What did you expect? (Now: Marriage)

What did you expect? Paul David Tripp (Crossway, 2010)

(See note below regarding the republished version, Marriage)

I have worked my way through this book over a couple of months. It took time and energy to read.  It took a willing heart to hear what it had to say and it took humility to accept it.  It will take longer to absorb its teaching and a lifetime to apply it.   It was very, very good.

Up until now when we recommend marriage books they have generally fallen into two categories:

• The “why of marriage” books. A reason for marriage and a lifting of one’s vision to see it’s all about God being at work in you both, not solely about the two of you. (eg. The Meaning of Marriage, Married for God)
• The “how to be married” books. The practical ones with tips and helpful ways forward. (eg. Now That You’re Engaged, Things I Wish I’d Known Before We Got Married, Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages). 

I think Paul David Tripp has managed to combine the two in a way that is practical yet completely grounded in the gospel and God’s grace.

It’s not an easy read. It challenges you to the core of your being as to why you got married and what you expected from it. From that he makes it clear that:

• You are conducting your marriage in a fallen world
• You are a sinner, married to a sinner
• God is faithful, powerful and willing

His overarching message is that a marriage of unity, love and understanding will grow out of a daily worship of God. It is our relationship with God that matters. How we view him as creator, sovereign and saviour defines the way we view our marriages. Addressing how we view God (our vertical relationship) is the key to how we view our marriage (our horizontal relationship). He emphasises that the mentality of a healthy marriage is living with a harvest mentality (there are consequences), an investment mentality and a grace mentality.

The main body of the book is structured around 6 commitments of marriage:

1. We will give ourselves to a regular lifestyle of confession and forgiveness. These powerful chapters nut out the real need for grace with each other on a daily basis. He strongly endorses a lifestyle that is confessional and forgiving in depth.

2. We will make growth and change our daily agenda. We must be willing to pull out the weeds in marriage – selfishness, busyness, inattention, self-righteousness, fear and laziness and replace them with fruitful seeds, for “you cannot escape the influence of what you do and say on the person you live with and your relationship to him or her.” (p117)

3. We will work together to build a sturdy bond of trust. We must be willing to trust one another and be am person who is trustworthy, for trust is “readily given, easily broken and costly to restore” (p152). He claims that the early years of marriage are building years so we must set patterns of being straightforward, keeping our word, facing up to wrong and keeping short accounts of wrongdoing. To keep this up we must be talking, listening and praying.

4. We will commit to building a relationship of love. These chapters were quite challenging, exposing false ideas of love – the attraction that might be only physical, emotional or spiritual. Yet true love is cruciform – cross-shaped - and has very high goals. This chapter was a little overwhelming in terms of how true love could really look in a marriage, yet again grace was emphasised to show that none of us can do this alone.

5. We will deal with our differences with appreciation and grace. These chapters addressed the positive ways differences can affect our marriages and then he dealt in depth with the idea of never letting sun go down on your anger. I am in two minds about this one, from personal experience, continuing an argument at night is often a bad idea for us. However the principle of never letting anger remain between you or always dealing with an issue is a good one.

6. We will work to protect our marriage. This is the section for those who already count themselves as having pretty good marriages. The risk of thinking you have a good marriage is that you stop working and start coasting, “there is one thing you have to accept: your marriage may be great, but it is not safe. No marriage this side of eternity is totally problem protected. No marriage is all it could be.” (p238) God’s grace can work things in all marriages, but you still have to do the work. He then encouraged couples to make prayer a central part of the marriage and to continue to remind themselves that it is their relationship with God that defines their marriage. It is both toil and trust. Work daily at the relationship yet trust that God is faithful, powerful and willing.

A very helpful book for any couple who are willing to keep putting in the work to make their marriage better.

***

Note in 2022:

This book has now been republished as Marriage: 6 Gospel Commitments Every Couple Needs to Make (Crossway, 2021). None of the content has changed. Having re-read it, I am impressed at how good, gospel-focused, God-honouring, and challenging it still is. I have three caveats to the above review that I didn’t mention last time:

• I noted this with his more recent Parenting book - he has a tendency to be absolute - you must, you should, you need, you must never, etc. It can read authoritatively and harshly. 
• It is quite verbose. It could have been cut quite a bit, he repeats himself at numerous points. Some may like this, for there are lots of examples, and so you might note the personal application more. But it does make it longer than it needed to be. 
• There is no explicit acknowledgement of the potential of abuse in a relationship, and how to deal with that. There are some implicit ideas, but they are not drawn out as needing a different response to the usual marriage problems. 

There are also two additional chapters: 

• 18. The Gospel, Your Marriage, and Sex. I felt this was the low point of the new book. He started with guilt, shame, regret, sexual problems, and then later brought them to the gospel. It would have been so much better to start with the good gift sex can be, then turn to the challenges of a fallen world. 
• Q&A chapter. This is fine, addressing pretty much all the usual issues that couples face. 

There is also a study guide at the end, which couples could use together as a springboard for further or more focussed discussion.

Crash Test Mummies & Daddies

There are a few DVD/TV show reviews coming up in coming weeks.  I seem to have found a few of note recently. 

This week's one is Crash Test Mummies and Daddies.  Produced by the ABC it chronicles the first four months for first time parents.  With five couples from diverse backgrounds and situations, there is:

• An Asian couple with a Taiwanese mother who comes out for a month and insists on a traditional confinement period.
• A Greek couple with a large involved extended family and the husband who works a lot.
• A couple with the unexpected surprise of a baby, who are hoping it won't change their life too much.
• A couple who broke up but decided to try make it work once they realised she was pregnant.
• A young couple with financial struggles.

So it seems to be a pretty typical selection of average Australian new parents.  It starts with the reality of birth and those early weeks of sleep deprivation and feeding, mastitis and early health scares.  It shows them coming to terms with this massive life change, dealing with extended family and their expectations, returning to work and managing life at home. 

For those of us past this stage, it's a helpful and sometimes humorous reminder of what those early months were like.  For those in the thick of it, it could be good to watch others going through the same thing.  For those about to face it, it could be a helpful dose of reality and a good conversation starter for the two of you.

I have to say though as I watched these couples the phrase that kept flitting through my mind was that quote from Thoreau: "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."

I have only watched 3 episodes of the 6 so far, you can catch them all still on iView.

