Title Tuesday: Boys Should Be Boys

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!

I have two rambunctious little boys at home. William just turned four and Henry is two and a half years old. With #MeToo, #YesAllMen, and the gross Gillette commercial that aired recently, many moms just like me are concerned for what kind of world our boys will grow up in. How can we raise young men that aren't participating in #toxicMasculinity, but that are in fact masculine? Having grown up in a single parent household with my mother, I had no clue, and I wanted a better understanding of what masculinity is supposed to be. I decided to start looking at books geared towards parenting boys. A friend of mine recommended Boys Should Be Boys: 7 Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons by Dr. Meg Meeker and I went right out and bought it. 

Let me say, if you are one of those people who has #Feminist in your twitter bio, you are probably going to HATE this book. Dr. Meeker takes a no-nonsense approach to boyhood. She talks practically and with true pragmatism about the challenges that boys face in our modern society. 
Dr. Meeker address things like: 

• pornography
• boundaries and rules
• electronics
• teenagers
• sex
• how to address difficult situations
• the influence of mothers
• the importance of fathers

The real kicker for me came on page 224, where Meeker writes:

There are only a handful of adults in your son's life who will teach him the great lessons in life. As his parent, seize the day. HE won't learn these virtues from three hours of television, two hours of computer time, or even six hours in school. He needs to learn them from you, and to see how you put them into practice. There's no time like the present to help your son become the man you want him to be. He is waiting.  

As I said before, Meeker doesn't pull any punches. She is a huge advocate for masculinity and boyhood and calls out lazy parenting and schooling for creating this fear of masculinity that we see so predominantly in society today. Overall, I give Boys Should Be Boys: 7 Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons by Dr. Meg Meeker  a SOLID A+ and I recommend it for anyone who has a son, knows a little boys, teaches school, works at a church, or might one day want to have a positive impact in a young man's life. 

Title Tuesday: Every Heart Restored

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. 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 share a book that is very dear to my heart. Every Heart Restored by Fred & Brenda Stoeker is a book that works to bring restoration to wives and focus back to marriages damaged by a husband's sexual sin.  

While the book does say that it is geared towards all sexual sin (lust, porn, emotional and physical affairs) I find that most of the information is better geared towards pornography and lust issues than affairs. If you want to see text geared specifically towards affairs, check out my review of "After a Good Man Cheats" by Caroline Madden, PhD. 

Now, back to Every Heart Restored. This book is different from other "infidelity help" books in that it really does actually help. Every Heart Restored explains the male sex drive from a biblical perspective. It helps women to see that men truly do have different needs, desires, and potential pitfalls sexually. The authors take the readers through the various things in life that can damage a man, allowing a sexual sin to slip in and take root. While these past issues do not by any means excuse the sexual sin, it can help a wife to realize that these sins of her husband's are NOT her fault.  I love that this book takes a hard line on what sexual sin is and isn't. I like that the Stoekers don't fall for the "boys will be boys, so you need to just forgive him and move on line" that is so often pushed in Christian marriage circles. 

Overall, I rate Every Heart Restored a solid A+ book. I would say that if your husband is struggling with sexual sin or if you are having a difficult time moving beyond his past sexual sins, Every Heart Restored is worth your time and energy. I would also recommend that if you are a husband that has been unable to reach your wife despite having apologized profusely this book could help you to understand the tremendous hurt that your wife is carrying and trying to overcome.

Motherhood Monday: The Man in the Grey Suit

Welcome to another Motherhood Monday! Motherhood is an incredible blessing. But it is also a huge challenge. Anyone that has experienced motherhood will tell you, there is an incredible shift in your very being when you become a mother. This is the day dedicated to all things "mommy" related. Check here each Monday for a new post. 

Today, I want to tell you about a man at our church a few months ago. He was in a grey full three piece suit, his hair was grey, and he carried an old leather bound Bible under his arm. As soon as he sat down in the pew in front of us my heart sank and all I could think was, "oh no".

Now before you go thinking that I hate old people I should explain something first.

