‌I would like to recommend another book, EIGHT TWENTY EIGHT: When Love Didn’t Give Up by Ian and Larissa Murphy. The Murphys are a married couple who “seek to serve God together all while dealing with the implications of life in a world marked by suffering yet compelled by love.”

Ian and Larissa are learning to trust the God of Romans Eight: Twenty-Eight, to rely on its truth, and to be content. Their book title comes from one of my favorite Bible verses: “For we know all things work together for good to those who love God, to those that are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Together they are an example and inspiration to anyone who needs hope to be content — whether married or single. The focus of their story is not on their tremendous devotion to each other but on the deep love they reflect of God’s deeper unfailing love. It is not focused on tragedy, disability, or loss but on hope that allows them to experience God’s faithfulness, to trust Him more, and to learn contentment as they share a marriage that is accomplishing His purpose.

The following is from this book’s back cover, but I invite you to read the book to be challenged to love God more than you love comfort and ease.

“They met in college and fell in love. They talked about getting married, and he started looking for a ring. They dreamed about life together, a life of beauty and joy, raising babies and laughing with friends and growing old.

They did not imagine a car accident. They did not imagine his brain injury. They did not dream about the need for constant care and a wheelchair and fear that food might choke him.

And they could not have imagined how persistent love would be. Theirs and God’s.” (Eight Twenty Eight book cover)

The following is Larissa’s article about contentment at desiringgod.org where more articles full of hope and insightful Bible teaching by John Piper can be found.

“I didnʼt know contentment in my prosperity — contentment then meant health and ease not God. God has not given us an indication that Ian will be fully healed here, which means that we have needed to enlist ourselves in our suffering. We still pray for complete healing, but we also pray for strength to endure a life-long disability. We are learning that contentment is produced as we obey and act on His promises like… ‘I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.’

Recently, this has meant believing I can do all things when Iʼm woken up by the sound of Ian throwing up at 4:00 a.m. He canʼt move his body fast enough to not choke, and so my body and mind must jolt from my dreams and spend the next hour cleaning up a man who is too tired and sick to hold his own head up. Yet somehow, in a moment so mysterious that it must be of God, I am filled with peace in the quiet of our house, throwing filthy bedding down the laundry chute.

And I think that itʼs in those tiny moments of serving and obeying that contentment abounds. Often they are just that, tiny and passing, but they must be building toward a greater joy.

‘For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold and not another.’ (Job 19:25–27)

Ian has been the best at teaching me that even though we are given mercy to grow in contentment here, ultimately we are built for heaven. On mornings when I wish we would just wake up without a brain injury after saying, ‘you and me both, sister,’ he points me to heaven and that it is so near. Coming from a man who canʼt sit up in bed on his own but who does not even want to curse God, Iʼll humbly follow his direction.” (desiringgod.org)

Ian and Larissa are real — not just real people but real in their emotions and openness to share their story. This book is a powerful and memorable one. It so happens that their wedding date was on my spouse’s and my anniversary (8.28). I don’t think I’ll celebrate another year without thinking of this couple and feeling thankful for their Christian testimony of when love didn’t give up.

(Learn more about the Murphys at their own blog at ianandlarissa.com)