The Desk Series: Books (part 1)

The Desk Series :: My Meeting Place 

Books   - Part 4

(find parts 1, 2 and 3 on the sidebar)

For part 4 in the desk series, I want to share with you a a number of books that I have found to be especially helpful to me personally during my life as a wife, a mother, and a woman.  I have mentioned a few in passing over the years in my daybooks, but not really any at length. I will be sharing just a few at a time in these posts.

 I want to preface these titles with an important notation before beginning...these are books that changed my life. They may not be for everyone and everyone has their own mindset as to how they live. It should go without saying, but I want you to know I understand that we are all in different situations, in different seasons and you may not even share my faith, but I lovingly ask that you just lend your ear. 

Ten women could read my posts and only one come away inspired and encouraged to read on...it is for her, this one, that I write. 

Going back a number of years is the first one entitled, The Excellent Wife: A Biblical Perspective by Martha Peace. (there is also a study guide)

Based on scripture, Martha gently guides you with grace and maturity without taking an "in your face" approach.This book had a profound impact on my life. I wrestled through it several times and each time it left me bruised and a bit broken, healthy elements that opened my heart in order that change could take place. 

Every time I try to fix my husband, be a wife in my own strength, contemplate moments where the everyday of marriage seems like too much work or I might be better off single...I adjust my thoughts and heal a little bit more. This book will grow you and stretch you in your thinking and in light of our culture it will sting greatly. I know this because I led two groups of women through this book and study guide and they too found it difficult.
  Culture will change, but the Word of God does not.

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A few years later, Becoming a Titus 2 Woman by Martha Peace came out and I was feeling strengthened in the call toward mentoring. I was knee-deep in homeschooling, child-raising and keeping my home, all things that were near and dear to my heart. These two books helped me deepen and renew my purpose as a wife and a mother and showed me just how important the work that I did at home was. 

These books would come to set the stage for my love of writing and sharing that love with women. In 2001 a small, humble online ministry began to take root. Over the years as time has faded, that voice has become diminished and nearly silent.

However, I am now in the place of that "older" woman and I have a renewed desire to return to those early roots with fresh insight.

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Spiritual Mothering by Susan Hunt is another good one written in this same line of thought. Susan writes beautifully of this woman to woman ministry of older women to younger women...when put into a correctly working practice is one of the most precious things us women can bestow to one another.

A few quotes...

"When women do for other women what Elizabeth did for Mary, I believe we will see young women burst forth in lives of praise to God."

"Encouragement is the context in which equipping can take place."

"Paul was smart enough to know that women need women to train them how to apply God's Word to areas of our lives that are uniquely feminine."

and this one that spoke volumes to me as I wrote, "The Influence of Aloneness" (more on that in a later post),

"Our tendency to self-sufficiency can only be overcome when our situation is beyond our sufficiency."