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"We push our bodies through the day without the right food as though we were cars that could run without gasoline," Pamela says. "We aren't getting enough rest and are being overcome by the stresses of living life. Yet we are too busy or too tired to do anything about it."

The result? A cavernous weariness that produces hopelessness and depression, while stifling the ability to laugh, enjoy relationships, and think creatively.

"Chronic fatigue presents a terrible attack on marriages," says Pamela. "But so much of the struggle that couples experience is just a response to their energy crisis."

Do you and your spouse function near the limits of your physical and emotional endurance most days? Do you find yourselves routinely doing battle over little things that aren't a problem when you're both feeling rested? If so, it may be time to stop and assess your lifestyle for solutions to your own personal energy crisis.

The first step is to recognize the problem. Most people readily associate fatigue and energy deficit with the desire to be a couch potato. But Pamela explains that people aren't so used to linking mental confusion, short-term memory loss, irritability, lowered immunity, insomnia, mood swings, sweets cravings, even difficulty with losing weight and staying on an exercise plan, with a lack of energy.

"People have become accustomed to feeling bad," Pamela says. "They get so used to feeling tired that they look on fatigue as being normal. But the essential message of The Energy Edge is that while fatigue may be common in couples living in the twenty-first century, it is not normal. And it is not how God designed our bodies."

Pamela suggests that our bodies were created with "energy scripted into every cell." The question is, do our lifestyle choices allow a free flow of that energy? And how do overtaxed couples find the time or energy to make a change?

"One of the vicious downward cycles of health is that when you're tired or sick, the idea of changing your life is absolutely overwhelming," Pamela explains. "The worse you feel, the worse you take care of yourself. And the worse you take care of yourself, the worse you feel."

For that reason, Pamela's no-nonsense advice for breaking free from the fatigue cycle is both positive and practical. In the opening sections of her book, she details her "Top Ten Power Points" for a life filled with energy. The steps can be tackled one at a time, in any order. The important thing is to begin.

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