Two movie reviews

Taking a break from book reviews for the next few weeks, today I’ll bring you 2 movie reviews.

These are just fun, enjoyable films, for different audiences.

1. CHEF

We saw this a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it. It’s a fun, easy-going story with a great cast (including John Favreau, Scarlett Johansson, Dustin Hoffman and Sofia Vergara).  It details the spectacular downfall of a restaurant chef, followed by remaking of himself with a food truck travelling across the US.

We loved it. It combined three great story elements: the fun of good quality food & cooking; the highs and lows of using online technology (mainly Twitter) to comment on people and what they do; and a lovely story of a father and a son.

It was a gently meandering story, nothing traumatic happened (rather like About Time which we also liked last year). I loved seeing some beautiful parts of the USA in the scenery and really think I should take my family to New Orleans where I spent some of my childhood and treat them to the delights of coffee & beignets!

2. FROZEN

Chances are anyone with daughters around the same age as mine (9 & 6.5) has already seen this and like us, probably also already owns the DVD. My girls LOVE this movie.

I took our elder daughter to see it when it came out, and we were both delighted with it. Now, our younger daughter is equally hooked.

It is the story of Elsa, Queen of Arendelle, who has special powers to turn things to ice, but she cannot control them. She hides away from the world, including her sister Anna, who she does not want to hurt. When Elsa’s powers threaten to destroy Arendelle, she flees and Anna follows her to bring her back. With a love story along the way, a snowman Olaf, some great fun trolls and a reindeer for sidekicks, it is lots of fun.

For my girls, I love the message that the true love that saves them in the end in the love of sisters, not the love of a man. This is a quite a change from your average Disney princess movie. I also love that when Anna becomes engaged to Hans after one day, everyone thinks she is crazy and keeps telling her so.

It has a great soundtrack, which my daughters sing to each other most of the day, after having decided to it was worth spending their money to download their favourite songs. I personally think Disney hasn’t produced a soundtrack this good since The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.

So, if you want some light, fun kids or adult viewing, you might like these ones.

Serving Without Sinking

Serving without Sinking, John Hindley

Here is another offering by The Good Book Company, in the same series as Compared to Her.

John Hindley faces head on the issue many committed Christians feel - we should serve, we are called to serve, we want to serve, and yet sometimes it is very hard work, be it through tiredness, busyness, or being unappreciated and unacknowledged.

He challenges us to see that many of the reasons we serve as Christians are actually flawed. They can come from a wrong view of God and Jesus - I serve to be good enough, I serve to get something, or I serve to pay Him back. We can also have a wrong view of people so we serve to impress or belong; or we can have wrong view of ourselves so perhaps we serve because we think Jesus needs us, or in fact we don’t really need Jesus. All of these possibilities are fleshed out well with good examples and explanation, and I could honestly see myself in all of them at various times.

He ends this section with the challenge that if we see these reasons operating strongly in us and we feel like our serving is sinking us, we should consider stopping some of our service:

“If you’ve sat reading and the thought keeps coming: I know this is me. But I can’t stop for a while to sort my heart out. I’m the only cleaner. I’m the one who lives close enough to open up. I’m the pastor. then remember: it is better to quit your job than lose your Lord.” (p44)

Hindley then take us back to Christ and our relationship with him. Through a series of chapters, he leads us to see that we are served by Christ, we are friends with him, we are his bride and we are his true sons; and even now Christ is still serving us. Through all of this, we can see that serving follows love and Christ is indeed our first love, and so serving Him brings joy.

The strength of these little books seems to be in identifying the issues. Like Compared to Her, I found the last few chapters on how we find our true value in Christ a little light on and would have liked to see them fleshed out a little further. However these books are designed to be short and easily readable, and so that is really only a comment from someone who always likes to read in more detail!

As service is an area in which many Christians are indeed serving for the wrong reasons and sinking in the process, this would be a great ‘reset’ for both our motivations and our desire to serve Christ fully.

Running on Empty

Running on Empty, Barbara Bancroft

I was sent this book by New Growth Press, and very much enjoyed this one of their latest offerings.

Barbara Bancroft is a ministry wife in the US, who with her husband Josiah has been involved in parish ministry, church planting and mission work. So in writing this book for women in ministry, you know she understands the joys and challenges that face wives and women in a variety of ministry situations.

Subtitled The Gospel for Women in Ministry, Bancroft brings her reader back again and again to the gospel, emphasising that this good news is one we also need to hear repeatedly; and while we are often tempted to rely on our abilities (or despair at our lack of them), in fact we must keep relying on the work of Christ for us and the Spirit working in us.

She does not want us to shy away from the role or position we have, whether paid or alongside our husband, in fact alerting us to the reality that “those in ministry are in a unique position to deeply affect the life of the church” (p65), yet “being in ministry places us in a battle for our faith and faith of others... All who work in the church...live in harm’s way and feel the effects of the battle. The difficulties of ministry are real and many have fallen. We all know stories of adultery and secret sins, children who have left the faith, and burn-out, just to name a few.” (p58)

I found myself resonating with many issues Bancroft raised. In truth many of them would be relevant to all Christians and to Christian women generally, but they do hold a power over many women in ministry.  Some of the issues she dealt with in detail were:

• How women in ministry and ministry wives are viewed differently from the rest of the congregation. This includes people’s expectations and stereotypes, and expectations you place on yourself. This also affects friendships and how honest you can be with people about your own life and various situations.
• Some of the unique dynamics missionaries face, including raising support and people’s view that you are somehow spiritually superior
• The ways our culture affects us and our ministry, and the need to be able to see the culture we are in and be able to critique it.
• The trap of feeling entitled to more or envious of those around us - be it money, skills, support, or appreciation.

Yet amongst all these issues, which are very real, Bancroft keeps bringing us back to the cross and the message of the gospel. We are reminded of our very real sin, our great need for a Saviour, the need to forgive for we have been forgiven and the joy it is to serve our Lord.

I wrote many notes on each chapter and could easily have given you a whole list of great quotes. I found myself often smiling in wry acknowledgement and nodding in agreement as I read along. It should be noted that it is written with a strong North American emphasis, but mostly can be easily converted to our Australian situation. She also assumes a complementarian view of ministry and I loved how she addressed even some issues women can face here: “In the church, humbling ourselves under the leadership of men may be one of the hardest things women do, particularly if we are competent leaders ourselves.” (p108)

Bancroft has also structured each chapter very helpfully. She sets up the issues, clearly identifying it and how we find ourselves in it, then asks some diagnostic questions for our own personal assessment and honesty; then she delves into a bible passage to help re-orient our thinking. I felt many issues were dealt with well and at length and not just glossed over.

