When I first read Debi Pearl’s Created to Be His Help Meet, I wanted to burn it.

True story.

I had liked it for the first several chapters, but then she kept making me so mad with the conclusions she was coming to, and the language she was using, and the points she was making.  If you’ve never heard of Created to Be His Help Meet, it’s a book for wives on how to make your marriage a “heavenly marriage”, focusing on the Scriptures that deal directly with women and wives.  She doesn’t shy away from verses like 1 Corinthians 11:3 (“But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.”) and 1 Timothy 2:14 (“And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.”).  For that very reason, Pearl’s book is one that is either loved, or despised.  I’ve read absolutely venomous reviews of this book, and if you’ve heard of it you’ve likely heard at least something negative about it, such as “Debi is heartless”, “Debi has no grace” and “Her book promotes female servitude”.  

When I first read it, I tried to put those thoughts out of my mind and give it a fair hearing, but I eventually got so mad at her that I gave it back to the person who loaned it to me, without finishing it.  I came to many of the same conclusions as those negative reviewers I’d read about – that Debi was heartless, and that her expectations were unrealistic, and that living like she writes about (submitting to and obeying your husband in everything) was just unrealistic and ridiculous.

Fast forward nearly a year, and for some reason I couldn’t get Created out of my head.  I went back to the shelves of the lady I borrowed it from, and sat down to just flip through the book and see if it were as bad as I remembered.  Almost as soon as I started reading, I didn’t feel indignation like last time – I felt conviction.  It was like Debi was talking straight at me, forcing me to confront stinking attitudes that I’d been recently harboring in my marriage.  After nearly an hour with my nose glued to the book, I realized that only in two parts of the entirety of Created to Be His Help Meet did I truly believe Debi’s conclusions and attitudes to be wrong.  Setting those two sections aside, I was literally covered in chills as I read through the rest of the book.  The very next day I ordered my own copy and have been reading through it thoroughly for the past week and a half.

Let me tell you (especially you fellow wives) – by putting the principles in this book into practice, the results of just one week have been astounding.

Several times this past week, Galen and I have literally just looked at each other in awe.  It was as if we were asking, “What in the world has changed?  We were very happy before, but this is marriage on a whole new level!”  I honestly believe that much of the change has been in me – I am finally putting submission, reverence and obedience to my husband into full practice.  It’s been a rather subtle, yet ground-breaking shift for me in my heart.  Galen didn’t even notice that I’d been having this mental revelation and heart change.  What he did notice was the sudden increase in good communication, laughter, a feeling of intimacy and closeness, deepening friendship and just overall super-charged improvement in every area of our marriage all of a sudden.  It’s been nothing short of glorious.

Don’t get me wrong!  I’ve always been a huge believer in the woman’s place of Biblical submission to her husband and the husband’s role of leadership in the family, and a strong opponent of feminism.  But honestly, I think that the church has let a heck of a lot more feminism (or at least political correctness) seep into the minds and teaching of the believers than we think.  When’s the last time you heard a sermon preached on 1 Timothy 2?  Or 1 Corinthians 14:34?  Uh…probably never.  Or if you have heard those passages mentioned from the pulpit, it was likely introduced and ushered away again with a dozen or so caveats and explanations.  Almost every sermon I’ve ever heard on the wife’s submission to the husband has been cushioned all around with explanations – “Of course this doesn’t mean that the wife is a doormat!” “Paul never meant for women to be treated as lesser than men!” “If a husband tries to lead the wife into sin, she should definitely not submit!”.

