Book review Ryan and Selena Frederick, Fierce Marriage, Baker Books, 2018

Review:

The title of their book Fierce Marriage actually describes the attitude that Ryan and Selena Frederick have had in holding their marriage together through the circumstances and pressures that threatened to tear their marriage apart.  They candidly describe those issues and what it took for them to stay with each other and be faithful to the covenant they made before God.  In fact, their thinking on covenant is one of the strengths of the book.  They speak of the choice “to love, not based on the other person’s performance but on the promises you have made [to God and to each other] (Ryan and Selena Frederick, Fierce Marriage,  Baker Books, 2018, p. 41). They are honest about what caused their “marriage to be tired,’…stagnant and simply existing” (p.90) and why they needed to reset their priorities (pp. 90-98), recognize the signals each partner was sending  the other (pp.111-130), and deal with the issues of sex, finances and conflict that kept accentuating their differences.  The book is practical, helpfully biographic, and forthright.                                                                                                                     

 5 stars                                                                             M.L. Codman-Wilson, Ph.D. 5/17/18

Excerpts:

”Basically, a covenant is a set of promises between two people  or groups that binds them together.  And biblically, a covenant is much more than a contract. It’s a bond and promise so strong- so absolute- that only God can give you the means to understand and keep it…Your covenant binds you together so you have nowhere to go except to Christ for help and back to each other for reconciliation.  It will keep you near one another when you have nothing else to give or take but mercy and grace. Finally, it opens your eyes and softens your heart to the immeasurable need you have for unending grace, your inability to earn it, and the steep price by which it is given…Without knowing it, we can too quickly choose convenient love over covenant love. Covenant love takes grit. It is not easy, cheap, or ready to retreat at any sign of trouble” (pp.52, 58,70).

“The deepest disagreements you will experience as a married couple always have to do with your objective view of love and the expectations that come along with it. That view determines how you will act when wronged, how you will ask for forgiveness when you sin against each other, how you will serve another selflessly (or don’t) and how generous you are with each other” (p. 75).

“Marriage is astoundingly allegorical.  Everything about it points to the loving courtship between God and his people through the person and work of Jesus”  (p. 220).