In the end, the overwhelming positive emphasis of this book is that she keeps bringing women back to the gospel, encouraging heart change, confession and a desire to let Christ do his good work in us through the Spirit.

A very helpful book.

Out of my mind

Out of my mind, Sharon M. Draper

We have discovered another excellent book for upper primary students, as good as Wonder (high praise indeed!).  Wonder is the story of a boy with a facial disfigurement; this is the story of a 11-year old girl with cerebral palsy.  Melody is confined to a wheelchair, unable to move her body with precision (except her thumbs), and unable to talk.  While a very intelligent girl with a photographic memory, no-one except close friends and family have ever seen past her disability to acknowledge what her mind contains.  That is, until she gets a talking computer which all of a sudden challenges school friends, teachers and others to realise that just because someone’s body is limited is does not mean their mind is.  There are also two big twists in the story which left us both completely surprised and very keen to read on.

I read this to my 11 year old son and he loved it.   It is more serious than Wonder (although that has very serious parts, it is also very funny). In some ways the pain for Melody is more raw, I struggled to read numerous sections through my tears, although my son is used to that now!

This should also be on all school reading lists, it would provide excellent material for discussion amongst upper primary and also high school students about both the realities of living with a disability, and how people can be unkind and thoughtless as they make incorrect assumptions. 

Highly recommended. 

How and When to Tell Your Kids About Sex

Can you tell the age my kids are getting to? I am reading cyber parenting books and lots of pre-teen children’s fiction.

When I did a series in 2012 on teaching children about sex, my husband was reading What’s The Big Deal? with our 9 year old son, now it's my turn to read it with our 9 year old daughter.   My husband is also about to the read the next in the series, Facing the Facts, with our now 11 year old son.

This is my first foray into giving detailed information about God’s view of sex, and the realities of sex outside of marriage with one of our children.  It’s going well so far.  In order to feel a bit more prepared to do so, I read a book for parents by the same authors: How and When to Tell your Kids About Sex.

It was very helpful.  I had realised that although I wanted to be open and address issues factually and without either squeamishness or fanfare, I wasn’t entirely how to do so once the conversation and questions turned to more specific questions. This was a great resource in helping me think through such things, with sample conversations and ideas for age-appropriate information.

They deal with 4 stages: infancy to kindergarten, pre-puberty, puberty and adolescence. Over all of these stages, they have developed 12 principles of sex-education with can be applied to across these stages. These principles include:

• Parents are the principal sex educators
• First messages are the most potent
• We should seize teachable moments and become askable parents
• Stories are powerful teaching tools
• Positive messages are more powerful than negative messages
• We must inoculate our children against destructive moral messages
• Sexuality is not the most important thing in life

I finished reading this book with much more confidence about how to address topics and seize teachable moments. We are committed to being open, honest and very positive about sex and God’s design for it with our children; this book gave me some extra tools to actually be able to do it.

Just like with the cyber parenting book reviewed last week, I am reminded that being a parent requires us to be pro-active in many areas.   Here is another area which I want to be prepared, ready and willing to teach my kids a helpful, godly way forward and to be able to point out the contrasting morals of our world.   This book is a great help in enabling us to do so.

Cyber Parenting

Cyber Parenting: Raising your kids in an online world, James & Simone Boswell

I really liked this book: it is helpful, practical and biblical. The Boswells have done parents of today’s children a great benefit. Being Australian it fits perfectly with our context, although as it deals with an online world, it is appropriate for everywhere.

The most grounding part of this book is the reminder again and again that as parents today we are facing nothing new. Although some technology, social media, gaming, etc are new for our generation, the issues they raise are as old as time. The Boswells take us back to the words of Ecclesiastes, showing that all the issues with technology today are the same issues of the heart that people have faced for thousands of years – be they wisdom, self-control, where we find our value and what we make our idols. I found this incredibly reassuring, for at times I can feel a bit panicky about parenting children in our online world. This helped me to remember that all issues are heart issues and God knows about them all.

It is divided into four parts:

1. The basics: introducing the impact of technology and some basic technological details for those that need it. Here and throughout the book they emphasise again and again it is about the heart. “Parenting is more than setting up eternal rules. Parenting is about getting to the heart of our children, training them in right living, investing in their lives and helping them to understand a biblical world view” (p30).

2. A look at the basics of parenting – how we want to teach our children about the Lord and his word, and train them in godliness and character. With this in mind, they talk about a biblical world view and then many areas of character we want to train our children in: such as honesty, integrity, patience, etiquette, contentment and self-control. While all of these are applied to the world of technology it is clear that these are characteristics we want to raise our children in, no matter whether they are online or offline. This section then moves to consider issues such as trust and responsibility, teaching wise choices and developing maturity. All of this is very helpful.

3. Then they move to address the four main areas of the online world: social networking (with an emphasis on Facebook), cyber bullying, gaming and pornography. This was full of wisdom and practical suggestions, and is essential reading for parents of children who are already online or soon to be.

4. The final section deals with the practical areas of managing your networks, security, passwords and parenting controls. These are the tips to help you set up a safe online environment. Of course, these go alongside the active role of teaching in parenting, yet are useful things to have in place in the home and on various devices.

In the end, this book is an excellent reminder that as parents we are called to parent with wisdom and grace, to be involved and aware, and to deal with issues of the heart. We should have practical boundaries and measures in place, but not rely on them to do the job of parenting for us.

I will definitely continue to refer to this one in years to come as we navigate the online world with our children.

You can see a little bit of it online here.

Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages

The Surprising Secrets of Highly Happy Marriages, Shaunti Feldhahn

This book, from the author of For Women Only (link to my review series) and For Men Only along with other books along the same lines, has now done further research on marriage and come up with this little gem. Like her other books, it is incredibly easy to read, presenting the results of research in an easily-digestible format.

Feldhahn’s research was to investigate couples who both independently described their marriages as very happy. Then through interviews and surveys she found 12 habits and traits that were common to those couples.

