Title Tuesday: Shattered Vows

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!

Good morning! Every once in a while I share book reviews geared towards women trying to recovery from a husband's (physical/emotional/cyber) infidelity. These books will not interest most people, so if you are one of my regular #Title Tuesday readers and you aren't interested in this topic, I promise I will be back to my regular reviews/cartoons next week.

Alright, those of you that are still reading, I want to share with you about Debra Laaser's book, Shattered Vows. For anyone that has had their marriage ravaged by infidelity, you know that it is a devastating blow. It can take months to years to heal from a single affair, longer if their are repeat offenses or continued lying.

In the case of Debra Laaser, her marriage was rocked by the discovery of her husband's multiple sexual betrayals. Her husband lost his job and they entered a very difficult season of recovery and trust rebuilding. Now, they travel together all over the globe and tell other couples their story. They are an incredible example of the redemptive nature of Jesus Christ in a marriage.

I won't lie to you, some of this book is difficult to read. The concept of dealing with your own issues and pain can be frustrating when your heart has been broken by your spouse. However, there was one particular paragraph from Laaser's book that made me keep reading and pushing forward, On page 67 Debra writes,

The feelings won't just go away over time. Not thinking about your husband's sinful decisions won't make them magically disappear. Quickly forgiving your husband and "moving on" will only bury your feelings of anger and sadness- only to have them seep out at unexpected times down the road. The better choice is to go to any lengths to get the support you deserve so you can heal and thrive, not just survive.

This, to me, summarizes the entire book. Recovery from (physical/emotional/cyber) infidelity is incredibly hard and Debra Laaser walks the reader through the first steps with incredible grace.

In Shattered Vows, Debra tackles tough topics like:
-does marital sex prevent pornography use?
--sexually transmitted diseases
-the drip disclosure method
-healthy grieving
-slips and relapses
-and a whole lot more

Debra is honest, concise, and doesn't pander to the "the wife needs to stay in her lane" junk that is often passed around in moral/sexual purity discussion. She does delve a bit into the idea of "codependency", which I don't believe is a prevalent as many psychologists and counselors seem to think. However, that withstanding, this book is excellent and I strongly recommend it to anyone deal with marital (physical/emotional/cyber) infidelity. Overall I give Debra Laaser's book Shattered Vows a solid A+, and it is the first book I recommend to women dealing with marital infidelity.

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 Child Safeguarding Policy Guide

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. If you want to check out what I am currently reading or what I want to read next, friend me on Goodreads. With all that being said, lets jump in!

This book was provided by Litfuse Group
in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. 

Today's book is a little more somber than our normal Title Tuesday posts but no less interesting and maybe even more important. The Child Safeguarding Policy Guide for Churches and Ministries by Basyle Tchividjian and Shira M. Berkovits may not sound like an invigorating read, but if you are involved in ministry in ANY WAY AT ALL then I suggest that you take a look at this book. 

Tchividjian and Berkovits are frank and honest in their discussion of the dangers surrounding the Christian community. They don't pull any punches in the understanding of who can become a victim (both girls AND boys of any age!) and who can become a predator. They break the book down into sections describing what abuse may (or may not) look like. They clearly and decisively explain how to best safeguard children and staff members from potential issues. Tchividjian and Berkovits also do a really good job of  explaining how to respond to an issue involving a child and how to support survivors of abuse both inside and outside the church. 

Overall I would give The Child Safeguarding Policy Guide for Churches and Ministries by Basyle Tchividjian and Shira M. Berkovits a solid B+ rating. It is a great book that all ministries should have on their shelves. The regular, everyday Christian might not find it useful in daily life. However, as a mother of two young boys and another little baby on the way, I probably don't have to state the fact that safety is a high priority for our family. Being a military family means moving often. When we move to a new duty station we have to start all over in finding a church, a babysitter, and friends that we are comfortable having our children be around on a regular basis. I have to say that protecting my children is often at the forefront of my mind especially when we are at a new duty station trying to find a new church. I know that for myself (as well as many other military families) it would ease my mind a great deal to know that these churches had a plan in place to prevent abuse issues from happening and a procedure for what to do in the absolutely horrific instance that it does happen. I would feel much more comfortable at a church that used The Child Safeguarding Policy Guide for Churches and Ministries by Basyle Tchividjian and Shira M. Berkovits as a guide post for their ministries.  

Title Tuesday: Worthy of Her Trust

Welcome to  Title Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! 

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.

