Having A Martha Home The Mary Way

Get your home and your heart in order in just 31 days! Sarah Mae wants to let you in on a little secret about being a good homemaker: It’s not about having a clean house. She’d never claim to be a natural, organized cleaner herself—yet, like you, she wants a beautiful space to call home, a place where people feel loved and at peace. Where people can really settle in with good food, comfy pillows, and wide-open hearts. Is it possible to find a balance? To care for your heart—and your home—at the same time? Journey with Sarah Mae on this easy, practical 31-day plan to get you moving and have your house looking and feeling fresh. But even more than that, you’ll gain a new vision for the home of your dreams, and how to make it a place of peace, comfort, and community. Originally published as the e-book 31 Days to Clean and now revised and expanded in print for the first time, Having a Martha Home the Mary Way will inspire you to find a happier, healthier . . . cleaner way to live.

CBA BESTSELLER • More than a million copies sold! An invitation for every woman who’s ever felt she isn’t godly enough, isn’t loving enough, isn’t doing enough. “Easy to read, personal, and well-written with a message much more than surface deep. Joanna probed, challenged, and encouraged me to live day by day as Mary in a Martha world.”—Carole Mayhall, author of Come Walk with Me and Here I Am Again, Lord The life of a woman today isn’t all that different from the lives of Mary and Martha in the New Testament. Like Mary, you long to sit at the Lord’s feet . . . but the daily demands of a busy world just won’t leave you alone. Like Martha, you love Jesus and really want to serve him . . . yet you struggle with weariness, resentment, and feelings of inadequacy. Then comes Jesus, into the midst of your busy life, to extend the same invitation he issued long ago to the two sisters from Bethany. Tenderly, he invites you to choose “the better part”—a joyful life of intimacy with him that flows naturally into loving service. With her fresh approach to the familiar Bible story, Joanna Weaver shows how all of us, Marys and Marthas alike, can draw closer to our Lord: deepening our devotion, strengthening our service, and doing both with less stress and greater joy. This book includes a twelve-week Bible study for individual or group use. A Study Guide and a corresponding ten-session video series on DVD or online are available separately.

Through this interactive study of Mary and Martha of Bethany, women will learn to embrace their diversity as sisters in Christ. God has blessed the body of Christ with a variety of spiritual gifts, personalities, and life experiences. By discovering and combining these, women can learn to complement one another in serving the church and reaching out in love to others. As sisters in Christ, they can realize their potential for accomplishing all the purposes that God has for them.

An invitation for overachievers to discover what it means to rest as God's daughters without compromising their God-given design as doers. Are you a Martha who feels guilty for not being a Mary? Do you want to sit at Jesus’s feet as Mary did—but you feel the need to get things done? In Made Like Martha, Katie M. Reid invites you to exchange try-hard striving for hope-filled freedom without abandoning your doer’s heart in the process. Through her own story and rich biblical illustrations, Katie reminds you that it’s not important whether you sit and listen or stand and work. What matters is that your spiritual posture is one of a beloved daughter who knows she doesn’t need to earn God’s love. Your desire to get things done is not something to temper but something to embrace as you serve from a place of strength and peace—knowing Christ already did His most important work for you on the cross. With “It Is Finished” activities at the end of each chapter and a fiveweek Bible study included, Made Like Martha helps you find rest from striving even as you celebrate your God-given design to “do.” “Made Like Martha will infuse your life with a fresh perspective as you learn both to embrace your God-given personality and also discover how—and when—to rest and retreat.” —Karen Ehman, Proverbs 31 Ministries speaker and New York Times bestselling author of Keep It Shut

A life-changing guide to accessing the new life Jesus came to bring—from the bestselling author of Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World “You’ll emerge from this reading experience a changed woman.”—Liz Curtis Higgs You long to serve God with grace and strength and reflect Christ in every word and action. Yet you find yourself continually struggling to bring that vision to life in your daily walk. At our very core, every one of us is a “twisted sister” within whom the flesh and spirit are battling constantly for control. We are afflicted with a chronic disconnect between our good-girl desire to put Jesus first and our bad-girl realities that crowd our thoughts and push Him out of the way. In Having a Mary Spirit, Joanna Weaver directs your gaze past your own shortcomings to the God who stands ready, willing, and able to make a new woman out of you. She equips you with biblical insights and practical tools to partner with Christ, inviting Him into the hidden places of your soul and giving Him full permission to redeem and renovate. Drawing on the stories of the biblical Marys (Mary, mother of Jesus; Mary, sister of Martha; and Mary Magdalene) and others whose experience with God transformed their lives, Joanna points you toward lasting personal transformation—soul-deep change that results in a complete makeover—from the inside out. Includes a fourteen-week Bible study (adaptable to twelve weeks) for both individual reflection and group discussion.

Desperate is for those who love their children to the depths of their souls but who have also curled up under their covers, fighting back tears, and begging God for help. It’s for those who have ever wondered what happened to all their ideals for what having children would be like. For those who have ever felt like all the “experts” have clearly never had a child like theirs. For those who have prayed for a mentor. For those who ever felt lost and alone in motherhood. In Desperate you will find the story of one young mother’s honest account of the desperate feelings experienced in motherhood and one experienced mentor’s realistic and gentle exhortations that were forged in the trenches of raising her own four children. Also in Desperate: QR codes and links at the end of each chapter that lead to videos with Sarah Mae and Sally talking about the chapter Practical steps to take during the desperate times Bible study and journal exercises in each chapter that will lead you to identify ways in which you can grow as a mom Mentoring advice for real-life situations Q & A section with Sally where she answers readers questions

Mothering is messy. Our joy and hope in raising children doesn’t change the reality that being a mom can be frustrating, stressful, and tiring. But just as God is using us to shape our children, God is using our children and motherhood to shape us. In The Better Mom, author Ruth Schwenk, herself a mother of four children, encourages us with the good news that there is more to being a mom than the extremes of striving for perfection or simply embracing the mess. We don’t need to settle for surviving our kids’ childhood. We can grow through it. With refreshing and heartfelt honesty Ruth emboldens moms to: Find freedom and walk confidently in purpose Create a God-honoring home environment Overcome unhealthy and destructive emotions such as anger, anxiety, and more Avoid glorifying the mess of mom-ing or idolizing perfection Cultivate life-giving friendships At the heart of The Better Mom is the message that Jesus calls us to live not a weary life, but a worthy life. We don’t have to settle for either being apathetic or struggling to be perfect. Both visions of motherhood go too far. Ruth offers a better option. She says, “It’s okay to come as we are, but what we’re called to do and be is far too important to stay there! The way to becoming a better mom starts not with what we are doing, but with who God is inviting us to become."