“[The authors] discovered again and again that contrary to popular belief, it’s usually not the biggies – in-laws, money, sex – that determine the level of day-to-day mutual happiness in a marriage. Much more often, it’s daily unspoken beliefs, assumptions, and practices that make the difference regardless of the big issues. In other words, it’s how we handle those issues that determines how much we enjoy marriage.” 

 They included things like:

• choosing to believe the best of each other (eg. rather than they intended to hurt your feelings)
• controlling their thought processes - stopping negative trains of thought and focussing on positive ones
• being factual about their fantasies – not longing for things their partner can't deliver
• choosing to spend time together
• putting their trust in God foremost, rather than each other
• being fully committed to each other – financially, emotionally, etc (against the world’s advice)
• being constantly grateful for each other and find ways to communicate it

As someone who is in a ‘highly happy marriage’, I found it confirmed a number of things I already would have thought of and put words around others. I agreed with pretty much everything she said. For those who would like their marriage to be better, I think it could provide some good simple and achievable goals to work at together (ideally) or even on your own.

“Change – even in challenging marriages – most often starts with one immediate, practical, surprising choice. A choice made by just one partner. And you can make it. The day you put one surprise in secret to work in a relationship – and then another – may go unnoticed by your partner. But you have launched an insurrection against mediocrity and unhappiness.” 

It’s suitable for Christians and non-Christians alike. While supporting a Christian world-view, she doesn’t overstate it, so many unbelievers could still find much to use and apply. At the same time, because it is clear from her investigations that a faith in God and a commitment to the institution of marriage is highly beneficial for couples, it could open up conversations too.

Recommended, easy reading – treat yourselves and buy it for your wedding anniversary!

***

Having re-read this again in 2020, I still think this is a great book for couples looking to consider how to improve things in simple ways. It may not deal with all major problems, but will certainly help those who are a bit stuck. Many of her findings are similar to those found in Gottman, just expressed differently.

It's also my recommended book for 'non-readers' - short, to the point and easily applicable.

How People Change

How People Change, Timothy S. Lane and Paul David Tripp

Having enjoyed and learnt much from reading When People Are Big and God is Small last year, I returned to another book by the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF) this year and similarly have been greatly encouraged and challenged by How People Change.

It’s hard to quantify exactly how much this book has changed my thought processes and resultant action. It started when a friend presented a seminar last year which really challenged me to look at my heart in all things, rather than externals. Of course, you say, we all know we are supposed to do that. Yes, we do – but how do we actually do it? Her main thinking had come from this book.

How People Change is one of the few books I have read that clearly identifies the issues that face us in life, shows us how often we respond sinfully, and yet leads us to see that with the truths of the gospel shaping us, we can change to grow in godly responses and living. It is not a self-help book. Rather it is an examination of what drives us, how we live in response and how God working in us can change us.

The overarching idea is that our lives are full of heat - the various aspects of our lives that will produce a response; be it suffering, hardship, blessing, prosperity or anywhere in between. The response the heat produces can often be thorns, that is, ungodly responses to such situations, such as complaining, anger, materialism, narcissism, etc.

What Lane and Tripp drive us towards is the cross: how we can see what Christ has done for us in overwhelming and abundant grace, and how we let that become the focus and centre of our hearts and life. Like using a scalpel on your heart, they lead you to identify your deepest motivations and desires and then realign them according to what Christ has done. After that, because Christ dwells in us, instead of thorns, we can produce fruit.

In this second half of the book, which clearly identifies each of these stages, there are questions that you can work through for yourself. In identifying where the heat is in your life and which thorns you are likely to produce, you are then ready to come back to the cross in true repentance and humility, joyful that Christ brings about true, lasting change and fruit.

In the weeks that I was reading this book I found it practically applicable in many ways:

• As I thought about my own ‘thorny’ responses to life situations & was challenged because of what Christ has done to make them more ‘fruitful’.
• When I spoke with friends about their particular challenges and the decisions that led them there.
• When I led a seminar on a Christian view of reading and challenged us all to examine our hearts when we thought about what we read.
• As I worked through some personal issues with one of our children and tried to get them to see how their behaviour was coming from their heart and showed what they valued most.

For years I have heard people say things like “you have to come back to the cross”, “it’s all about letting the gospel shape you” or “it must change your heart”. While I fully agreed with the sentiment, the practical how of doing that always left me a little bewildered. How do I respond to my children according to what Christ has done? When is rest or relaxation just a good gift and when it is starting to become something I value more highly that Christ? I felt that this book helped me start to answer those questions and think about a way forward.

This is highly recommended reading for all Christians. All of our lives are full of situations that demand a response – but do we bear thorns or fruit in them? How do we change from a thorny response to a fruity one? How do we make sure it is Christ and his work in us that is what changes us, not just a desire to look good?

In addition, this book would be especially helpful for those who are in mentoring, pastoring and counselling roles. It made me so keen I went on to investigate the CCEF counselling courses online - perhaps a goal for another year!

The Best Sex for Life

The Best Sex for Life, Dr Patricia Weerakoon

We have an ever increasing list of books to share with married couples and a whole list we give them about marital intimacy when we catch up after they have been married for six months. This one is definitely near the top of the list, it’s been promoted to one of my top three books on sex in marriage.

Patricia Weerakoon has done married couples a great favour with this book. She is open, honest, straight to the point, up to date, and has no qualms dealing with many of the sex issues that face those who are married. At the same time, it is well and firmly grounded in the truths of the gospel and how God’s view of sex should shape our lives. Her overarching idea is that marriage is a public, outward looking commitment which is enhanced and strengthened by a healthy, honest and strong sex life.

She covers various stages of sexuality in marriage, starting with the engagement period, moving to the honeymoon and early years, the main years of marriage and its potential strains (children, tiredness, etc) and then with a frank and open look at sex in the senior years. In doing so, Weerakoon has provided a resource for couples to last many, many years.

The book is broken into 3 parts:

1. A theology of biblical sexology – how God’s views sex, how sin has marred it, and how it can be redeemed for God’s glory
2. Understanding your body – helpful basics on sexual organs and response for men and women
3. Sex and the life cycle – various chapters on different life stages and some issues raised within them.

All of this is very helpful and will provide good information for couples who are engaged or newly married, as well as extra information for those who have been married for some time. Some may find the biological and chemical details of what occurs during the stages of sex in section 2 in more detail than interests them.  

