Love Defined by Kristen Clark and Bethany Baird

How do you define Love? How do you find lasting love in our modern culture? Love defined by Kristen Clark and Bethany Baird have written a book to guide single women in to seeing love and relationships the way God sees them.

Love Defined is divided in to five parts: Happily Ever Disaster, Bringing Back True Love, Single and Waiting to Mingle, Working Through the Nitty Gritty, and Living Well on this side of the Alter. Clark and Baird are sisters who write throughout this book about their own experiences, as well as the experiences of other people they know. They aren't relationship experts but they are the founders of GirlDefined Ministries and previously authored a book called, Girl Defined. Throughout this book, they share from God's Word as well as their experiences. At the end of each chapter, there is a short study to help readers grow and remember what they are learning. At the end of the book, there are two appendixes: Finding Freedom from Past Sexual Sin and Fifty Questions to Ask Early in the Relationship.

I think one of the biggest strengths of Love Defined is that these two women open up and share their hearts as women who have made mistakes and grown and then share them with the readers. They work with a lot of girls in their ministry and they act as sort of big sisters in this book to a sister reader giving helpful advice from ladies who have had similar experiences in our culture today. They break all of the information down in to bite-sized bits and they aren't afraid to tackle difficult subjects in a way that respects both God and the reader. I would pass Love Defined on to any single woman who is searching for how to better do life as a single and also as one who is in a relationship and wants that relationship to honor God and each other. I especially liked the  chapter called, What Married Women Want you to know. I think we can all learn from and encourage each other and these ladies offers some great words of wisdom. In this last section, the authors encourage you to find an older Christian woman to be a mentor or to be a mentor to a younger woman if you are an older Christian woman. I think that personal relationship could be so valuable for both parties.

I received this book from Baker Publishing and Just Read Tours Blind Date with a book. All opinions are my own.