marriage the best it can possibly be. I have had other books on marriage do that as well, but these rank at the top of the list for me. There aren't a lot of anecdotes in the book, but there are a lot of lists and I can resonate with that. This is how it should look, this is how it shouldn't and I can grab a hold of that concrete wisdom better than an abstract principle that I'm not sure ...

One Marriage, One Family Under God This book is the novelization of a movie and is based on true events. Darren and Heather Turner, a couple committed to God and country and each other, but when life throws them a curve ball they are a little unprepared to handle it. Darren is a Army Chaplain and sent to Iraq for 15 months. Heather holds down the fort at home and gets involved with support groups etc. for army wives, especially the group that provides support after a wife receives news of the death of her husband. All this is done while living on pins and needles, always wondering when the knock will happen at your door that rips your life apart. So while I'm not a proponent of war, the substance of this book is very, very good. Regardless, we are in a spiritual war where Satan is waiting to trip us up and destroy us and our families. And in this book, he was using the scars and the battle wounds worn internally on Darren to do it. And he nearly succeeds, but not quite. And...

Making your relationship matter now and for generations to come Married for 47 years, Crawford and Karen know a thing or two about marriage. Coming from very opposite backgrounds, even encouraged not to get married because of that, yet they chose to base their relationship on Jesus Christ and overcome the status quo and having a thriving marriage. Looking at them, they didn't have the best examples. Out of Crawford and Karen's parents, one was unknown for much of their lives, one had a strong marriage history and the other two had single parenting and divorce for their record. The number one emphasis in this book is having a solid relationship with Jesus Christ. That needs to be first and foremost for a marriage to thrive, for a person to thrive. Then the marriage needs to come next. It's not a book about a perfect marriage, it's a book about being real and working through the hard stuff, facing conflict head on and finding a solution to it. It's a simple ea...

Radically Pursuing Each Other in Light of Christ's Relentless Love Foreword by Gary Thomas Fiercemarriage.com for more info Another marriage book you might say. And yes, that is exactly what it is. But every marriage book I have read has a new or different slant or a different way of saying things that brings out a point in a way that makes you go, ah-ha. And this book really was no different. I wouldn't say this book had as many ah-ha moments for me as some do, but there were definitely things that made me stop.  For example, on the chapter on Dealing with Discord there is a subheading called "Fight Naked". Now that will make you stop for a second. But there are two elements here, one truly is fighting naked. They would say it's one of the best pieces of advice they ever received because it's really hard to stay mad when you are naked. It just makes me laugh to think about trying to argue like that. But the other thing is the intimacy level. In a ma...