All of these statements are absolutely true.  But the result usually is that the potency and simplicity and directness of those Scriptures are watered down.  There are certainly some really bad situations where the husband is abusive, treats his wife like a slave, and tries to force her into sinful practices – all in the name of Biblical submission.  But for the vast majority of Christian marriages (including mine), none of these factors ever comes into play: not even close.  Usually, the issues that a wife gets her dander up about are really very secondary when you think of it – the husband is spending more money than the wife is comfortable with, his tone of voice can get snappy, he likes a TV show that the wife considers too violent.  Fill in the blanks.  No clear sin – just “issues”.  The issues that I usually get upset about are equally simple, but seem so important at the time.  It’s easy to get worked into a frenzy over things that you want your husband to change – especially if you feel like it’s a really important issue.  Most Christian wives at least try to hold their tongues on the small things, but feel obligated (sometimes morally obligated) to do their duty and “put their foot down” if the issue is big enough.

That’s where I was having trouble.  I had no problem submitting to Galen with a myriad of everyday choices, and even some “big” issues, but I always felt that if some future issue was really big enough (like moving somewhere I didn’t want to, or making a really big purchase that would be financially “foolish”) I had the right to put my foot down.  I’d never used that trump card throughout our whole marriage, but I kept it in the back of my mind just in case.  When he started leading us in a direction that I thought was a bad idea, I’d mentally take that card out and turn it over in my hands, considering if now was perhaps the time to use it.  The result of this “trump card mentality” never brought about anything but my own discontent and an occasional feeling of rebellion.  I’d return pretty quickly to contentment and submission once I’d decided that the issue at hand wasn’t worth it, but it was still a habit that I didn’t feel quite right about.

Through Created, I was thoroughly convicted of not taking the “submit to your husbands in everything” Scripture literally.  Or the “respect and obey your husbands” verse.  I took it to what I considered its reasonable conclusion (and felt pretty good about it, since I was submitting and obeying more than some other wives), and the results were really good.  We’ve always had a fantastic marriage.  But now that Debi has challenged me to trust and obey those scriptures absolutely and not just mostly, the results are beyond amazing!  I have more peace, have been more content, more in love and have had more joy than I ever had in my life.  And it’s not like I did anything that dramatic – I didn’t go from being a rebellious, screaming wife to being calm and obedient.  I just went from being a 94.76% obedient/submissive wife to a 100% obedient/submissive wife.  And now I finally understand why Debi calls marriage “heavenly.”

I’m so young that I don’t feel quite qualified to give marriage advice just yet.  But I want to spread the word about this book to every single wife I know (and every wife I don’t know) in hopes that it will help them to have an amazing marriage!  I want to challenge my unmarried and married friends alike to fully trust and believe the Lord and His Word so they can experience the peace and joy that I’ve been basking in lately.  I want to encourage wives to throw away their “trump cards” and stop “putting their feet down” (because really, the only time to not obey is if your husband is directly leading you to imminent harm and sin – in which case “putting your foot down” would be a pretty weak response).  I’d encourage you to stop your ears to the indignant voices that scream that such teachings will only foster servitude, fearful and mousy wives and will degrade women.

It’s just not true.

Like any Scripture, the Scriptures commanding wives to submit to, reverence and obey their husbands can of course be twisted far out of their meaning, turning them into something horrible.  But again, like any Scripture, if you trust the Lord and His promises and put them to action in your life, amazing things will happen.  I’m still a very young and inexperienced wife – I know that our marriage hasn’t been tested like some have, and that we haven’t experienced the difficulties that others have experienced.  But I do know that God’s Word is always true, and that God is good all the time and that His intentions for His children are always good.

Just try Him and see if He’s as good as His Word.  You won’t be disappointed.

My husband and I recently celebrated our 1-year anniversary.  Marriage has been more mind-blowingly awesome and glorious than I could have ever imagined.  All those folks that tell you to “watch out” because the “first year of marriage is super hard”…don’t believe them.  Marriage is flippin’ amazing!  So amazing in fact, that we decided we could no longer keep all this fun and love and happiness to ourselves.  We needed someone to share it with.  So….

We’re having a baby!!

