“An Impossible Marriage: What our Mixed-Orientation Marriage Has Taught us about Love and the Gospel” by Laurie and Matt Krieg is not written for a narrow audience, as the title might lead you to believe. Any Christian who thinks about being married, is already married, or is tempted by various interferences to marriage such as porn, attraction to another, wanting a different kind of marriage, etc. would benefit from reading this couple’s story.

What You Can Learn From Laurie & Matt

There is no fluff in this book about marriage. Laurie and Matt have learned hard lessons and challenge their readers to do more, expect more, and gain more by entering their story. Read the following concepts the Kriegs unpack in “Impossible Marriage” to get a sense of whether the Lord is leading you to read this book:

• The purpose of marriage is not to be in love, practice good communication skills, or experience a highly satisfying sex life. Marriage has a spiritual design. There’s a more empowering love inside of a marriage than that from a spouse.

• Marriage counseling doesn’t always have to mean you are at odds with one another or that your marriage is hanging on by a thread; you can go see a marriage counselor as an act of hope. Also, marriage counseling a isn’t a trick really intended to fix just one person; rather you can pursue marriage counseling as a united team with a shared goal.

• Marriage tells a significant story, and it doesn’t begin with human definitions for love, attraction, sex, or gender. Marriage is a sacred experience of tenderly caring for one another in order to experience more and more of who God is.

• Some of your needs-driven, anxious, unhealed-from-the-past thoughts could be accurately called: adultery. The use of this term isn’t meant to cause non-productive shame, but to help you become an even more faithful spouse than you are now.

• The manner in which you’ve been apologizing to your spouse and other loved ones may not be as impressive as you thought.

• You could be looking at the subject of sex through a broken or distorted lens without realizing it.

• Even in the context of a healthy, Christian marriage, sex can be an idol. Looking for approval, people-pleasing, performing to look good, and even waiting on a spouse to change are other idols often found in marriages. Idols, not needs, should be put to death in marriages. Idols interfere with oneness with God; needs take spouses close to God.

• Your marriage gets better when you know you aren’t in control and when you admit you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s when the perfect Bridegroom can lead you to His best for you.

• Through marriage, Christ can teach certain spouses that sex is good, and He can teach other spouses that sex is not the ultimate good. Through sex, even with suffering and impossibility, He can show you more of Himself, love your spouse through you, and put your focus on a picture of a fruitful marriage.

• For either one of you, or both of you, something in your present life could be waking up a simmering, unhealed past and spilling it out everywhere into your marriage. That’s when marriage gives you an opportunity for a deeper healing in your soul. Marriage removes you from the past and positions you in the present.

• The stats for porn users among Christians is so high that all believers (those engaged in porn and those not) must try to understand why it’s such a fierce temptation, even for the most spiritually mature. Behind every use of porn are emotional and spiritual needs waiting to be met. Not acknowledging and tending to basic human needs and not having a strategy for temptation create risk for addiction and shame. And while marriage is not the answer for meeting these needs, it’s a pathway. Together, on a regular basis, through prayer, and by the Spirit, a covenant couple can push back darkness and not keep God separate from marriage and sex.

• Oneness is important. God is three in one. We, the Church, are to be many in one. And those many parts include single people and married people, which are two in one. The two-in-one married couple serves as a witness to offspring and to the world about the perfect way that God loves. Each spouse, having his/her needs met by the Lord, can experience deep satisfaction by prioritizing oneness with one another and with God.

• We need to care about Christian marriages because they are each a picture of the Gospel. Find and be couples committed to each one’s version of impossible marriage, share in their burdens, and take them to Jesus.

Book’s Format

Because Laurie and Matt have written this book together and provide individual perspectives, “Impossible Marriage” is equally helpful for husbands (and future husbands) as well as wives (and future wives). Matt is a licensed professional counselor and Laurie is passionate about teaching churches how to approach sexuality with the gospel. So, while the principles in this book are high-level, the explanations are creative, interesting, and simple to understand. The analogies, examples, and stories are memorable and really helpful. And a study guide is included in the back of the book.

Even if you are the only spouse in your marriage to read this book and apply what you learn from it, your marriage will be healthier and happier because it will teach you how to become more holy.

Additional Resource

Matt & Laurie have a podcast: “Hole In My Heart”