Watch this! "Watch Me!"

Short but sweet today.

This is so worth 5 minutes of your time. Seriously. You need to watch this.

 Watch Me!

Video Description: Using audio from Don Carson, this short video challenges us from the Bible how we must be sharing our lives, opening up the Bible and changing generations as we point them to Jesus.  

Book Talk: Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye? Trusting God With a Hope Deferred ~Carolyn McCulley

Did I Kiss Marriage Goodbye? Trusting God With a Hope Deferred ~Carolyn McCulley

Disregarding the whole argument of whether or not singleness is a gift, and if it is, what kind of a gift it is (c.f. Barry Danylak's take on this in Redeeming Singleness), this is a very practical and encouraging read. Carolyn McCulley uses the well-known passage on the Proverbs 31 woman to advise single women on how to live their lives now to God's glory.

She outlines how we can learn to approach our relationships as single women in a godly manner and also how we can practically live out our faith in areas such as hospitality, money, service, our words, and more.

This is not just a "fluff" book on what it means to be single in the church or how to get married ASAP, but rather an in-depth guide to living a productive life as a single (McCulley compares this to using our "talent" of singleness--Matt 25).

One I recommend.

Book Talk: The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After ~Elizabeth Kantor

The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After ~Elizabeth Kantor

“Women today and settling for less than we want when it comes to men, relationships, sex, and marriage. But we don't have to, argues Elizabeth Kantor. Jane Austen can show us how to find the love we really want. 

In The Jane Austen Guide to Happily Ever After, Kantor reveals how the examples of Jane Austen heroines such as Elizabeth Bennet, Elinor Dashwood, and Anne Elliot can help us navigate the modern-day minefields of dating, love, relationships, and sex. By following in their footsteps—and steering clear of the sad endings suffered by characters such as Maria Bertram and Charlotte Lucus—modern women can discover the path to lifelong love and true happiness.” (Inside cover flap)

I read this one through (twice in a row!) with pencil in hand and sticky flags at the ready. Kantor speaks about the “Cult of Sensibility” which has invaded and permeated our ideas of what Romantic love is all about (Chp 2). She uses Jane Austen's heroines and heroes to give us practical lessons and guidelines for how we should be directing our love lives: such as taking love seriously (Chp 5), looking for the “rational happiness” that Elizabeth Bennet speaks of (Chp 6), and “being prudent in real love” like Anne Elliot (163) and the importance of discerning a man' intentions before we commit our emotions into the relationship as a way of guarding ourselves from heartbreak (Chp 12).

I highly recommend this one for both the lessons and also for the great insights in the characters and construction of Austen's great novels. Although this is not specifically written from a Christian point-of-view, Kantor does reference her own faith occasionally, which I found very encouraging.