I’ve only got a few days left of my first trimester, and pregnancy has been an incredible (if exhausting) experience so far.  I cannot wait to meet our little one, and start sharing all of our love, joy and laughter with it.  And (as you can tell from the above picture) reading him or her book after book after book.🙂 My collection of children’s books was getting so out of hand that I had to transfer them to an entirely different bookshelf!

Speaking of which, I just realized that I’ve never posted about children’s books!  I’m shocked, honestly.  I remember planning on doing such a post at least two years ago, but I guess it fell through the cracks.  Ah well, there’s no time like the present!  Here are just a few of my all-time favorite children’s books that I grew up reading, and that I cannot wait to share with my little one.🙂

The Little House Picture Books

These are rather hard to find!  I went on a search a few years ago to buy the entire collection, and had to buy some of them from rather obscure locations.  The wording comes almost straight from Wilder’s original stories, but the illustrations are what really make these books.

The Paperboy

I remember thinking as a kid that the paper boy was so cool and brave for getting up to work when it was still dark.  All the scenes with him getting ready in the wee hours, and especially of crawling back into his warm bed just as dawn approached, always made me feel indescribably cozy.

Just One!

Ah, the cuteness of this book!  The fluffy little animals with berry-stained mouths.  It doesn’t get any better than that.  This book is so little-known, though, that I can’t even find a picture of it online!!

Tops and Bottoms

This book is super unique because you have to hold it sideways to read it – I love the wittiness of Bear and Rabbit’s interactions.

The Patchwork Quilt

This one is for slightly older children (not babies or toddlers) because the actual content is much wordier and complex than most kids books.  I love the sweetness of the old grandmother, and her love for her family.  Plus, I’m a quilter, and absolutely adore the quilting aspects of the story.

Blueberries for Sal

‘Nuff said.

Corduroy

Man, I’m realizing a pattern here – almost all these books either involve food, night time or cute animals.😀 Corduroy is a cute stuffed animal exploring an empty mall at night – makes sense that this would be a favorite!

Last but not least, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

So much fun and such a classic!

There are SO many more books I love (When Bunny Grows Up, the Clifford the Big Red Dog books, all of Eric Carle’s masterpieces) but don’t have time to mention.  What are some of your favorites, either growing up or that you read to your kids?  I’m always up for suggestions.🙂

It’s rather embarrassing, but I have never in my life read a Russian novel.  For a bibliophile, I feel like reading thick, wordy novels by people with names like Solzhenitsyn and Petrushevskaya is a given.  (I just googled those authors, by the way.  Like I said I’ve never read any novels from the Great Cold Expanse.)  I have friends who have read Crime and Punishment, War and Peace and The Brothers Karamazov and have actually enjoyed them, but just the idea of those books always scared me.  Lately, especially, I’ve been resting in the safety of re-reading old favorites (Wilson and Rowling), knitting magazines and housekeeping books.

For some reason though, I haven’t been able to get Anna Karenina out of my mind lately.  I’ve always turned up my nose at that book (“Who wants to read a whole book about a lady who commits adultery and then dies?”).  I didn’t want to read a book that finished with a less-than-cheerful ending.  But Wilson reminded me lately (through that masterpiece, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl) about how life isn’t all upbeat, cheerful and cozy.  A lot of life is cheerful, upbeat, cute, positive and cozy, but that’s only half of life.  Life isn’t all bleak landscapes and black eyeliner, but it also isn’t all fuzzy animal memes and knitting magazines.  Both are part of reality, and if a story is to have any sort of meaning then there must be some sort of balance.

I think we Christians especially are guilty of focusing on only the soft, the gentle, the safe and the lovely.  Tune into your local Christian radio station, listen to the DJ’s oozing with saccharine sweetness and you’ll see what I mean.  Walk into the local Christian book store – you’ll see fish magnets, Thomas Kincade paintings and hundreds of devotionals aimed at making you feel good inside.  Even though it contains some of the most powerful declarations of the Gospel I’ve ever read in a fictional story, I seriously doubt you’d find a copy of Dracula tucked in between One Minute Inspirations for Women and Amish Sweethearts.

