The Books of 2024: Love and Relationships

I always said I wouldn’t read books on relationships because they’d be cheesy and weird. While that was the case for a couple, I did learn a lot from many of these books.

Books Read: Five

Average Rating: 3.8 stars

Best: Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliot

Worst: For Men Only by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn

For Women Only: What You Need to Know About the Inner Lives of Men by Shaunti Feldhahn – 3.5 Stars

“Just as you need the man in your life to love you unconditionally, even when you’re not particularly lovable, your man needs you to demonstrate your respect for him regardless of whether he’s meeting your expectations at the moment.”

This book was very interesting, though I’m not sure how accurate it is, considering that the one about women wasn’t terribly good. In any case, it was interesting to learn more about how the male brain works. It also gave me a good kick in the direction of modesty.

For Men Only: A Straightforward Guide to the Inner Lives of Women by Shaunti and Jeff Feldhahn – 2.5 stars.

“Her brain wiring means she best processes thoughts and feelings by talking about them. And the only way she can do that with us is if we don’t get defensive and take it personally.”

Is this how normal women think? I most certainly do not process things best by talking about them, but by being left alone until I can sort them out myself.

“So the first and most important step for Mr. Fix-it is to listen for the right thing: how she feels about the emotional issue she’s bringing to you.”

This book was confusing to me. It focused primarily on emotions. Yes, yes, that’s a big part of womanhood, and I’m sure it is helpful for men to focus on that part because it’s probably very confusing for them. But there is so much more to us than our emotions. This book made it seem like we are flat, one-dimensional weepers who never do anything rational… I’m overreacting. Don’t blame me, it’s my uncontrollable feelings.

Passion and Purity: Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ’s Control by Elisabeth Elliot – 5 stars

“I do know that waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts. It’s easy to talk oneself into a decision that has no permanence – easier sometimes than to wait patiently.”

Wow. Just wow. I highlighted so many paragraphs in this book. It is amazing. We need to start living by these virtues! These aren’t outdated concepts. Our generation needs to take Elliot’s words seriously.

“If we hold tightly to anything given to us unwilling to allow it to be used as the Giver means it to be used we stunt the growth of the soul. What God gives us is not necessarily “ours” but only ours to offer back to him, ours to relinquish, ours to lose, ours to let go of, if we want to be our true selves. Many deaths must go into reaching our maturity in Christ, many letting goes.”

The Mark of a Man by Elisabeth Elliot – 4 stars

“A man must at times be hard as nails: willing to face up to the truth about himself, and about the woman he loves, refusing compromise when compromise is wrong. But he must also be tender. No weapon will breach the armor of a woman’s resentment like tenderness.”

There was a lot that I didn’t like about this book. It ruffled all my feathers, made me defensive, and at times angry, but here’s the thing…it was all – most of it anyway – biblical truths about the different roles that men and women have in life, love, and marriage. Culture has radically changed the roles of men and women and thrown us into so much confusion.

Though this book is written to young men, to encourage them, there was a lot here that I benefited from – what I should seek in a godly husband, and also how I should be a godly woman and eventually (possibly) a wife.

“The world cries for men who are strong; strong in conviction, strong to lead, to stand, to suffer.”

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis – 4 stars

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”

Ah, good ol’ C.S. Lewis. He never fails to awe and confuse me with his brilliance. This is a book I feel like I need to read five times before I even begin to understand what he’s talking about.

“Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help?”

~Hattush

What relationship books have you learned from?