“In my house I’m the boss.  My wife is just the decision maker.” – Woody Allen

You know what I love to see my wife doing?  Woman’s work.

Of course, she also likes to see me doing woman’s work.  Couples today probably spend a lot more time debating who has to do what around the house then they used to.  Relationships used to be a lot easier in that way.  But now that we’ve thrown off the shackles of old-fashioned gender roles, we think we’re much happier, even if we can’t agree on who does the dishes.

But what if the June Cleavers of yesteryear were on to something?  What if doing things the old-fashioned, outdated way actually had benefits?  That’s what self-described feminist Rachel Held Evans is asking.  She’s going all the way back to the June Cleavers of the Bible, attempting to live as a “Biblical” woman for a whole year. 

After being a dedicated reader of her blog, and featuring her first book, Evolving in Monkey Town, I knew I had to talk to her about how her new project has impacted her life and marriage.

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Almost every town has one of these places…

One of those shady looking sex stores with the red lights and the scary looking lingerie in the window. 

Yeah, most people try not to be seen going into one of those places.  People are kind of embarassed about being seen there.  So I’ve got a really unique day on the blog…I brought the sex store to you, and no one even has to see you.

Shula Jackson is the proprietor of “Sensuous Wife,” an online Christian sex shop (which happens to be not at all frightening.)  I became acquainted with Shula (who is also not scary) when she was featured on Matthew Paul Turner’s blog, and I knew I had to feature her here.  I know you are probably giggling nervously with curiosity.  You’ll want to read what she had to say.  Plus, you guessed it, there’s a big giveaway at the end.

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Well, the big, gross day of chocolate and hand-holding and cooties is over.  Did everyone make it out okay?  I think we all survived.

Now that everyone’s coming off their candy heart induced love stupors, I’m throwing out a montage blog, all about the tender beginnings and not-so-tender endings of marriages.  Now that people live so much longer before and after their marriages, it’s worth thinking about what we do with all the time we’re not in love with someone.

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“I’ve never been married, but I tell people I’m divorced so they won’t think something’s wrong with me.” – Elayne Boosler

Happy freaking Valentine’s Day.

I promised that for the big pink and red day, Love Month here would have a special feature.  Today, I don’t want to talk about love at all.  Because I know how you singles feel.  I know how you feel ignored, and I would be remiss to ignore you.  I’ve set aside today especially for you, to talk all about being single.  But not just that, how to be good at being single.  (Don’t worry, you marrieds may still get something out of this too.)

To help me with that, I found Lindsey Nobles.  I met Lindsey a couple of years ago at Catalyst.  She’s a super-charged girl who works for Thomas Nelson publishers, writes a blog that I read all the time, and writes genuinely and honestly about the joys and struggles of being single.  I consider her to be the best when it comes to single-lady-Christian-bloggers…if there is such a category.  If there isn’t, then there should be.

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Sometimes love isn’t really love.  Sometimes, it gets messed up and it’s just dirty.

I knew when I wanted to write a month of blogs about love, it wouldn’t all be lovely.  It’d be some good things, along with messy, confusing, dirty things.  And I thought to myself, “Who deals with more messy, confusing, dirty things than anyone?”

So I got on the phone and called Steven Luff in Los Angeles.  You may not know him, but you’ve probably heard of the church he works with.  Steven leads recovery workshops with XXXChurch.  That’s the “porn church.”  No, it’s not an actual church.  But it’s a big network of people working together to fight a huge problem.  Just last weekend, over three-hundred (actual) churches nationwide participated in XXX’s big new thing, ”Porn Sunday.”  I’m really glad to feature Steven today, and what he shares is really helpful, not just to deal with porn, but for everyone.

Oh, and for the first time ever, we are having a giveaway today that literally everyone wins.  All you have to do is keep reading.

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Okay, we’re definately armpits-deep in Love Month here at the blog.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the way the church deals with love and all that is kind of…well, conflicted.  It’s kind of weird.  It seems like more and more pastors are trying to talk as much as possible about love and family and all that sweetness.  At the same time, the church is fighting a culture war over love.  Yet, something feels a little off about it. 

Before you hear one more sex talk from a pastor, I think it’s time I gave the church the talk about how it handles the topic of love.

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