In an era when nearly half of all marriages end in divorce, our directors emeritus Larry and Susan Pons share their wisdom from 50+ years of ministering to families from around the globe in Marriage That Doesn’t Suck: An Uncommon Approach. The book uses personal, engaging and often humorous accounts to highlight the relevance of biblical marriage principles in today’s upside-down world of unraveled homes. Enjoy the excerpt below, and order your copy today!
A Foreword to Marriage (Larry)
Bookstores and online warehouses are overflowing with manuscripts on marriage and parenting. Included in this vast array of books is information dealing with just about every facet for couples and family relationships, down to the most granular details. With so many resources available today on marriage and parenting, you may be asking yourself why another book on these subjects?
Well, first we would like to say you’re right. There is an abundant amount of information available to anyone who seeks it. Secondly, and more importantly, what we have come to realize is that while the factual information in the areas of marriage and parenting is substantial, the practical steps needed to implement the knowledge are not often well defined.
Most couples we counsel can be grouped into two categories:
- Those who don’t always know how to execute what they’ve learned . . . seemingly unable to make progress towards true contentment in their relationship
- Those who are not aware anything needs to change
To use a fitness analogy to describe these two scenarios, it would be the equivalent of a person knowing he or she needs to lose weight but not knowing the steps to take, versus another who is not even conscious a weight problem exists.
In this book, we will strive to equip you with practical tools to help your family thrive as God intended. You may already be aware of a great deal of the information presented in this manuscript, but our goal will be to demonstrate, in very practical terms, how to implement it. We hope you’ll be encouraged as you read, because the answers to the questions about family life are surprisingly quite simple. You can do this!
