Since having to Etta Catherine, it has been quite difficult for me to read a book. I am a book lover, and I have wanted to want to read a book, but my attention span or something has gravitated to magazines and blogs instead. Now, I feel like I may be out of my slump, thanks to rereading a book I thought I could really benefit from at this particular season of life. Feminine Appeal: Seven Virtues of a Godly Wife and Mother by Carolyn Mahaney is actually a book I read with the Ole Miss Crusade staff women back in 2004 when I was single. This book is based on Titus 2:3-5 which reads, “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.” I have been soaking up the wisdom in this book!

The motives of these virtues is laid out for us in Titus 2:

• that the word of God may not be defiled v.5
• so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us. v.8
• so that in everything (we) may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior v. 10

I am inspired thinking about the behavior of godly women adorning the gospel! What a privilege for us as believers, to adorn the gospel, and to bring glory to Christ! 

Last Saturday I helped host a wedding shower for Carmen Rae, and some of us in attendance offered her some marriage advice. I paraphrased this quote from Elizabeth Elliott in Love Has a Price Tag, but I wanted to properly quote it here, as it is wisdom I love! 

• A wife, if she is very generous, may allow that her husband lives up to perhaps eighty percent of her expectations. There is always the other twenty percent that she would like to change, and she may chip away at it for the whole of their married life without reducing it by very much. She may, on the other hand, simply decide to enjoy the eighty percent, and both of them will be happy.

Isn’t that great advice? Yesterday we bought Tim Keller’s new book, Kings Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus. I’m hoping my book reading streak continues.

In the summer of 2006, I took a class through Crusade’s Institute of Biblical Studies called “Biblical Interpretation.” One of the required books was “God’s Big Picture…Tracing the story-line of the Bible” by Vaughan Roberts. Aside from loving the authors name, I gained so much from this biblical overview “showing how the different parts of the Bible fit together under the theme of the kingdom of God.”

Fast forward to now, and I am being so blessed by reading to Etta Catherine from the “Jesus Storybook Bible… Every Story Whispers His Name.” As my friend Nicole said, it is like having a personal quiet time to read this book! The book was originally given to Andrew and me by my Aunt Marye, who’s pastor was taking her entire church through this gospel-centered book. I highly recommend it to anyone! I am hoping that our children will grow up with a better understanding of how all of Scripture fits together and points to Jesus, and won’t have to have an “ah-ha” moment in a class when they are 25 years old. The introduction to the book is from Psalm 19 and Hebrews 1. Just reading it made me so excited to read on! In it, the author, Sally Lloyd-Jones writes “No, the Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne -everything- to rescue the one he loves. It’s like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life!” It has been fun for me to read the Bible stories I’ve heard my whole life, told in a new way in this children’s book. My eyes filled with tears this week as I read from “The Story of Jairus’ Daughter, from Luke 8”. Jesus bring this little girl back to life! Then, “Jesus called to her family, ‘Bring this little girl some breakfast!’ Jesus helped and healed many people, like this. He made blind people see. He made deaf people hear. He made lame people walk. Jesus was making the sad things come untrue. He was mending God’s broken world. 

I wanted to give a shout out to Peyton and Emmaline for encouraging me to start a blog, and for coming up with the name. This picture is from a Sunday picnic at Rowan Oak, shortly before they moved to Charlottesville. Many of my favorite times in Oxford include the Smiths. They are forever friends.