Book club for Married Couples

My husband and I decided to get a few of our married friends together and read books that might help strengthen our marriages.

Our first meeting in January was great. We discussed Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love: Practical Insights from John Paul II's Love and Responsibility by Edward Sri. The book itself gave us some great insights into the nature of mature, lasting love, but being able to talk about it with other couples at different stages of marriage really enhanced our understanding.

I'd heard it before, but this experience really helped it sink in that I love a person, not a list of characteristics, qualities, or actions that can change or go away and take "love" with it. Real love makes a choice to seek the good of the beloved, whether or not those good feelings are strong at that very moment. Love is more an action than a feeling; something we do, not something that happens to us.

John Paul II describes marriage as the model of the Trinity on earth, so it seems fitting that marriages should have periods of consolation and desolation just the same as the spiritual life. And that both in marriage and the spiritual life, each of these periods play an important role in our growth and the strength of our commitment.

Next up for the book club in March is The Exceptional Seven Percent by Gregory Popcak. Better start reading...

It's hard to believe...

that we will have been married a year tomorrow

that my uncle's cancer progressed so quickly

that I've learned so much in the last year that I had thought I already knew

that marriage can be so humbling and uplifting at the same time

that my nephew will be here in a few weeks

the number of logical fallacies I've seen in printed arguments in the last month

that we still haven't finished the wedding thank you notes

that there truly is nothing new under the sun