Title Tuesday: Rethinking Sexuality

Welcome to  Title Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! This day is dedicated to book suggestions, news, cartoons, and reviews. I write this portion of my blog because I am a big believer in the motivational speaker Charlie Jones' quote which says, "You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” I try to meet as many new people as possible and to read everything I can. This is my way of sharing that information with you. You can see a visual summary of the books I have reviewed for both adults and children over on my Facebook page. If you are interested in understanding my rating system for books you can read my Book Review Explanation here and What I Believe here. If you want to check out what I am currently reading or what I want to read next, friend me on Goodreads!

Today, I want to talk about sex.

Wait! It is Title Tuesday. Why are we talking about sex?!?

The answer is, sex permeates our culture and with good reason. God gave us sex to be an awesome experience between a man and woman in the bounds of holy matrimony.  Sex and sensual imagery is all over our society, but not in the way that God designed it. It is assaulting our minds on billboards, oozing into our homes via television, and commandeering the screens on our computers. 

Because of the prevalence of rape, infidelity, homosexuality, transgenderism, pornography, and just plain lust, sex is a topic that the Christian church should be addressing regularly, and yet in most churches it is almost never addressed. 

That is why I want to tell you about Dr. Juli Slattery's newest book, Rethinking Sexuality. Dr. Slattery takes a hard stance on sexual brokenness and the effect that it has on a believer's life. This book is specifically geared towards Bible-believing Christians. On page 8 of Rethinking Sexuality Slattery states, 

The focus has been on compelling teenagers to stay virgins and exposing the many ways that sexuality translates into sin. Because we tend to address sexuality with this problem-solving approach, we divide people into categories of virgins and sinners, sexually whole and sexually broken. If you found yourself in the wrong category, church was the last place that you wanted to seek help. 

This resonates SO MUCH with me and this is just from the first chapter! 

Slattery spends the rest of the book explaining that sexual discipleship should be prevalent in every church congregation. Se also does a fabulous job of explaining exactly how our sexuality interfaces with our theology and our beliefs about God. This book is not written for one gender or another. Instead this book is designed to help bring light into the shadowy places that we as Christians think that God should not be. (As if He doesn't already know about it????) Slattery forces the readers to change their way of thinking about sexuality to help Christian better model sacred sexuality rather than a shame filled secret to be hidden away.

Overall, I give Rethinking Sexuality a solid A+. I think this book is something that literally every Christian should read. It doesn't matter if you are single, newly married, or celebrating your golden anniversary. This book has tools and resources to help you to model your sexuality after the inventor of sexuality and to stand firm in the face of society's pressure to conform to worldly sexuality. 

This book becomes available next week, July 24th. but you can pre-order it on Amazon here, and I totally recommend doing that! 

Title Tuesday: The Old Fashioned Way

Welcome to  Title Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! This day is dedicated to book suggestions and reviews. I write this portion of my blog because I am a big believer in the motivational speaker Charlie Jones' quote which says, "You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” I try to meet as many new people as possible and to read everything I can. This is my way of sharing that information with you. If you are interested in understanding my rating system for books you can read my Book Review Explanation here and What I Believe here. 

Today I want to tell you about The Old Fashioned Way by Ginger Kolbaba. This book is a 40 day devotional adapted from the major motion picture Old Fashioned. Let me begin by saying that I firmly agree with all the principles in this book. Each one of the devotions focuses on keeping your heart pure and not for "the one that you will marry" but rather, for God. Kolbaba does a great job of tackling real issues that people face on a daily basis. 

What with all the junk in the news today after the "50 Shades" release, I appreciate Kolbaba's frank approach of holding to God's standard for sexual purity in dating relationships. She also explains how to rededicate yourself to purity if you stumble, without coming across as condemning the reader. As I was going through this devotional I was encouraged and challenged to be more intentional in what I allow myself to see, hear, and think about. 

Overall I give The Old Fashioned Way an A+ review and while I greatly enjoyed this devotional I really believe that it is geared more towards singles than married people. This could be a great book for accountability groups to go through together. If you have a teenager or college age child I highly recommend this book to encourage them in their battle for sexual purity. 

Encouragement for Homemakers

"A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person."

---Mignon McLaughlin

The Proposal on a Hillside

Well, B and I have officially ended our courtship... with an engagement!

You can read more about our courtship here!

B proposed Friday morning on a beautiful east Texas hillside covered in flowers. We drove out early with the fog still creeping over the highway. We sat in the pine trees watching the cars pass. B talked about the realities of his job (he is a Veterinarian in the military) and where it will take him; he talked about the challenges that his family will face. Then he asked me to take that walk with him. Desperately trying to hold back tears I managed to say yes. We have set the date for July 6, 2013 and we look forward to starting our new life together!

Courtship Catch Up

Thank you to those of you who took the time to tell me your courtship stories! I wrote in February about entering into a courtship with B. (You can read more about that here and here!) I have had a lot of emails asking questions and offering words of encouragement. I thought I would return the favor.