I have had a lot of questions and requests about re-building your marriage after pornography usage. Last week I reviewed Nicki Tiede's When Your Husband Is Addicted To Pornography: Healing Your Wounded Heart". Going along with this theme, today I want to tell you about "Worthy of Her Trust: What You Need to Do to Rebuild Sexual Integrity and Win Her Back" by Stephen Arterburn and Jason B. Martinkus. 

I need to start off with the fact that  "Worthy of Her Trust: What You Need to Do to Rebuild Sexual Integrity and Win Her Back" is written to men, and not women.  Now women you can absolutely read it (I did!) especially if you husband isn't a reader but he really does want to rebuild your trust. While the authors are Christians, if your husband isn't a believer but he is open to rebuilding trust, this book has many useful tools that are areligious.  Fair warning though, the authors are tough. They take a nonsense approach and speak fairly plainly, man to man. But as a wife, I can honestly say that this book has helped me to better understand the battle that our husbands face with moral purity too. I just wanted to give you a heads up. 

Arterburn and Martinkus do a really good job of laying out what it means to break trust and then how to go about building it back up. They make it clear that it won't be quick or easy. They also inform the reader that what works for one family won't work for another. I absolutely LOVE the section in the book that talks about active honest (meaning tell the truth in EVERYTHING, no little white lies). I think this is something that every Christian marriage should practice regardless of pornography struggles or not. 

This book is broken down into four different parts: Exchanging Myths for Reality, The Nonnegotiable of Trust Building, Mending Wounds, and Trust Building Tactics. I found that each section builds on the last. This isn't the kind of book that you hop around in. Instead, I would go through it methodically. 

Overall, I would give "Worthy of Her Trust: What You Need to Do to Rebuild Sexual Integrity and Win Her Back" an A+ and then some. If I had a higher rating I would use that. This book is an excellent tool that should be in every Christian family's toolbox. 

(Just so you know, the links are part of the Amazon affiliate program, 

if you purchase any of these things from my links I will receive a small commission off of your purchase.)

Title Tuesday: When Your Husband Is Addicted To Pornography

Welcome to  Title Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! 

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.

I have had a lot of questions and requests about re-building your marriage after pornography usage. So today, I am going to write about Nicki Tiede's When Your Husband Is Addicted To Pornography: Healing Your Wounded Heart". 

I need to start by saying that this book is not a touchy-feely book. It is a hard one to get through. Don't get me wrong, it is well written, but the subject matter isn't easy. Tiede's book is designed for women whose husband is viewing (typical) pornography. If your husband has cheated, is abusive, or is looking at something illegal, this is not the book for you.

This book is broken down into 6 weeks, with five days each. Each day has a portion to read, blanks to fill in, and a journaling portion. The reading portion each day contains truly helpful and biblical counsel rather than just another "pray really hard" book. (Let me clarify, there is NOTHING wrong with praying hard about your marriage, but books that promise tips and advice in marriage and then only point to prayer rather than prayer in addition to self reflection, being in the Word, and ridding your home of tempting materials are not worth the money!) With most books, I really dislike the fill in the blank questions. It usually feels like they are trying to extend the page length of the book by asking questions directly from the text. Tiede does a really good job of making the questions interesting, developing, and thorough without it being redundant. The journaling portion is probably the most often skipped of any "self help" book, but Tiede's is definitely worth doing and doing well.  

Overall I would give Nicki Tiede's When Your Husband Is Addicted To Pornography: Healing Your Wounded Heart" a solid A+. If you find that your marriage is losing the battle against pornography this book is an excellent resource along with biblical counseling, accountability, and internet filters and monitoring. 

(Just so you know, the links are part of the Amazon affiliate program, if you purchase any of these things from my links I will receive a small commission off of your purchase.)

Military Monday: News Update

Welcome to another Military Monday.  Upon marrying a military man I learned that there is a LOT to know about life as a military spouse. Mondays are my day to talk about the things I am learning, the new language, military news and current events. Ready? Lets jump in. 

Today is the fourth anniversary of the Fort Hood shooting rampage that left 13 people dead and more than 30 wounded. There is a memorial being built in honor of the victims of the shooting in Killeen, Texas near Fort Hood. 

In August, Major Nidal Hasan was convicted and sentenced to death for the attack. He is in military custody pending his execution.  

Please be in prayer for all of the men, women, and children that were impacted by the attack.

Broken Pottery

When I was very young my grandmother was given a handmade tea set by a very good friend. This tea set was the single most beautiful thing I had ever seen. It is a beautiful rose shade of pink with just a hit on a shimmer to it. The set in my mind (to this very day) possess a quiet strength. My grandmother would host tea for my sister and I once a month or so, and this became the highlight of my month. I so looked forward to dressing up and being allowed to have tea from grandma’s beautiful tea set.