However, I thought the best part of the book was Appendices 2 and 3, which contain practical exercises for couples who are struggling.

Appendix 2 is a detailed up to 9-week program to help couples for whom sex is a struggle and  concern to try to work towards a better intimate life. Appendix 3 is a sheet to fill out and share with each other which addresses how we respond to each other and how things could be better.

These are brilliant resources. As anyone who is married can attest, talking about sex with your spouse can be difficult at times. When things are not great ‘in the bedroom’ that conversation is even harder. Yet the thought of going to a therapist or counsellor for such private matters does not appeal to many. In addition as Christians, this is an area where secular counselling often just does not fit the bill. I know of a few professional Christian sex therapists in Sydney, yet I know of none in Adelaide; which leaves Christian couples in many places unsure of where to turn. These appendices could be a great resource. Sort of like a counselling session without having to actually go to a counsellor. Even if things are good in your marriage, these exercises could be of great benefit.

A great book for marrieds to help make sure that intimacy stays a strong part of your life together.

After having re-read this in 2020, it still remains high on my recommended reading list. 

Plans for this year

So, you are up to date and musings is finally up and running again!

At this stage, my plan is to keep sharing with you about the good books that I am reading.

There may be other thoughts thrown in along the way, but books is where our attention will focus.

I’m aiming for a weekly book review at this point – we’ll see how we go! First one: Monday.

A return to blogging

Hello, old friends. If there are any of you still out there that is!

Almost five months off. How time flies when you are having fun.

It has taken some time to decide to re-start blogging again. For a while there I wasn’t sure if I would and to be honest, I’m still not sure. However, I am reading good books again, and while I continue to read good books there seems to be some point in sharing them with others.

Over this week I’ll give you a brief update on life here over the last 5 months, and then we’ll get started again on book reviews next week.

[For those that would like a little-Easter kick start, you can get some ideas from previous years by reading the Easter posts. If you want to do the Easter Readings with your family (via resources tab), they start next week (April 7), so there is still lots of time to print it and think about putting some eggs together with the key verses. Personally, I am loving my annual dip into Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross by Nancy Guthrie.]

When People are Big and God is Small

When People are Big and God is Small, Ed Welch

• Do you care more about what people think of you than how God views your sin?
• Are your actions motivated by what others will think?
• Does fear of shame or embarrassment guide what you say and do?
• Do you desire the good opinion of others?
• Do you avoid telling people the gospel because of what they will think of you?

Well perhaps you (like me!) tend to fear man more than you fear God. In this excellent book, Ed Welch shows that our self-esteem issues, competition, peer-pressure and dependence on others are all the same thing – a fear of man, where other people are the driving force behind our thoughts and actions.

Welch explores three themes in this book:

1. We must determine how and why we fear others – it is a fear of shame or rejection or because we feel threatened. All of these are real drivers which explain our fear of man, but until we realise which factors guide us, we cannot respond to them properly.
2. We must realise that God is bigger than people. The person who truly fears God will fear nothing else. We must grow in our knowledge and love of God.
3. We must love people more, but need people less. Therefore people’s opinions and reactions to me will no longer guide me, for I live in the fear of the Lord. Yet in truly loving God I am free to and serve people more.

Through this process, Welch interacts with current counselling methods and critiques them. He particularly focuses on the risk of talking to people about their felt needs, such as their need to be loved and their need for healthy self-esteem. In the end it is all driven by a fear of man – to be loved, to be liked, to feel my needs met. Instead he says:

“The most basic question of human existence becomes “How can I bring glory to God?” – not “How will God meet my psychological longings?” These create very different tugs on our hearts: one constantly pulls us outward toward God, the others pulls us inward toward ourselves.” (p158)

When I reviewed Compared to Her earlier this year, I noted how helpful it was in identifying the issues of comparison among people (mainly women), yet in the comments I did agree that I wanted more detail on how to live in a more godly way with the temptations that comparison brings. I feel this book has given me more tools to do that, it is longer and more comprehensive.

I personally found this book quite challenging. I read it with certain issues of my own fear of man in mind and so when I purposely did some of the exercises at the end of the chapters, I found them helpful in making me work through things in detail where I fail in this area and how I could move forward.

As I can’t imagine anyone out there not struggling with these issues in some way, it is recommended reading for everyone!

Nearing Home

Nearing Home, Billy Graham

Many years ago, I greatly enjoyed reading Billy Graham’s autobiography, Just As I Am. Written in 1997, he makes the statement “I know that my life will soon be over. I thank God for it, and for all he has given me in this life” (p729).

So, it has come as somewhat of a surprise to Graham, who was convinced he would die sooner worn out from service of God, that he still lives. Aged 93 (when published in 2011), he says:

I never thought I would live to be this old.

All my life I was taught how to die as a Christian, but no one ever taught me how to live in the years before I die. I wish they had because I am an old man now, and believe me, it’s not easy. (vii)

Thankfully for the rest of us, he has not sat around pondering such thoughts on his own, but gathered them all together in this excellent book dealing with growing older and how to tackle our ‘senior years’.

Solidly based in the gospel, Graham takes every opportunity throughout this book to clearly explain what Christ has done and how we trust in his grace through faith.

As he walks us through thinking about retirement, planning for the future practically (wills, etc), how to proactively be involved with grandchildren, how to make sure our foundation is Christ is secure and how we look forward to heaven, he gives practical advice and biblical encouragement along the way.

Here are some of his thoughts along the way:

Just because we are retired does not mean our work is done. Retirement provides us the opportunity to spend more time doing God’s work, serving others in the name of the Lord. (p41)

See your retirement as a gift from God. Retirement isn’t something that just happens if you live long enough, and it isn’t even a reward for your years of hard work; it is a gift from God. Once you understand this, you will approach your retirement differently.’ (p44)

The things we value during the prime of life will follow us into the twilight years. If we wisely value faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, it will strengthen us as we age. (p53)

God’s will is for you to become spiritually mature, growing stronger in your relationship to Christ and your service for Him. But this takes both time and effort. Conversion is the work of an instant; spiritual maturity is the work of a lifetime. (p149)

The final chapter reminds us what we look forward to as we near home: heaven. Heaven is glorious, perfect, joyous, active and certain: “you have reason to look forward to the glories of Heaven, for you will be perfected, you will be joyful, you will once again be active, and right now you can be certain that you are nearing home. (p180)

A great book for those approaching retirement or facing old age, and for any of us who want to understand it better.

