"A Woman’s Question" by: Lena Lathrop

Do you know you have asked for the costliest thing

Ever made by the hand above?

A woman’s heart, and a woman’s life—

And a woman’s wonderful love.

Do you know you have asked for this priceless thing

As a child might ask for a toy?

Demanding what others have died to win,

With the reckless dash of a boy.

You have written my duty out,

Manlike, you have questioned me.

Now stand at the bars of my woman’s soul

Until I shall question thee.

You require your dinner shall always be hot,

Your socks and your shirt be whole;

I require your heart be true as God’s stars

And as pure as His heaven, your soul.

You require a cook for your chicken and beef,

I require a far greater thing;

A seamstress you’re wanting for socks and shirts—

I look for a man and a king.

A king for the beautiful realm called home,

And a man that his Maker, God

Shall look upon as He did the first

And say: “It is very good.”

I am fair and young, but the rose may fade

From this soft young cheek some day;

Will you love me then ‘mid falling leaves,

As you did ‘mong the blossom of May?

Is your heart an ocean so strong and true,

I may launch my all on its tide.

A loving woman finds heaven or hell

On the day she is made a bride.

I require all things that are grand and true,

All things that a man should be;

If you give this all, I would stake my life

To be all you demand of me.

If you cannot be this, a laundress and cook

You can hire and little to pay,

But a woman’s heart and a woman’s life

Are not to be won that way.

Are you Dumb?

  

Guy/ Girl Relationships???

Have you ever been confused by Guy/ Girl relationships? Or asked yourself, "Where are the boundaries?" "Why do so many things seem to be gray instead of simple black and white?" I know I have. Over and Over again I have asked these questions, and others like them.
But where are the answers? What is the solution? Hold it! I know what you are thinking. But I am not saying that this book has all the answers. In fact, I have actually never read it. Ok? So, what's the point, you ask? 
The point is that though I haven't actually read this book I read the first book that these wonderful ladies published and for that book I can vouch. I am going to get a copy of this book, and I think that you should too. And if I haven't convinced you of its worth yet, why don't you check out the Authors site (Visionary Daughters) where they have posted excerpts from their book. 




"How do young men and young women interact with one another when marriage is not in view? Can young men and young women be ‘friends’? And how does a young woman guard her heart, preserve her purity, and walk in integrity without treating young men with disdain? In It’s (Not That) Complicated, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin address these and other questions with wisdom, grace, transparency, and biblical acuity."

— Dr. Voddie Baucham Jr.

About the Book

Boy-girl relationships are hard. They’re hard because they’re made of people, not mathematic equations, formulas, or quantifiable factors like numbers. When talking about relationships, we’re dealing with fluctuating factors like motives, irrational feelings, and a nature that was made by God to be one way and twisted by sin to be another. Numbers are easy because they are predictable, but the heart, as Jeremiah 17:9 says, “is deceitful above all things… who can understand it?” And if one person wasn’t complicated enough, just add another person, multiply their sin natures, and we’ve got an equation too hard to solve in our own strength. When we do try to boil these relationships down to simple rules and formulas, they can come out looking something like the diagrams below. Because when it comes to each of these quandaries of the heart… it’s just (not that) simple.

About the Authors

Anna Sofia and Elizabeth Botkin are the only girls in a family full of boys. At 25 and 23, they work with their five brothers in their media production company and with their whole family at the Western Conservatory of the Arts & Sciences. They authored So Much More and produced the documentary Return of the Daughters in response to the needs they saw for a biblical study on daughterhood. It’s (Not That) Complicated was inspired by conversations with their girl (and guy) friends on the subject of relationships, as well as by hundreds of letters they’ve received from girls around the world. They enjoy studying history, playing music, homemaking, and hiking in the rolling hills of Tennessee, where they live with their wonderful parents and three of their brothers (for whom they don’t bake nearly enough cookies).

"It's (Not That) Complicated" 

Go Here for your copy of this revolutionary book!

(Disclaimer: I was under no obligation to favorably promote this book)

Success

            "Hon. Stephen Allen, one of the most eminent and useful citizens of New York, died on the steamer 'Henry Clay' which caught fire on the Hudson River. In his pocket was found printed rules by which he had been guided, and among them the following:

• 'Good character is above all other things.
• Never be idle. If your hands cannot be usefully employed, attend to the cultivation of your mind.
• Your character cannot be essentially injured except by your own acts.
• Make no hast to be rich if you want to prosper.
• Never play any kind of game of chance
• Earn money before you spend it
• Live within your income
  (And my personal favorite :)
• If any one speaks evil of you, let your life be such that none will believe him.'

             Longfellow said, 'The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, without a thought of fame.' Osborne, writing for the Merchant's Magazine, said, 'Success in life consists in the proper and harmonious development of the faculties which God has given us.'

The youth who makes the most of himself is successful. A man with five talents and small opportunities may improve them so as to be of more real service to mankind than one having ten unimproved talents.

One has said well, 'Every man has a mission to perform in this world, for which his talents precisely fit him, and having found what this mission is, he must throw into it all energies of his soul, seeking its accomplishment, not his own glory...Having found out what you have to do- whether to lead an army or to sweep a street, to keep a hotel or drive a cart, to harangue senates or address juries, or prescribe medicines-do it with all your might because it is your duty, your enjoyment, and the necessary road to your success.'

             These are the qualities which are found in the career of every successful person; and there is success in even the humblest occupation for him who will pay the price. The irresolute, limp young man or woman who expects to find success 'marked down' some day, is doomed to disappointment. It is a fair price that God has set upon it, and he is not half a man who attempts to get it for less.

             These conditions admit of no such alternative as 'luck.'

             A 'lucky hit,' a 'lucky fellow,' are common expressions. There is no such thing as becoming learned or great without forethought, plan, or purpose; it must be the result of well-directed and persevering effort.

            When the time comes that idleness reaps rich harvests and industry begs bread;that economy goes to the poor-house and the prodigality to the palace; that temperance invites want and drunkenness revels in plenty; that virtue is condemned and imprisoned and vice extolled and crowned- then, and not until then, can a sensible man embrace the popular delusion about luck. It had nothing to do with the triumphs of the great and good in the past, and it can have nothing to do with the triumphs of this class in the future. The successful are self-made, through God's grace.”

(This is an excerpt from a book originally published in 1893 titled “Gaining Favor with God and Man” which is now out of print. I hope that this was encouraging for those of you who read it all the way through. God Bless!)