You see I have two sons, at the time they were 19 months old and 3 months old and we keep them in church with us. We believe that if at all possible our children should be in the worship service with us. The reasons behind this are many:

• We (my husband and I) are responsible for training our children well (Proverbs 22:6) We want our sons to learn to listen to the sermon, take notes, and grow in the body of Christ. It's hard to do that if they are only on the sanctuary when there isn't any children's church.
• We don't believe in separating the body of Christ by ages. In fact, Titus 2:1-5 talks about the older people teaching the younger people. That's hard to do if everyone in your class is all the same age. We lose a huge opportunity to learn from the older and wiser when we break off in age brackets.
• Finally, Jesus himself said, "let the children come to me" (Matthew 19:14). If Christ (who only had 3 short years for his ministry) took the time to teach with the children, so too can we.

At the last church when my (then) 4 month old son made any noise at all (even just happy baby sounds) people would turn and stare. I kid you not. No other children were in the service. I then, had a chaplain's wife come and tell me how distracting my son was for her during the service. It wasn't like he was screaming, he was simply doing what babies do. After careful prayer and consideration we decided to leave that church since it was so unwelcoming of children in the service.

Ok, back to my story. We are in church, the worship team is about to get rolling and in come this older gentleman and his wife. As they sit in front of us I can't help but think of the church that we left to begin attending this church. I was afraid of being accused of disrupting again. My son did very well the entire service. He "took notes" with his little church toolbox that I made for him. He read his book quietly.

At the very end of the service he started to get a little antsy and I thought, "oh no, here it comes". But the old man never turned around. He continued to follow along in his Bible taking notes. When we were released the old man stood up and turned to leave. As he did, I caught his eye and he smiled the knowing smile of a fellow parent. He waved at my son and gave him a thumbs up as he walked away.

I wish I had told him thank you. 

So now, I am going to say it. 

Thank you for helping to reinforce that parenting is normal. Thank you for helping to reassure two newbie parents that we are doing a good job. Thank you for modeling how a Godly man responds to little children in the church. Thank you for being welcoming, like Christ.

Wife to Wife Wednesday: The Husband Bashing Edition

Good morning! Welcome to Wife to Wife Wednesday, the day that we discuss any and all issues relating to marriage. 

So, I realized that the title of my post may be misleading, after I wrote my post. We will not e bashing our husbands today. Instead I want to talk about why you shouldn't bash your husband. First though, lets start with some vocabulary. 

The thing a husband requires most in life is respect. All men across the board answer resoundingly that this is the desires of their heart. Dr. Emerson Eggerich talks about this extensively in his book Love and Respect. I honestly in the past I haven't put much stock in men's need for respect because frankly I didn't understand it. (In a lot of ways I still don't but having three men in my home is making me learn it in new ways!) We aren't going to get in to the issues of respecting your husband and the reasons why. I will save that for another day because it is a big topic that deserves its own post(s). Today I am going to assume that everyone still readying this post is a Christian and takes the command in Ephesians 5:23, to respect your husband,  seriously. 

That is all great and wonderful, but back to the vocabulary. 

Why am I using the word bash?

From what I have seen in my four years doing in home ministry most Christian women at least attempt to be respectful of their husbands, when the husband is present. Only a few times have I seen a wife seriously disrespect her husband publicly and most of those times were enacted by new wives who were unaware of the husbands need or they simply didn't understand that what they were doing was disrespectful. Again, we are not talking about them today. 

Today, I am talking about things said negatively about husbands when they are not in the room. When I was brainstorming with some trusted friends about my writing recently, my friend Anna requested that I tackle this subject. My friend specifically mentioned husband bashing and Facebook. Honestly it wasn't something that I was super in tune with until after she mentioned it and then I saw it more often than I could believe. 

In most situations, I don't believe that these women set out to intentionally be disrespectful, but they splash their lives all over the Internet and they are not discrete about their husbands shortcomings, or worse, they highlight them! That is why I am using the word bash. They aren't being outright ugly, but they are doing damage and they don't realize it.

"But Morgan," they say, "It was a joke! It was funny, lighten up!" This is where I will refer back to scripture. Titus 2:7 says, "In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness". I don't believe that making fun of your spouse on the internet is a good idea. You would (hopefully) never walk in to your husband's place of business and talk about what a loser he is, so why do you put it on Facebook? I think it is a slippery slope from "teasing" to complaining about your husband and therefore undermining your marriage. 