On the other end of the spectrum, the authors and movie makers and song writers who ignore the good in the world, who focus on the death and dark and black spots in life, are just as one-sided and imbalanced.  They call themselves realists, but they ignore the beautiful, soft, gentle aspects of life that are just as real as war and struggle.

Sometimes life is truly like a postcard – the sun is shining and the world seems like it could not be more perfect.  Sometimes it’s a bit more like a Russian novel.

The peace of God, the glory of God, the love of God – these things are real.  You will feel good when you draw near to God because He is Purity, Peace and a Sanctuary.  But focusing on just making yourself feel good isn’t exactly the point.  Glory is not a Thomas Kincade painting.  Peace is not a dove magnet on your fridge.  Love is not a good feeling you get after reading a devotional.  There’s nothing wrong with any of the cute and positive and feel-good products and stories out there.  There’s nothing wrong with feeling fuzzy inside.

But it is not the whole picture.

Love is a Person who walked on the earth, healing, loving, laughing, weeping, transforming.  He was beaten and torn and tortured to death for the salvation of His Bride, becoming the very embodiment of sacrificial Love.  Glory is a Majesty, a Life, a Power so intense that even death could not hold Him.  And the kind of Peace He gives is the assurance and hope that has sustained His children not just through the good days, but through the hell of the Holocaust, persecutions, prison, torture and death for two thousand years.

These are not fragile virtues.  They are not threatened or extinguished when the dark times come.  They are real, they are powerful, and they are more solid than the ground under your feet.

If true art is that which reflects reality, then we writers (and readers) should never zero in on just one aspect of life, whether it’s the light, sparkly parts or the dark, hard parts.  The light Christ gives is a light that can handle the darkness.  We live in the light, but we should never fear the dark. We should invade it.

In the words of Wilson:

“The world is rated R, and no one is checking IDs. Do not try to make it G by imagining the shadows away. Do not try to hide your children from the world forever, but do not try to pretend there is no danger. Train them. Give them sharp eyes and bellies full of laughter. Make them dangerous. Make them yeast, and when they’ve grown, they will pollute the shadows.”

So I’m not afraid of reading tragedy, because I know One who took all tragedy on His own shoulders.  I can read Hamlet and weep.  I can read read Dracula and shudder.  I can read Jane Eyre and revel in the beautiful, somber bleakness.  I have the Light of the world in my heart and on my side, so I can look into the shadows and learn.  I don’t live there, and I never want to focus solely on the darker places in life.  I will never read 50 Shades of Grey, I will never watch horror stories, I will always hate the ending of the Hunger Games, and I abhor the modern novels of “realism” that wallow in pain and death, because these are only darkness and nothing more.  But the stories that mix sorrow and joy, beauty and pain, and in which truth ultimately shines through (whether in triumph of good or in punishment of evil) – those I can (and will) read.

So I am reading my very first Russian novel, Anna Karenina.  I’m only a fraction of the way in, but I can already see shadows encroaching on the pages.  But I know that true reality (love, glory, justice and peace) will ultimately win out in the end.  Even if it’s not a pretty end, as long as the truth shines through the darkness, it will be beautiful.

I feel very guilty for having neglected this blog for so long!  Aside from being very busy with work and then very sick, I haven’t blogged in a while for several reasons:

• My blog is almost exclusively writing- and reading-centered.  I have not written anything in quite a while and my reading has been mainly re-reads that I’ve already covered on this blog before.

• Whereas I used to sit down and read for hours, this past year I have slowly become more and more passionate about knitting.  I still love books with all my heart – it’s just that I’m spending way more time knitting than reading lately.

• I didn’t know how you readers would feel about me posting knit-related posts along with my more traditional book-related posts.

• I had gone so long without posting anything that I felt like I would be rusty if I tried to start posting again.  I’m sure I am/will be rusty but if y’all are patient with me I’m sure I’ll get back into the swing of things.