Raising Girls

Raising Girls, Steve Biddulph

Having read Raising Boys many years ago as well as other Biddulph books (The Secret of Happy Children, etc), I was pleased to see he has a book for girls out now.

For those of us trying to navigate raising girls, it’s a good resource. He identifies that girls today have lost 4 years of childhood peace and development that we once had, so our 18 is their 14 and our 14 is their 10.  Which means that for parents, we need to be addressing issues with our growing girls much earlier than we ourselves ever needed such information.  I know many parents find this a challenge. Of course, it is the same for boys; I am constantly surprised at the conversations I already having with my 10 year old son!

Biddulph divided this book into 3 sections. Part 1 is the stages of girlhood. I was pleased to discover we have already passed 2 of those stages so I only skim-read them, and concentrated on the 5-10 years and 10-14 years chapters.

There was one main thing I came away with from each:

1. 5-10 year old girls need to be taught how to be a friend and what makes a good friend. It’s a very helpful thing to be pro-active about and something they need to learn to help them for the rest of their lives.
2. 10-14 year olds – help them find what excites them, their ‘spark’. I found this a helpful idea to be aware of and earlier than I probably would have thought of it.

Part 2 deals with the five main risk areas for girls, which you could probably guess:

• Our sexualised culture
• Mean girls
• Body image, weight and food
• Alcohol and other drugs
• The online world

None of these issues are new to any of us, they just present different parenting challenges for each age group. This whole section was helpful at identifying the issues.

The final part looks at girls and their parents, which has a chapter for both mums and dads. Both of these are helpful reminders of things we can do that are helpful and things to try avoid.

Overall, it’s a helpful book, it gives to some good ideas and walks parents through the challenges we and our girls face.

However, it has reminded me again of why secular parenting books are so limited. There is no overarching philosophy, no mind-set that drives it. It is just a collation of good, sensible ideas. It is not until we look to the gospel and find that we and our daughters must find our identity in Christ alone and that our value comes from how God sees us that we can be free from the messages of the world. That we are called to live in a way that honours him and so we raise our children to do the same. Without this perspective we have no grace, no hope and no true identity.

So by all means read this book and get some good tips and ideas. But remember the bigger picture of the truths you are raising your daughter to know. 

Surprised by Oxford

Surprised By Oxford, Carolyn Weber

I loved this open, honest and sometimes raw autobiographical account of one woman’s gradual coming to faith over her first year of doctoral studies at Oxford.

Written by a literature scholar, it is full of poetry and abounds with literary references, so will delight those who love the written word. Yet, because the subject matter is so important and life-changing, it raises the writing to a whole new level.

Structured around the calendar year of study, Weber openly walks us through her questions, doubts, uncertainties and challenges as she considered who God is, what he has done and how faith and reason can co-exist and complement one another.

I found there was something here for new converts, searchers, old converts, and those who grew up in the faith. It is of particular help for both those who are highly educated and yet wonder if there is more to this life; and also for those who walk alongside them to understand that faith can come gradually, with the asking of many questions and voicing of many doubts.

It is clear that God placed her in Oxford to learn of Him that year. She had intelligent, educated friends and lecturers who were Christians. A fellow student clearly presented the gospel to her and helped her think more deeply about her ingrained beliefs and challenged those that did not stand up under scrutiny.

Here are some of her words along the journey:

“The morning after I heard the gospel, however, I woke up with what felt like a hangover. Little would I know it was of the spiritual kind that accompanies the inevitable dawn that life is not, perhaps, what we previously thought it was. And we cannot go back to pretending. What a headache to be caught in that liminal space! Literally.” (p100)

[About the bible] I devoured it, just as a best–selling book (which, coincidentally, it has always been). Even the long monotonous lists. Even the really weird stuff, most of so unbelievable as to only be true. I have to say I found it the most compelling piece of creative non-fiction I had ever read. If I sat around for thousands of years, I could never come up with what it proposes, let along how it intricately Genesis unfolds towards Revelation… No wonder this stuff causes war, I though as I read, between nations and within each of us.” (p103)

“Life is messy. Life is beautiful and terrible and messy. So why would we expect a faith in this life that is easy to understand? Why expect a gift wrapped up neatly within the tissues of our brains and tied with a nice bow of material clarity?“ (p178)

“To be one person one moment: lost. Then to be another person the next moment: found. It is the difference, as the saying really does go, between night and day. Outwardly I seemed the same, but inwardly everything had changed. I went to the window and watched the birth of the dawn. Everything, every thing appeared in this better light, this brighter light. (p270-1)

This book was a very special read, I highly recommend it.

A book warning: Grace

Rarely on this blog do I include books I don’t like or have not enjoyed. I make exceptions however when I think they are dangerous. Grace by Morris Gleitzman could fall into this category.

As my children get older and read extensively, it is becoming harder to keep up with what they are reading. So while I peruse the back covers of most books, there are some that just slip in and out of here via various libraries and friends.  This one came to my attention because my son read it and it raised questions for him and he asked me to read it too.  

Grace is the story of Grace, a girl whose family is in a cult. It is told from her point of view as she watches her father be removed from her family by the elders for questioning the authority of the church. She tries all she can to find him and get him back, but her grandfather and uncle (key leaders in the church) prevent her from doing so. It is tense and anxious and I suspect could be quite fear-inducing for a child, as it raises the question: who do you trust in your family when some are telling lies and controlling you?

If this was a book for adults, I would have no problem with it. I have read many books over the years which explore the darker sides of a perverted religious message. However such a book, which is intended to be satire as well as serious, is quite risky with children.

My concern is that it uses the terms we are familiar with: sin, prayer, church, elders and turns them into an aberration. Of course that is the reality for a person in a cult. Truth is perverted. Grace is removed. Sin abounds. Children are victims.

So if your child reads this book, make sure you talk about it with them: explain the errors, how their church got it wrong and that sadly some people fall into these traps. I wouldn’t forbid them from reading it (although I wouldn’t recommend it for under 10s), just make sure you read it too and then talk about it.

My son and I did so this morning. It was a great conversation, we talked about the history of Christianity over time and how, sadly, people have gotten the message of salvation wrong time and time again.

In the end, I asserted with him numerous times, that:

We are saved by grace alone

Through faith alone

In Jesus alone

By the scriptures alone

It was a good conversation to have on this Reformation Day!

