We want you to discover with us what it means to be vitally alive together as man and wife, jointly traversing uncharted territories instead of punching life's time clock or longing for the next available escape route. Have you ever wondered what it might look like for two hearts to be vulnerably and intimately joined, day by day becoming the full expression of God in our homes and in our world? I hope you will find your own blueprint within these pages. Our Creator is the author and finisher of your adventure and romance.
 

What draws us back again and again to our favorite stories? Just as with marriage, dramatic tension is essential to rousing and sustaining our interest. Here we find the necessity and beauty of arousal, which arises when male and female differences spark at the connecting point—the point at which adventure and romance meet. Though it's intended to carry the fascination of a fairy tale, Finding Ever After is not meant to be an oversimplification of or detour from reality but rather the full embrace of it. What follows is an intensity-filled voyage through the dramatic tension of masculine and feminine differences.
 

Our generation's perilous pace frequently convinces us that we don't have time for make-believe damsels in distress and made-up mavericks swooping down to vanquish foes against all odds. However, in the contemporary era, married life requires flexibility and creativity like never before. While much in Christian literature has endeavored to bring about our awakening to the wonder and beauty of divine reflections in the masculine and the feminine, men and women still broadly seem to be finding themselves in opposite corners, without "the connecting piece."

I want to show you that missing piece. I will intentionally address oft-present "his" and "hers" emotions and concerns while showing men and women the power of their own story in concert with one another. Unique but inseparable, "his/hers" components validate and allow husband and wife their own individual discoveries of the inspired life. Only then are both partners free to arrive, together, at the true climax of their story.

Though men and women often approach life and love through different doors— sometimes called "orientations," as in men tend to be oriented toward adventure, women toward romance—my desire is not to define gender differences as much as to help identify or recognize individual strengths. While avoiding stereotypical extremes, my aim is to set up references for men and women in general—mainly for the ease of communicating ideas—while also validating those who intensely identify with non-stereotypical approaches to romance and adventure. (Women tend to be much more diverse in identity and social roles than men.) Because many readers will identify with traditional roles, the discussion here will follow traditional expectations. This in no way should be construed, for example, as an invalidation of women who gravitate toward adventure or of men who are more uniquely oriented toward romance.
 

Excerpted from FINDING EVER AFTER: A Romantic Adventure for Her, An Adventurous Romance for Him © Copyright 2011 by Robert S. Paul and Donna K. Wallace. Reprinted with permission by Bethany House Publishers. All rights reserved.

• Click here now to buy this book from Amazon.com.