• On a more philosophical note, I haven’t posted for a while because I’ve wondered lately what the point of blogging is.  Obviously people love to read blogs.  I love to read blogs.  But blogging for myself suddenly seemed…I don’t know…selfish?  Like what’s the point of writing a bunch of words about what I think about movies and books or what I’m up to at the moment?  I’m not on Facebook because I always thought it would be silly to update people all the time about what I’m doing, where I’ve been, what I’m enjoying at the moment.  But I realized that blogging is very similar in a lot of cases – it’s usually more lengthy and carefully thought out, and has some pictures for embellishment, but it’s still just me writing about things that I think or things that I enjoy or things that I am doing.  The idea of blogging has felt selfish lately, but I think I had it all wrong – it’s not about selfishness, it’s about inspiration.  More on that at the end of this post.

So there you have it.  This is why I have neglected to post anything for such a long time.  And I didn’t really want to admit all of these things to y’all because it might sound, I don’t know, unprofessional?  But to heck with professionalism.  This is a blog for Pete’s sake!  No one is grading or judging this blog, or will fire me if I post something they don’t like.  Maybe that’s been at the root of my blogging-block lately – maybe I’ve taken it too seriously and just need to lighten up with it.

Yes, I am a writer, but that doesn’t mean that all of my posts have to be painstakingly thought out and gone over with a fine-tooth comb before posting them.  Yes, I am an avid reader, but it’s okay if I post about other things than books once in a while.  Yes, I want to be taken seriously as a blogger and a writer, but it’s okay to admit sometimes that I’m not in the middle of writing a novel that’s going to change the world, or that I haven’t had any revelations about the nature of stories, or that I haven’t read anything new in a while.

It’s okay to admit that I’ve been just sitting by the fire, watching the snow, and knitting.

It’s nothing mind-blowing, it’s nothing philosophical, it’s nothing terribly exciting (unless you’re a fellow knitter, in which case just the idea of yarn and knitting needles makes your heart beat faster).  But it’s what I’ve been loving lately.  And I mean loving.  And that’s what this blog is about, right?  Sharing new ideas, new books, new thoughts and sometimes new loves and interests with all of you.  That’s what most blogs are all about.

It’s not selfish or narcissistic (although it can be if gone about the wrong way) for a blogger (or Facebooker) to write about what she’s been interested in lately and put it out there for the world to read.  Because it’s not necessarily about the blogger – it’s about her passions, loves and interests.  And other people read blogs because they share the same loves and want to be inspired.  The very word inspired comes from the French word inspirer, which means to breath in.  “Inspiration” is a buzz-word that’s thrown around all over the place nowadays until it’s easy to forget what it actually means.  It means breathing something in. Drinking it in.  Breathing life into something that was getting tired or run down.  Blogging is one way that people inspire each other, breath new life into old pursuits and passions, and maybe even spark an interest that was never there before.

So hi guys, I’m back.  I’m not going to let the pressure of blogging perfectly or professionally keep me from just writing about what I’m actually doing.  I’m not going to let the dread of seeming narcissistic keep me from helping breathe life into your day, into your reading, your movie watching or knitting.  I’ll just share what I’m loving, even if they’re new loves that I’ve never shared on this blog and don’t even know how to.  (How does one post about knitting?  The Yarn Harlot certainly manages to do so brilliantly.)  But I’ll learn, and I’ll not worry about it if I do so clumsily at first.

And have no fear – I shall still write many a post about stories, too.🙂

Happy December everyone!!!

I’m loving the Christmas season already, and we’re not even a week in.  Bing Crosby and Michael Buble are singing in the background of my life from morning till night, the Christmas tree is in full glory and holiday spirit is everywhere!  It’s both exciting and strange to have our very first Christmas as a married couple – exciting to make new memories and be together during the holidays, and strange to be away from our families and childhood traditions.  The excitement definitely outweighs the strangeness though.🙂

Heidi (from Along the Brandywine) tagged me ages ago with this fun tag but I’m only just now getting to it.  I’ve been busy with knitting Christmas gifts in my free time, but now the last one is complete.  Yay!

