October Books

October was a little bit of a different month for me- to say the least.  Not crazy, insanely busy- cause that’s most of my months.  It was different in that there was an earthquake, tsunami and cyclone in my marriage.  I’m not ready to write about it yet or share, but I hope to be able to do so in the future.  So instead of reading one of the dozens of books I have piled up, I read a few others focused on strengthening my marriage and my faith.  The first book that was highly recommended to me was the Power of a Praying Wife.  My prayer discipline had been rather lacking, but this book helped me to pray consistently each day and pray specifically for my husband and for a variety of areas of his life.  The book is to be read a chapter a day focused on a different topic- with a short story, a guided prayer and then several power verses related to the day’s topic.  I’ve got the book on my Kindle too, so I can have it with me on the road, and I’ve been much more consistent and deliberate about making time and space to pray daily.  I highly recommend this book and I hope to continue my spiritual discipline as I pray each month for my husbands: wife, work, finances, Sexuality, Affection, temptation, mind, fears,  purpose, choice, health, protection, trials, integrity, reputation, priorities, relationships, fatherhood, past, attitude, marriage, emotions, walk, talk, repentance, deliverance, obedience, self-image, faith and future.

The other book I read and have been re-reading portions of is God Empowered Wife: How Strong Women Can Help Their Husbands Become Godly Leaders.  Karen goes to my church & several years back I started taking her Wednesday  night class focused on this book.  However work & life were my priorities at that point, so I dropped out of the class and never finished it.  It had been on my heart again recently to re-read this book as I’d been feeling like there was just something off in my marriage.  I realize it’s not a popular cultural view, but I do believe in a biblical marriage and that God instructs the man to be head of the household.  Being incredibly independent and strong-willed, mixed with extreme levels of over-achievement and excessively pro-active, made for a strain on my marriage.  This book, as well as personal counseling from Karen, has been invaluable to me the past 2 months as I began to understand how I was undermining my husband’s authority and self-esteem, and how my general quarrelsomeness had impacted my husband.  More importantly, I had begun making my marriage an idol more important than God.  I highly recommend this book also for anybody who believe in a biblical marriage and wants to see their husband changed- because this book will help you BE the change your husband needs.  The best advice in the book is that God doesn’t give us marriage to make us happy, it is a tool to make us holy.

Since I”m taking the Ordinary Courage E-course, I’ve also been reading I Thought It Was Just Me:Telling the Truth About Perfectionism, Inadequacy, and Power and also the book Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who you Think You’re Supposed to Be & Embrace Who you Are.  This books works together and I haven’t finished reading them through, but I did read large sections of them for the course.  I’ll provide a more detailed review of them and the course in a different post.  In addition to all the other things I was busy doing in October every day (journaling, exercising, etc), I had 4 different books I was toting around and trying to make sense of the insanity of my world at the moment.  Given what I went through and am still going through, these books really hit home to me about being more authentic, letting go of pretenses and fear about opening up to others, and the opportunities to be vulnerable and connect with others through our pain.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Excited for the storm & cooler weather headed our way, and I’m working a flex-day so I can go bake with Gram.