We have been following a courtship process that B's parents have put together. We have spent a lot of time getting to know one another and seeing how the other person handles various situations. Grocery shopping, work, school, friends, church, family... Not all of it has been fun or easy, and it has been an adventure to be sure. Men and women really do speak different languages! I can't speak for B but I can tell you that I have certainly learned a lot.

His garden before... 

His garden after!

B and me my cousin's wedding.

Courtship Part 2

This is part two of Courtship. To read part one click here. 

When I gave my life to Christ men weren’t even on my radar. Then, right when I was so busy getting ready to move and start a new life God brought “B” in to my world. We met two weeks before I left College Station for graduate school, May of 2011. We were instant friends. But I don’t date (and I told him that from the beginning) so we agreed to just be friends.  He was starting his senior year of Vet School when I moved up north for grad school and we enjoyed getting to know one another via email and over the occasional cup of coffee if I was in College Station.

This lasted about six months. Then he asked me to meet his parents.

At this point I guess I should point out that it was not my family that B approached to discuss courtship. This is because this is not something that my family is familiar with at all. In a courtship the man from whom the young man asks permission from is the person who protects the young woman’s heart. My heart has taken a beating more than once because of a lack of protection. Rather than risking adding another scar, B brought me to his family and asked them to help guide us.

I was hesitant initially but I finally agreed. Meeting B’s parents was such a strange experience! I had never met anyone like them. They used a lot of very unfamiliar terms (courtship, intentional, God’s purpose for your life…) but I left the meeting feeling encouraged. A few weeks later his mother invited me to their home after the New Year to discuss dating/courtship and to get to know them all a little better.

I went to their home and I learned SO MUCH! B’s parents had taken an active role in helping their children navigate the possible pitfalls in finding a godly spouse. They gave me literature, pamphlets, and a lot of prayer time. We talked a great deal and I left their home with an understanding of what they thought courtship should look like as well as instructions to think and pray and decide if this was something that I could do. 

I cried the entire three and a half hour drive home. 

J. C. Leyendecker 1904 - springtime courtship

How could I possibly do this process? I don’t have parents like this. Even if asked, my parents would not be involved in this process. I was afraid that the only fair thing to do would be to tell B that I could not do it. Then B’s mom suggested that instead of having my parents being in charge I need to build a team. This team would help evaluate my readiness to enter into a courtship relationship and to act as my protectors. I spent a year building my team and man they are incredible. They helped to work with me as a young child of God. They taught me spiritual disciplines and life skills.

The first six months after I met with his parents we spoke about once a month in an email. We each needed time to learn, work, and grow in our personal relationship with Christ before we could even look at a courtship.

After B’s family and my team agreed that we had developed enough to move forward we began to meet once every couple of weeks or so to talk and discuss a list of major life topics that B’s parents had developed. We covered everything from Communion to child raising to books. We got a chance to say, “Hey how do you feel about ________ and what Biblical principle is that based on?”  It was HARD! But in the end it was worth it. All of these questions were designed to get to know each other from afar with the understanding that he could be someone else’s husband someday so we wanted to prevent any unnecessary bonds from forming. We finished up these questions in early January of 2013.

This weekend (with the permission of his parents and my team members) B asked me to enter into an official courtship relationship with him.

I have agreed.

I am looking forward to this next phase. Entering into courtship was a big decision that I spent a great deal of time and prayer on. I am so thankful for my wonderful team members who have helped and guided me through this process. I can't wait to see what God has planned next!

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11 

Courtship Part 1

One of the questions that is asked most frequently of me about this blog is my relationship status. My usual reply is that the focus of this blog is not me personally, but rather the struggles, trials, and victories of being a young Christian woman moving away from the feminist mindset. However, one of the ways I write is through personal experience so today I am going to address the subject of relationship status.

I am single.

The response to this is often, do you date? No, I do not date in the traditional sense. There are scars from my past that have prevented me from being comfortable doing the traditional “dating” thing. Which in the long run, is probably for the better anyways but that is a post for another day.

Today I want to talk about courtship.

Courtship by Henry Mosler

Courtship is one of those words that incite a really strong response in some people. I will be posting an article in the near future about the differences between courtship and dating. For now, let’s just focus on courtship. Courtship has different definitions and there are different ways of going about a “traditional courtship”.  In most instances, a young man would become interested in a young woman and approach her father. At this point, the father would get to know the young man, mentor him, and learn about his beliefs. If the father saw no obvious issues, or problems the young man would be given permission to court the young woman, if she agreed. This courtship would take place in the presence of family or chaperone. The parents would watch the relationship develop and would step in if there was an issue or if the young pair was headed in the wrong directions.  After an appropriate amount of time the young man would approach the young woman’s father and ask for her hand in marriage. If the father granted his permission then the young man would propose to the young woman. This is in the ideal situation.

My story wasn’t exactly ideal. 

This is part one of Courtship. To read part two click here.