Saturday, February 19, 2011

Love & Respect, by Emerson Eggerichs


Women have a need to be loved; men have a need to receive respect.  This is the basic message of Love Respect, by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs.  Drawing upon his almost 30 of pastoring and counseling, as well as the Bible, Eggerichs paints a picture of how many married couples approach their marriage.  When the wife perceives “unloving actions”, she reacts in ways that will be perceived as “disrespectful.” Naturally, when the husband perceives “disrespectful actions”, he in turn reacts in ways that are “unloving.” 

Eggerichs calls this the “Crazy Cycle.”  He goes on to explain how we can avoid (or at least limit) the time spent in this cycle and how to move to the “Energizing Cycle” (and eventually to the Reward Cycle.”

Now I get a bit wary of “Self-help” books for Christians.  Too often they are filled with the world’s thinking.  In fact, I probably would not have read this book had I not heard Dr. Eggerichs speak.  Certainly there are many people with marriages that are in need of help, but when we start using the world’s thinking to solve our problems we head down a “slippery slope” that leads away from God.  I can assure you that Eggerichs does not do this; rather his analysis is Biblically based with scripture supporting his points.

I found that this is a good read for those that have struggling marriages, but also for those that have good marriages – any marriage can be made better. 

I received this book from Thomas Nelson Press in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.
The opinions expressed are my own and were not influenced in any way.

Monday, February 07, 2011

Experiencing... Blackaby

Last weekend at church we had a special speaker: Dr. Blackaby.  No, not Henry, the famous author, but this was his son, Tom. We put together a special worship team (which is why I don't have any pictures).



We had a full house and everything was translated into Portuguese, so we were all blessed.
It was a good, timely message on Luke 9 about how we make or have our own plans, but fail to consider God's.



Anyway, I got to talk to him afterwards and he gave me some advice-- actually it was advice that his father had given to him.  So, in a way, I got advice from Henry himself!  It was kind of cool and definitely a blessed night!

Friday, February 04, 2011

International Day

About once a month we have a special day at school. For January, we had "International Day".

To attend our school you must hold a foreign passport, so we have students representing about 20 different countries.

Students were invited to bring something from their country: clothing, an interesting item or a snack).


The students seemed to enjoy it and many participated.  I guess they like to share about their culture... or maybe they just like getting out of class!