Overtime the tea set began to mean much more to me than just a chance to play at being a grown up. Being an overly imaginative child, I began to imagine myself as a tea set. I was the tea pot, the center of my set. My pattern was pretty, delicate, and free of chips (green ivy was the usual color I imagined, I’m not sure why). I started off my life with an intact set; I had my mother and father and eventually my little sister Conner. Over time, my set began to change and shift. I come from a broken home. (That is a term that a lot of “divorce kids” hate. Very rarely in fact will you hear a divorce kid use that term. It is more often used by the concerned members of well-established families when talking about friends whose parents are divorced. This term is now one of my favorites when giving my testimony.) My mother and father divorced; suddenly I had a broken set. My mother and father each remarried. My father had three more children with my stepmother.  My mother remarried another five times through my childhood and adolescence. By the time I got to my freshman year of college, my tea set didn’t look anything like those of my friends. In fact, I would look at the “perfect” families of my friends and even members of my extended family with extreme jealousy. My tea set was not perfect, or even close. I had pieces come in and go out. These pieces not only left chips and shards behind as they moved on, but they also took chips from me and my set.  

People came into and out of my life. Yes, I come from a broken family. My parents are divorced; in fact my mother has been divorced six times.  In doing so they left piece of themselves and took pieces from me as well. For many years I struggled to make all my pieces fit back together. I glued pieces that didn’t match into place in order to present the image of a perfect set. I didn’t want anyone to see my damaged sides! Finally I couldn’t hold it all together anymore. All the pieces began to crack and fall apart. So here I am, with my world in shatters all over the place and ready to give up. Instead of throwing my life away and letting the fact that I am broken ruin me, I gave my life to Christ, the ultimate artist.

In giving my life to Christ I allowed him to be the glue holding me together. Doing it without God was pointless, I kept trying to seal the cracks and wondering why I couldn’t. It took me a while to realize I needed to stop sealing things and let myself break. Yes, I fell apart, pieces were everywhere and it wasn’t very pretty. But God is so much bigger than my crises. I had all these broken pieces, I myself was no longer whole. God saw this as an opportunity. Have you ever seen a mosaic? These beautiful creations can be found throughout history in cultures all over the world. The way these works of art are created are by taking pieces of pottery, stone, and glass and adhering them together to create an image. That is exactly what God is doing with my life. He is taking what I saw as broken and mismatched pieces and turning them into a work of art.

I can’t see the full image yet, I can see sections of it though. I can admit that there are some days when I struggle to see past one little broken piece. But the one true master craftsman is at work in my life. So when I ask is it possible to take something that is incredibly dark, ugly, and twisted and use it to make something beautiful? The answer is: Yes! God’s plan is infinitely more creative than anything that we can imagine. Sometimes the little pieces don’t make sense to us, sometimes it hurts when the chips happen. But God knows the design that he has for my life, so I no longer worry about holding the pieces together with my own power. I don’t have to, God is at work.

Scars

Today I want to write about scars. Scars are something I know a little bit about. I have a scar on right my thumb from falling through a screen door, and a scar on my right knee from a pencil. I also have a very random chickenpox scar between my eyes. 

  

But, scars aren't just what you can see. 

Other than my knee and my thumb, most of my scars are on the inside. I have a colorful past. My past has left me with a lot of scars. Some of these scars I am aware of everyday, like the way I plan everything down to the last minute. Other scars I stumble across unexpectedly in the strangest places, like catching my breath when someone touches me unexpectedly. These scars that can't be seen are insidious. You don't know that they are there until you stumble across them. Then it is up to you to decide what you do with them. The important thing to recognize is the fact that wounds do not define you.

A scar is defined as a mark left by a healed wound or the lasting aftereffect of trouble. There is damage done prior to the formation of a scar. There is a wound that has to heal for the scar to form. Sometimes scars are ugly, in fact most of the time scars are pretty ugly. But scars do not define you. Scars don't make you any less beautiful.

These are things that I know in my mind. I know that my scars do not define me, but sometimes it causes me to pause. When I see my scars I see the pain, but I also see how far I have come. I wonder what people think of my scars. Do they notice when I step back and have to catch my breath? Do they think I am weak? Do they know how hard I have fought to get to this point? I know that it is hard to understand when you are on the outside. 

Your scars look different from mine. 

