…aside from God’s Word, the holy Christian Bible, of course.
There is a wedding coming up soon in my family*. In thinking about the wonderful event and wanting to bless the happy couple, I remembered a book which was popular in our circles back in the early 1990s when the book was first published.
I immediately went to my library shelves of some 5,000+ volumes to find it. Having a wonderful alphanumeric filing system first taught to me by my favorite professor at Ohio State, I knew exactly where it was located. But alas, it was not there.
Having moved the entire library about a year ago to our new offices, I thought perhaps it had gotten misplaced during the move, but after looking a while longer, I gave up the search thinking I must have lent it to a friend years ago and never got it back. That has happened on occasion with other books.
So I ordered three copies on line: one for my own use, one for the new bride and one for the husband-to-be. No, I won’t lend you my copy 😠😊; but I hope you will get one for yourself and one to lend out.
This book impressed me greatly way back then and upon re-reading it a couple weeks ago, I am more certain than ever, it is one that I very highly recommend to anyone who either has relationship problems or who wants to prevent serious relationship problems. In other words, it will be helpful to everyone that breathes.
I already gave the books to the soon-to-be husband and wife, each with their separate inscriptions. Here—to the best of my recollection—is what I wrote for the bride-to-be, and the same thing to the groom, except modified in the first line.
“My dearest [niece, sister, daughter, granddaughter, third cousin 20 times removed—you get the idea—I am protecting her privacy],
If I were a wealthy man and could give you a 15 million dollar home on a 15 hundred acre estate, or this 15 dollar book, I would give you this book because I deem it the more valuable of the two. For what good are all those riches if you do not have a happy marriage?
I pray that you each will read your own copy slowly and begin to put these principles into practice today. It will repay you great dividends in the years to come.”
The book actually lists for $16.99 but is considerably discounted on Amazon. Over 20 million copies have been sold. Back then, there was television as the major life distraction. The new edition has been updated to deal with things like our digital devices and other challenges which did not exist in 1992.
The author is a Christian but he does not beat readers over the head to promote any particular denomination.
You can read a whole lot more about it and Dr. Gary Chapman on line, so I will leave that up to you and close this little recommendation with this photo of my (new) library copy.
P.S. Monetarily speaking, that’s a really cheap wedding gift! There is more to their wedding gift than a 15 dollar purchase.
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* “my family” Unless otherwise noted, when I refer to my “family,” readers must be aware that I have a huge family counting cousins, etc. In my efforts to protect the privacy of my family members—even though they themselves may “share” every detail of their life on Facebook or other social media—I will not divulge which family member(s) I am referring to, unless I know they will not mind, or have already given me permission to mention them by name and their relationship to me.
~END~