Book Review by Jenny Reed

http://takemeaway-jennala9.blogspot.com/

I was thoroughly impressed with Jewell Powell's Marriage 101 and am so glad I had the opportunity to review this book. This book combines multiple elements that together create a very well-rounded, thorough, and engaging guide for couples on marriage. All this is fit in less than 250 pages which makes the guide very manageable. Powell begins the book by summing up the goals of marriage in an easy and fitting word -- Altruism. The book is broken up into the words that make up this acronym -- Act, Love, Talk, Repent, Uite, Identify, Submit, and Minister. Each of these 8 chapters utilizes some combination of elements that work together to make the point of that chapter's word. These elements include the author's personal story. She and her husband have a wonderful marriage now but this is only after experiencing some major difficulties. The manner in which she shares this vulnerability makes her more personable and the marriage advice more significant. She also utilizes the story of Sleeping Beauty as a parable for living a biblical marriage and bits of these are in each chapter. Also in each chapter are several scriptures on marriage to reflect on and then some self-examination questions to help you further process where you are in reaching or working toward these goals. Another great aspect of this book is the different biblical examples of marriage the author is able to relate to current day marriage.

The use of all these components helps get the message across thoroughly and in an engaging manner. This is a work book/ bible study that can be done together or alone. For those of you who are not Christian, if you've read this far, there is definitely the potential that this may not be for you. As you would expect in a marriage book based on living biblically, there are references to the bible, God, holy spirit, etc. everywhere. However, if you can get past that, the lessons can still be related to marriage in general. In that case, you might skip the scripture and go straight to the self-examination questions. For those that are Christian, you'll find this book to be immensely helpful in helping you live a more godly marriage which, of course, equals a strong, love-filled marriage.