So what do scars have to do with Christianity? Jeremiah 33:6 says, "Behold, I will bring it health and healing; I will heal them and reveal to them the abundance of peace and truth." A lot of people think healing and they think only of the body. A scar is defined as a mark left by a healed wound or the lasting aftereffect of trouble. God is how we go from wounds to scars, and not just on the outside. But we have to let Him. We can't do it on our own no matter how hard we try.  Psalm 147:3 says, "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Cast your burden on God, He can handle it. 

What a Mess!

I saw this picture floating around on facebook the other day. I couldn’t help but adore it. Only God can turn a mess into a message, a test into a testimony, a trial into a triumph, and a victim into a victory…. WOW! This is something that people need to think about. Life is hard, there are challenges. However, through Christ all things are possible. 

This is a lesson that I am still learning. It would be very easy for me to sit back and wallow in the fact that I had a hard childhood. In fact, I spent a long time doing exactly that. I would not go to church and get involved because I don’t want “those people” to ask about my family and think of me as a VICTIM of the TRIALS and TESTS.  I couldn’t bring my friends home because I didn’t want them to see the MESS. I wasted years of my life being embarrassed and ashamed of my past, when all I need to do was give it to God.


In making the choice to give my hurts over to God, I let go of the burden of my past. Yes, it was hard, yes it was ugly. I cannot stand a mess! But God has a plan for me. Through the mess of my family I am learning how to work with (and minister to) broken families; thus turning my mess into a possible MESSAGE. My parents and I had some very difficult times, testing my faith in God. Now, my TESTIMONY is that much more influential. Through my testimony I am able to give hope to other women and children from tough situations. These are the people who might not be able to connect with someone from a “traditional” family. Through my trials I was made so much stronger. By overcoming adversity the trials became TRIUMPHS; this has been essential in forming my walk with Christ. Last but certainly not least, God took the broken version of me, the victim and is using me to his glory. I would call that a VICTORY, wouldn’t you?


The important thing to remember is that you cannot make these changes on your own. By my own power I could tackle one of these at a time, at best. Even then, I failed multiple times. But then I found Christ. With God’s help, you can overcome your mess, trials, tests, and you do NOT have to be a victim. Matthew 19:26 says that “Jesus looked at them and said, “with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” God is big enough to handle all of your problems, you just have to hand them over and let him work on you.    

A Pleasant Word

Today I want to write about words. “Words” is a bit vague in introductions I suppose, however words are weighing heavily on my heart today. Not words in the written sense , because being a writer, I can write all day long. Instead, I want to talk about words that are spoken. 

When I was twelve my grandfather gave me a copy of William Safire’s Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History. In this book you got to see the greatest of orators from ancient Greece through the modern era. I think this book is the reason that I fell in love with words. 

Due to a minor touch of glossophobia, I knew from an early age that public speaking is probably not for me. However, I do recognize the power of words, even if I won’t ever captivate an audience with a resounding speech. Words are a very powerful entity! They empower and encourage. Words can bring a nation to change; words can inspire people to be better. One only has to look through history books to see how speeches moved people to fight against inequality, racism, and social injustice. 

My deep respect for words grew in college. The more I read the more I saw what an influence words can have on people. I began to think, if words have such an incredible effect on a large scale, what are they capable of on a smaller scale? Proverbs 16:24 says that “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” (NIV).  A kindly spoken word, a moment of praise, or a simple “good morning” can often raise a person’s spirits significantly. They can cause a person to believe in themselves again, even if the battle has been long and difficult.

But if words have such incredible GOOD power, what happens when words are used to means other than good? What happens when words are used in anger or malice? If words are used as weapons, they are deadly indeed. Words can tear a person a part if they are said in anger or even carelessly. Proverbs 18:7 says, “A fool's mouth is his destruction, and his lips are the snare of his soul.” We do not want to have the fool’s mouth! We must pay attention to what we say! Words cannot be taken back, and they cannot be washed away. Once you put words out into the world, it is done. Words can be forgiven but never forgotten. 

I feel like this is particularly true for ladies. There are two ways that people communicate: verbally and non-verbally. For women, our tone and attitude say a lot more than our words do at times. We must be careful both with the words we chose and with the tone in which we deliver them. We should be a good example to all the people that we come in contact with. What better way to start than with how we speak to them? This means your husband, friends, coworkers, beauticians, the boy who bags your groceries…. Everyone! Ephesians 4:29 says, “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.”  Why don’t we try this week to give grace to those with whom we interact? Let’s see if we can let the light of Jesus Christ shine through us to brighten the days of our friends and family.