current reading

After finishing the latest Nicholas Sparks' flick on our honeymoon (it seemed appropriate), I was itching for another easy fictional page turner. I didn't bring any other fiction with me intentionally because I knew that was all I would read. So, I brought along a few Christian "inspiration" books. For some reason, especially on vacation, I hesitate to shower my mind with literature that can actually benefit my life. Sometimes I will use the excuse, "I just want to relax" or "The content of these Biblically-based books is too rich for me to read at the pace of other literature". Essentially, I make up excuses for why I want to be lazy in what I read.


My amazing husband delicately pointed this out to me on our honeymoon and challenged me to read more on what will actually benefit my life. I should mention, however, that I am still a big proponent of reading for pleasure and will post on my newest fiction The Swallows of Kabul in time.


Nonetheless, I am now reading Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother by Carolyn Mahaney. What an excellent book to read while beginning my life as a wife! I have heard Carolyn speak via podcast concerning specific marriage-related issues and found her to be such a sweet-sounding, experienced, down to earth, godly woman. In Sex and the Supremacy of Christ by John Piper and Justin Taylor, she has a chapter dedicated to what every Christian wife needs to know (which I highly suggest to fellow engaged and married women). I had to pick this book up when I saw it, because I love hearing what she has to say!


Carolyn bases her "seven virtues" on the Titus 2 woman: "Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled." (verses 3-5, ESV) Each chapter is dedicated to one specific calling (i.e. to love her husband, to love her children, to be pure, to be self-controlled, etc.). Each chapter is filled with scripture and personal experience, which allows the weightiness of Scripture to be illuminated by practical advice. Although I have not finished this book yet, I am excited to learn more about the gloriousness of marriage and motherhood in light of God's design in Scripture as explained by Carolyn.