The Sacred Marriage Book Review By Elizabeth Marks Challenging and insightful is Gary Thomas' book Sacred Marriage. This wonderfully written book asks some deep questions, like "What if God designed marriage to make us holy more than to make us happy?" The challenge is to change your perspective about marriage. Most people enter marriage with one of these mindsets: "marriage is meant to meet my needs" or "marriage will make me happy". Gary points out that God designed us to crave Him but a lot times we put unrealistic expectations on our spouses to meet the very need that only God can fulfill. This book is about spiritual growth while living in marriage. As with everything, God has orchestrated the events of our lives to develop spiritual character in us. However, we all fall short of His glorious standard (Romans 3:23). In marriage, when one spouse falls short, the other spouse has a chance to demonstrate God's character by dispensing forgiveness, grace and mercy towards the spouse who failed. A marriage is designed to teach us many things, such as how to love, to respect each other, to pray, to ask for forgiveness, to give forgiveness, to depend on God, to serve each other, and to learn to worship God. This was a refreshing book that opened my eyes to a deeper sense of what a marriage relationship can and should be. I highly recommend Scared Marriage to everyone willing to improve their relationships.