1.A movie that kept you up all night

I had an extremely hard time going to sleep after watching Apollo 13; I loved the movie, but it was so intense that I could barely sleep after I finished watching it.  I don’t think I’ve ever been up all night because of a movie, though…

2. A movie that made you scared to sleep

Nightmares have always plagued me, ever since I was a little child.  So I can’t count the times I lay awake staring at my ceiling, scared out of my poor little wits because of some movie I’d seen.  But I don’t think any movie terrified me more than Jim Carrey’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas.  The funny thing is, though, that I never actually watched the movie!!  I saw the trailer and clips here and there at friends’ houses, and it was enough.  I was terrorized with that green face leering at me out of the shadows and in my dreams every night.  It cracks me up to think of it now!

3. A movie that made you go to sleep

I’ve watched Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl so many times that I usually get heavy-lidded during the final battle sequence, if I watch it at night.  The more yells, gunshots and sounds of sword fighting, the sleeper I get.😀

4. A movie that left you tossing and turning all night in anticipation for its release

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey; I’ve never anticipated the release of any movie to such a monumental extent!  I practically lived and breathed Hobbiton for the months leading up to the movie release, and no matter how shamefully bad the other two films were, the first movie did not disappoint me.  I was excited out of my wits the whole time I watched the movie in theaters (and then went back two more times later)!

5. A movie that would be your worst nightmare to live in

The Hunger Games.  I liked the book okay when I first read it, and really enjoyed the first and second movies, but the more I think about The Hunger Games universe the more horrible it seems.  I can’t stand the story now.  I’ll still watch Catching Fire occasionally, but the overall storyline and world is just awful – I can’t imagine a more hellish punishment than to be thrown into Katniss’s world.

6. A movie that reminds you of nighttime

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (every time I’ve watched it it’s been late at night) and Interstellar (which I saw late at night in theaters with Galen on a date last year)

7. A movie that has a nightmarish cliffhanger

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.  It was horrible.  Enough said.  I have zero interest to see the second movie, the first one was so dark and truly nightmarish.

8. A movie you actually dreamed about

Ha ha!  I couldn’t begin to count the number of movies I’ve dreamed about.  I’ve dreamed that I confronted Saruman in a big warehouse, that I helped Sherlock and Watson (Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, of course) solve a case, and that I fought Bellatrix (with a faulty wand to boot!), just to  name a few.

9. A movie monster you wouldn’t want to find under your bed

Gollum.  *Shudder*  Out of any movie baddie, he’s the one I’ve had the  most nightmares about.

10. A refreshing movie you love watching at night

A Christmas Story!  I look forward to watching it every single year; my whole family gathers in the living room with various presents for wrapping (we tuck ourselves behind couches and such so the others don’t see their gifts) and then turn the movie on and wrap as we watch.  It’s so much fun!!

That was fun, Heidi! Thanks for tagging me!

This tag couldn’t have come at a more perfect time – I’ve recently become hooked on the most incredible cooking challenge series I’ve ever seen, The Great British Baking Show.

Needless to say baking and food have been on my mind a lot lately!  In fact I even attempted my first ever tarts yesterday, inspired by the baking show.  They turned out splendidly!  I used cassava flour instead of wheat flour and the results (if I may say so) were delicious.

Since I’m allergic to gluten and dairy and also have to avoid all grains whenever possible, baking gets a bit more complicated than it used to in those blissful days when I could eat anything I put my mouth to.  But I still find all sorts of ways to enjoy good cooking and baking and hope to stretch myself even further in the future (gluten free doughnuts are on the horizons at some point).  Thanks, Heidi, for tagging me!