It’s the type of book you might read “for a friend because nothing like that would ever happen to me.”
Even so, 70 percent of men use porn. One in six women struggles with addiction to porn. Being part of the Church doesn’t exempt us when 50 percent of pastors use porn too.
Porn is everywhere. It touches all of us causing wounds, seen and unseen, but always felt even if we don’t understand their source.
Bob and Dannah Gresh have felt the hard slap of porn addiction in their marriage too.
And unlike many other Christians, they aren’t hiding their struggle. They’re showing us their journey to help us along ours.
“One book won’t fix a marriage.” That’s how Dannah opens her newly released book Happily Even After: Let God Redeem Your Marriage.
The book specifically addresses couples who struggle with his porn addiction and her response to it. Yet the advice is applicable to a variety of challenges couples may face.
Dannah writes in a tone that makes you want to pour a cup of tea for yourself and relax as if she were right across the table from you understanding your every heartache.
Her personal story, introduced with an account from her husband Bob includes sound, step-by-step counsel.
- “stop pretending everything is okay
- strengthen yourself in the Lord
- fight for your husband instead of with him
- discover 6 essential beliefs every marriage needs to survive broken places
- participate in your husband’s redemption story”
Books like this one are important because they touch our lives right where we wrestle. Right where we feel that we can’t let anyone else know what our inner combat is all about.
Disclosure: I’ve known Bob and Dannah for more than a decade and a half. I received a free copy of this book for review as part of the launch team. That doesn’t color my conviction that years from now, because of this book, couples will be together who wouldn’t be without having heeded its message.
And if they’ve taken this book (and others Dannah recommends) to heart, their marriages just might be thriving.
Read this book. Cover to cover. Use the supplemental materials. Follow the directions. Cry. Pray. Cry. Share your burden. Cry with someone else. Heal. Forgive. Heal.
And follow God’s path on the good way forward.
Even if you’re just asking for a friend.