Continue On

Sometimes you come across something that touches your heart.  This was one for me.  My husband gave me this after I found myself asking similar questions.  Perhaps you might like it too...

A woman once fretted over the willfulness of her life. She feared she was wasting her potential, being a devoted wife and mother. She wondered if the time and energy she invested in her husband and children would make a difference. At times she got discouraged because so much of what she did seemed to go unnoticed and unappreciated. “Is it worth it?” she often wondered. “Is there something better I could do with my time?”

It was during one of those moments of questioning that she heard the still small voice of her heavenly Father speak to her heart.

“You are a wife and mother because this is what I have called you to be. Much of what you do is hidden from the public eye – but I notice. Most of what you give is done without praise – but I am your reward.”

“Your husband cannot be the man I have called him to be without your support. Your influence upon him is greater than you think and more powerful than you will ever know. I bless him through your service and honor him through your love.”

"Your children are precious to Me, even more precious than they are to you. I have entrusted them to your care to raise for Me. What you invest in them is an offering to Me. You may never be in the public spotlight, but your obedience shines as a bright light before Me. Continue on. Remember, you are My servant. Do all to please Me.”

(by Roy Lessin)

The Word Spy

Thanks to Nicole’s post last year, we have discovered Ursula Dubosarky’s The Word Spy and it’s follow up: The Return of the Word Spy.

These excellent books for children explain the English language. In The Word Spy, you discover words and language, punctuation, the history of letters and then all types of fun plays on words – anagrams, euphemisms, oxymorons, etc. The Return of the Word Spy brings you more details on language and how it evolved, how we learn to speak, an introduction to basic grammar and finally how writing has evolved with keyboards and texting. 

Now, I know, you are thinking – how boring! How could I possibly get my kids to read that! Well, because it is fun. There are jokes, funny stories and her tone of writing is perfectly aimed at middle-upper primary children. Throughout there are puzzles and riddles to solve and one overarching word puzzle throughout the whole book. It is for competent readers who already enjoy language and word tricks; our 10 year old loved it, and our 8 year old is currently enjoying it.

Highly recommended for those who love words & reading. I would have found it helpful for Year 8 Latin grammar myself and perhaps even some of those New Testament Greek grammar lessons!

NIPS XI

NIPS XI, Ruth Starke

Monday’s posts are now becoming reviews of good children’s books, not just ones to read aloud.

My son read this as part of his school class reading and loved it so much he wanted me to read it, which resulted in a very enjoyable few hours. It is no surprise this book has made it into libraries and schools – it’s about an Adelaide Primary School, North Inala, which like many schools we all know, has a multicultural day. However, Lan and many of the ‘ethnic’ kids are sick of it – for who wants to dress up in national dress, bring in the food they eat every day at home and look different in the process?

Lan decides they should play cricket instead, for what better way, he decides, is there to be an Australian? He gathers a team of kids from Asia, the sub-continent, the Middle-East and South America, and terms his team the ‘NIPS’.

With almost no cricketing knowledge or experience, they decide to challenge the nearby private boys’ school to a match. As the plans unfold, the helpful local librarian Grace lines them up with a local cricket coach Spinner (who just happens to have been a test-cricketer) and they prepare for the match.

It is a lovely book. Its observations of Australian culture, how immigrants work to fit in and how local primary schools operate are laugh-out loud funny. There are lessons on friendship & good sportsmanship throughout. A kid who likes cricket will love it, but even those who do not follow the game will be drawn in. 

I suspect kids with English as a second language would struggle, it is full of idioms and ‘Australianisms’, but these can be overcome with explanations.

For those who loved it (as my son, husband and I did), there is also a follow up novel – NIPS Go National, where the team are invited to Melbourne to play other teams with diverse backgrounds from around the country.

Highly recommended reading for upper primary age kids, especially cricket fans.

Rainbow Magic Fairies

Rainbow Magic Fairies, Daisy Meadows

Today I suggest a series suitable to read aloud with your kids that some will disagree with, I know some parents hate these books. I have to admit I don’t love them. But I have come to realise they serve a good purpose.

The Rainbow Magic Fairies (books 1-7) are the fairies who give colour to Fairyland and the world. Evil Jack Frost has flung the fairies into the real world, thus depriving fairyland of any colour. Newly found friends, Kristy and Rachel are entrusted to find and rescue the fairies. The books follow a formulaic solution where each fairy is found and returned to Fairyland while the girls avoid or out-trick the goblins who are sent to stop them. After this initial series, many more follow including the Weather Fairies, the Pet-Keeper Fairies, the Party Fairies, etc. etc.

The reasons why many parents dislike these books are the same reasons many children (often girls, but also some boys) love them:

• They are incredibly predictable and use a small range of vocabulary. Perfect for new and hesitant early readers.
• There are hundreds of them. Seriously. We have (graciously given to us when no longer wanted by another family) 56, all of sets of 7. There are at least 200 out now. For children that want to keep reading them again and again, there is no shortage. We always have some out of the library.
• Each only contains 6-7 chapters so even with a young one who is tired at night, a short chapter each night still finishes the book within a week.

My approach with these books has been to read the first two series – 14 books. Then after than if you want to keep reading them you have to do it yourself. This worked with our 8 year old a few years ago – we got her started and then she was off, devouring all of them. Now at 8, she is bored with them. She will read them when our 6 year old gets them from the library, but she has realised they all follow the same plot and they don’t really hold her attention any more.

However, our 6 year old is still in the grip of the world of Rainbow Fairies. Her reading has not progressed quite to her doing it solo (and we are up to book 13), so I may relent and read another series.

The advantage of this series is that if it hooks them, they have ample reading material for at least a year, until they are willing to try other things. Then I will switch to reading aloud other books to her and she can read the Magic Fairies on her own, to her heart’s content!

The End of Your Life Book Club

The End of Your Life Book Club, Will Schwalbe

You know how sometimes you make a mistake at the library, but it turn out to be a very good one?

I picked this up having seen it around a bit and had assumed it was fiction. In the mood for such reading, I grabbed it.

Upon realising it was actually a biography and a story of a man and his mother and their love of books I quickly needed to ‘shift gear’ but did so with joy. This is a lovely book. Will Schwalbe’s mother, Mary Anne, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. As they prepared for a journey of ill-health, treatment and dying, he and his mother decided to form a book club. They were the only two members and although had spent their lives reading, they actively read the same books and talked about them together, often during her hospital treatments.

