Forever Beloved

Faith, Love & Truth

The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages {Book Review}

The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages
By Shaunti Feldhahn

About the book:

“Where does ‘highly happy’ come from—and can we have some too?! 

Have you ever looked at a blissfully married couple and thought, I wish I could know their secret? Now you can. After years of investigative research, Shaunti reveals twelve powerful habits that the happiest marriages have in common.

Best news of all? Anyone can learn the secrets of a highly happy marriage!

In The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages, Shaunti Feldhahn shares her findings about little, very unexpected, often overlooked actions that make a huge difference. You’re about to discover that highly happy couples:
• Go to bed mad
• Keep score (just not in the way you think)
• Boss their feelings around
• Have factual fantasies
• Get in over their heads
• Don’t tell it like it is
• Don’t look to marriage to make them happy…

Packed with eye-opening research and practical helps, this book delivers relationship insights that will take your marriage from “just fine” to “just the marriage we’ve always wanted.”

Are you a person who loves advice based on facts? Then this book is for you! This book is based on actual research–not some relationship therapist telling me their views on how to have a better marriage. The book focuses on small changes anyone can make to improve their marriage. The book is really a practical application of years of research the author and her husband conducted on couples who were struggling in their marriages, mostly happy and highly happy. The author reveals 12 secrets she discovered in researching highly happy marriages and explains how spouses can implement them to take their marriage from good to great.

One of my favorite quotes from the book…Highly happy couples quickly stop a negative train of thought or action, replacing unhappy or angry thoughts or actions with positive ones, in order to change their feelings.
I really enjoyed this book.  I’m always open to new marriage advice, tips and secrets!  A great marriage requires constant work, continual weeding and working the soil in order to bloom into something beautiful.  This book opened my eyes to some weedy areas that I need to work on. If your already part of a highly happy married couple or your in a struggling relationship I would encourage you to take a look at this book and see if you can up your own marital happiness by applying these secrets.
WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group provided this book to me for free in exchange for this honest review as part of their Blogging for Books program.

Hero

This
lucky girl is married to a hero.

He doesn’t wear a cape or leap from buildings. He’s
an everyday hero in this house. A hard-working, tenderhearted guy. He takes
care of his wife and his littles, putting their wants and needs before his
own. He will completely stop what he is doing to help someone in need. And he
follows God.

Isn’t that the best kind of hero.

I’m not sure he realizes what a complete hero he
is to me, to us. It’s evident to me daily.  So I’m here to let my hero know a few things…

I
need him.  I love knowing my husband will step in and
defend me or protect me in a moment’s notice. He would fight for my honor.
 Inappropriateness, disrespect, ogling…he’ll step in and tend to them
all.  

My
hero.  Sigh.

I lean on him.  I know the world pushes independent women. And
they sure aren’t fond of women that aren’t independent whatsoever. I’m totally
capable of being that woman but I’m so thankful to have a man I can rely on. If
there’s an emergency, I call him. If there’s excitement, I call him. You have
no idea how many spiders he has killed over the years y’all (That alone
qualifies him as being my hero.  This girl doesn’t do spiders). He’s held me while I sobbed over a loss. He’s
fixed leaks. He’s calmed me down when i called him freaking out.  He’s calmed my spirit, telling me everything will be okay.  He’s my rock.

He is a true hero. Loving me quietly.

I’d be lost without him.  I know this sounds a little over-the-top, but it
is true. I would be lost without his loving and protecting arms around me. I
would be lost without his voice telling me it will all be okay. I would be lost
without his body to snuggle me at night.

A great hero.  An everyday hero. 

My hero.


I love you sweet boy.  Happy Valentines Day!


His Truth

Over the past few years I’ve kept my heart open and allowed God to work on it. It’s not always been easy and a lot of times it was ouchy when God would reveal something in me that needed tended to. One thing that God has revealed is really a hard one for me (and so many of us)…how I see myself when I look in the mirror.

Your hands made me and formed me; give me understanding to learn your commands.
Psalm 119:73

When I would look in the mirror, I would see a girl with a stomach that looked like a road map with scars on top of scars from surgeries. I would see stretch marks from babies.  I would see a nose that was much too big from being broken time after time. I would see skin that is discolored. I could go on and on naming every single flaw I had.

Have you been there? I think we all have.

I knew that God loved me. I knew I was created in His image. So what in the world is my problem? He quickly revealed it. I was listening to the worlds version of beauty instead of His.  I was allowing the voice of the world to drown out His truth.  As I allowed Him to wipe away the shame, embarrassment and unworthiness He soon replaced them with beauty, self-worth and pride.

He replaced every lie the world had whispered to me and replaced it with His truth.

We are all made in Gods image. Every single one of us. Do you know what that means? I am beautiful, so are YOU, because we are daughters of the King and we were made in His image. Take a moment and let that sink in. Embrace it. Tuck it away securely in your heart. You are perfectly perfect and what He wants you to be.

Our Father, the one who loves us the absolute most, holds us in His hands. We are His and He is ours. We can walk through this world with heads and hearts held high as daughters of the King. Daughters who are messy and broken. With Him, we are transformed into beautiful simply because we are His.  True beauty is found on the inside.  When we allow Him to guide us, mold us, to cleanse our hearts of anything that doesn’t please Him…when we do all that, it’s reflected on the outside. He loves me in spite of my scars, booty, nose, bags under my eyes and droopy eyelids. His love is always, always forever there…accepting us exactly for who we are.