So in conclusion for today, before you post on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever else think twice. Is what your posting honoring to your husband, to your marriage? Would you feel comfortable saying to a group of your husband's colleagues with him in the room? If not, don't post it. Protect your marriage and protect your witness.    

Title Tuesday: Twelve Ordinary Men

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 will be reviewing Twelve Ordinary Men, by John MacArthur. I originally ordered this book for my Thursday morning Bible study. We decided that we wanted to know more about the 12 disciples of Christ and MacArthur is one of my favorite teachers of the Bible, so this book seemed like a natural fit. 

I greatly enjoyed reading through this book. MacArthur does an excellent job of breaking down the lives of  the 12 men closest to Jesus as an adult. The book is well organized and easy to understand. The 10 chapters are broken down with an introduction at the beginning and individual chapters for Peter, Andrew, James, John, Phillip, Nathanael, and double chapters for Matthew and Thomas, James, Simon, and Judas (not Iscariot), and finally a lone chapter for Judas Iscariot. I so enjoy the way that MacArthur delves into the history (as much as is possible) and social customs of the time for each of the men. 

Overall I give Twelve Ordinary Men a A+ review. This book would be a great resource for a new believer. This book could be used to help a new believer to understand the different disciples and the roles that they played in Jesus' ministry. 

Rape: A Four Letter Word

Curtains
Paul Cezanne

I am going to talk about a four letter word thrown around causally in society today. (Fair warning, this post may not be easy to read.)

The word is rape. 

Rape is a topic that is tricky in the Christian community. The open and welcoming arms of Christ are not always echoed by the members of a congregation that does not have the skills to address the issue of rape. But I am not going to address the dogma, reasons, or implications of rape, instead I want to talk about the word rape.

• You have the word thrown around in relation to abortion rights.
• Sexual liberation activists use this word frequently.
• I read an article last week in which the author wrote that she felt like she had been "verbally raped" on twitter because of something the opposing side said to her.
• I was with a group of Christians this last week and I heard a young man say, "Yeah, the test was terrible, it totally raped me." I turned to see who could possibly be comparing their failure to perform academically to the egregious violation of the human body. The offenders? Not some rough scary man but rather two teenage boys; judging by their letter jackets, juniors in high school. 

So what bothers me so much about these things? People say that I am reading too much into it, that it is just a word. But that is not true. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines rape as:

unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent.

an outrageous violation

Rape is an outrageous violation. We have become incredibly desensitized to the word rape and I think we have forgotten what it really means. Your lack of preparation for a test, is not rape. Your acing a test is not rape. Someone saying something you don't want to hear is not rape. We start hearing about date rape in middle/high school. We see movies, television shows, and books that romanticize and downplay rape. I believe that this desensitization and romanticism comes from a warped view of masculinity and femininity. 

So, I am calling for action. 

Men, stand up. I know that term is thrown around casually in male circles more often than in women's circles. Stand up for your wives, mothers, sisters, friends, daughters. You were given the incredible job of protecting the women in your life.I  believe that part of that protection includes reminding other men that just because the rest of the world says it, does not mean that it is ok. Yeah, it can (and probably will be) awkward. However, on this I would like to quote Ellie Wiesel who said that regarding moral issues, "We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim... sometimes we  must interfere". I guarantee you when you put a stop to that kind of conversation there is at least one person in every single group that will be immensely thankful for your bravery. 

Women, speak up. I should have said something to the young men, and I did not. I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable. I didn't want to be that crazy woman. And you know what? It has been nagging at me for days. I have no problem telling a group of people to watch their language or comments if they are inappropriate.  Why is this subject any different? Because there is a curtain around the issue of rape. It is a word that leaves people with a bitter taste in their mouths if they really stop to think about it. So, women (especially those who have experienced rape) need to speak up and lift the curtain. Rape does not make you dirty or unclean, it does not make you damaged for not wanting to hear that word in everyday conversation. Don't let your voice be silenced by fear judgement or condemnation. You are a child of God, protected by His healing hands.  

If you have been a victim of sexual assault or rape, speak up. There are churches, missions, and organizations that can help you, no matter how long ago the crime occurred. Do not let being the victim be the end of your story. You survived, now it is time to thrive under the all encompassing arms of Jesus Christ. He is the only way to be free from the devastation that is rape. If you have questions or need resources contact me here and I will gladly pass along information.