It is a powerful testimony about how rich a life full of books can be, and how books can impact us throughout all stages of our life. At the same time it is a moving story about the close relationship between a mother and son and from his point of view, how he faced her sickness and death. It shows an obvious love for his mother, but also his respect for her as a woman who cared for others, being intimately involved with refugees, fighting for their rights and as the founding director of the Women’s Refugee Commission, as well as being behind the funding and founding of libraries in Afghanistan.

She was a believer yet it is written from the perspective of her atheist son, and it is lovely to see his respect for her faith throughout, even though he did not share it:

[about church] Mom adored warmly greeting her fellow men and women and wishing them peace. She loved the Scripture and the sermons and the music. But more than any of that, she believed. She believed that Jesus Christ was her savior. She believed in the resurrection and life everlasting. These weren’t just words to her. Her religion gave her profound pleasure and comfort.” (p95)

She steered the book club towards some books where Christian faith played an important role, which included Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It was only later, when pointed out by Will’s brother that he realised “Mom had finally succeeded in getting me to talk about faith and religion and even Bible stories, something she’d been trying to do for years”. (p189)

The devotional Daily Strength for Daily Needs became her bedside companion and he believes it is from it that she read her last ever words “thy kingdom come”.

By no means is faith and religion a major part of the book. It is about books, cancer and families. In some ways, faith only has a passing mention in what was her extraordinary life. Yet I loved those parts.

This is a lovely book, highly recommended. And, as an added bonus, you finish it with a list of even more books you want to read! 

The Hobbit

The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien

Returning to some books to read aloud with your kids, this week we come to The Hobbit.

I remember reading this myself at age 10, so it seemed the time was right to read this to our son. He loved it. Tolkien creates a wonderful imaginary world of hobbits, goblins, orcs, elves and dragons, with a quest to reach an dwarf treasure. Like many books that were written over 50 years ago, some explanation is sometimes required and some sections are rather verbose. Yet, it is a world that invites your imagination to join in the fun. It is also a great primer before attempting Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. I will not be offering to read Lord of the Rings aloud, it would take all year! But The Hobbit is a great way to whet the appetite and hopefully develop future Tolkien readers.

We loved the riddles between Bilbo and Gollum, the forest of spiders was suitably scary and the encounters with the dragon left you wondering whether they would get the treasure at all.

It is also fun to talk about how C.S. Lewis and Tolkien were friends and shared their writing with each other. It can help make an author from the past more real to today’s readers.

Another great classic to introduce to your children by reading it aloud.

Just a Little Run Around the World

Just a Little Run Around the World, Rosie Swale Pope

I spotted this one at the library and being in the mood for a biography as well as some running encouragement, I picked it up.

It is an incredible story. At 52, Rosie Swale Pope set out to run around the world after losing her beloved husband to cancer in the hope to raise cancer support and early screening awareness as well as raising money for a Russian orphanage. What followed was a 33,000 kms trek taking 5 years over some of the most inhospitable terrain on earth including Siberia, Alaska and Iceland. She did it solo, with no official support crew, but much loving care from various running companies, shoe manufacturers and extreme adventure equipment suppliers. She met bears, wolves and the occasional snake, battled frostbite and rib fractures, and faced the real risk to survival that persistent sub-zero temperatures (up to -60°C) brings.

It’s a fascinating read. She has a real love for the world, enjoying everything she sees and the people she meets along the way. Of all the hundreds of people she meets along the way and the majority of time she spent camped in the wild, she had only a handful of unpleasant experiences with people. Overwhelmingly, people gave her incredible support and protection despite sometimes their own need and poverty (eg. in Siberia).

This is not a woman who does things by half! She has also circumnavigated the world by boat with her first husband and young children, sailed the Atlantic solo, trekked through Chile on horseback and run numerous ultramarathons and long distances.

There is a hint throughout that she may have some faith, at least a theistic faith, recognising that “There are no atheists on an adventure or in battle, I reckon it’s time to say thank you to God”.

All in all, it’s a great read about people, the beauty of the earth and one woman’s determination to keep going.

And it makes it much harder to complain when I struggle to run 5km!

Heading Home

Heading Home, Naomi Reed

Naomi Reed was a missionary in Nepal and has written a number of books about that experience. Many readers I know, including myself, especially enjoyed her first book: My Seventh Monsoon, which is written about their life in Nepal and delves into how we should views the season of life that God brings. It was a very open and challenging read, as I discussed previously. Her second book, No Ordinary View, took you to their final years in Nepal and the things she learnt about God during that time.

Now, we come to the third in the series: Heading Home: My Search for Purpose in a Temporary World. Just like her other books it is a great story about their life, but more than that it is again a reflection on what God taught her in that time. It covers the years after they returned to Sydney from Nepal and faced the challenges of re-entry many missionaries face. The cultural changes and uncertainty, the materialism in the west, the commercialisation of Christmas, the feeling their neither Sydney nor Nepal was truly home and neither were they completely comfortable in either. It also charts how her books came to be written and published and how it affected her life and perspective.

I found this was a book you could read on two levels.

1. You could just read it as the next instalment into her life story. The challenges they faced, decisions to be made and what it was like to re-enter life in Australia. Just like her two previous books, it is highly personal and very open and so is a very helpful insight, especially for those of us who want to understand what life is like for returning overseas workers. It is also an insight into what it is like to have a book published.

2. However, it can also be read on a much more ‘devotional’ level. Each chapter addresses some sort of issue, such as trusting in God, where we find our value, where our home is, wanting to be liked, etc. At the end of each chapter is a prayer she has written that was her response to the situation. Each prayer is reasonably specific, but at the same time could be easily adapted to suit your own personal situation. As you know, I am a fan of written prayers, yet it wasn’t until I was a few chapters in that I realise what a gift these prayers are. They help us to stop, think about the point of the chapter in our own situation and then turn to God in responsive prayer, whether it be confession, thanksgiving, praise or request. For this reason I think I read this book too fast. I should go back and read it again, thinking about it responsively, not just learning more about her story.

There are very helpful reflections throughout this book, certain ones which I personally found very helpful. However, I’ll leave that for now and encourage you to read it yourself, for your own edification and encouragement.