At one time or another, shifting seasons in family, friendships, employment, and communities will bring each of us face-to-face with the feeling of being on the outside looking in. Because we are made for connection, this will often lead us down one of two roads. Either we will hop on the popular but crowded highway that asks us to do whatever it takes to get noticed, or we'll stand still, paralyzed by the fear that we're not important, loveable, or worth other people's time and attention.But what if there is another way? With an understanding voice that will speak into your own circumstances, Kristen Strong walks beside you along the less traveled but more satisfying third way--the back road way--to belonging: remaining in Christ and relaxing into the unique role God has for you. Along the way, you will learn simple, doable actions that not only will help you feel and know that you belong but will welcome others in as well.
When difficult or unwanted change enters our lives, it can cause fear, anxiety, and anger to bubble up from within. We want to quiet that simmering stress, but how do we do that, especially when we know our circumstances aren't going to calm down any time soon? By regularly meeting with God and exchanging our worries and fears for his assurances that he is using our difficult change for us, not against us.Easier said than done? Not if you have Kristen Strong alongside you as your understanding guide. Offering thoughtful, humorous anecdotes and powerful prayers to recite, Strong invites you to think and feel differently about change on the inside so you can live and love differently on the outside. As the tender companion she is, Kristen will show you how not to get over difficult change but rather to get through it. She'll help you acknowledge your change, give your anxieties over to God, and abide well in the days to come--no matter what transitions life brings.
In a Culture of Distortions, Discover God-Defined Womanhood and Beauty In a culture where airbrushed models and career-driven women define beauty and success, it's no wonder we have a distorted view of femininity. Our impossible standards place an incredible burden of stress on the backs of women and girls of all ages, resulting in anxiety, eating disorders, and depression. One question we often forget to ask is this: What is God's design for womanhood?In Girl Defined, sisters and popular bloggers Kristen Clark and Bethany Beal offer women a countercultural view of beauty, femininity, and self-worth. Based firmly in God's design for their lives, this book helps women rethink what true success and beauty look like. It invites them on a liberating journey toward a radically better vision for femininity that ends with the discovery of the kind of hope, purpose, and fulfillment they've been yearning for.Girl Defined helps readers· discover God's design for femininity and his definition of a successful woman · uncover the secrets of lasting worth, purpose, and fulfillment· be equipped and empowered to live out a radically better vision for womanhood · gain personal insight through the chapter-by-chapter study guide
Our culture is obsessed with love and romance--so why are so few women experiencing satisfying, long-term love?In this insightful and encouraging book, sisters Kristen Clark and Bethany Beal help single women of all ages discover a radically better approach to navigating their love lives. Covering topics such as true love, romance, purposeful relationships, purity, boundaries, singleness, and glorifying God in every stage of our relationships, Love Defined unpacks God's original design for romance, showing modern women how to experience God's best for them in their relationships. Full of biblical truths and step-by-step application of concepts discussed, the book also includes a chapter-by-chapter study guide to be used individually or in small groups, as well as four letters from godly women who have been married for 30, 40, and 50+ years, offering priceless, hard-won advice to single women.
For the modern Christian woman living in today's sexually charged society, embracing God's design for sex and purity can often feel like an impossible pursuit. As the culture seeks to normalize things such as pornography, erotica, and casual sex, both single and married women of all ages feel immense pressure to conform. With alluring temptations constantly inviting them to join in, they might even begin to question whether God's design is truly good. They wrestle with questions like - What is the purpose of my sexuality? - What does it mean to pursue purity? - Are my sexual longings good or bad? In this encouraging book, Kristen Clark and Bethany Beal share honestly about their own struggles and victories, and invite women on a personal journey to discover and reclaim a biblical vision for their sexuality. Kristen and Bethany help women understand why God's design for sexuality is good, relevant, and leads to true hope and lasting freedom.
Life is an incredible journey with ups and downs. We soar, struggle, scale and stumble, and often stand at the edge of cliffs, afraid to step into the unknown, unsure of where we will land. But instead of running away, we are called by God to stand firm, muster up what faith we can, and take a step. Because we were made to move mountains. In this inspiring book, Kristen Welch calls you to step out in faith and climb the mountain in front of you--not because you are good enough or adequate or able, but because God makes a way where there is no way. With heartbreaking and hopeful personal stories, Scripture, and questions for contemplation, she draws you out of fear and into a holy confidence, showing you that the mountain in your path was put there on purpose, so that you could exercise--and grow--your faith.
God is still writing your storyWhat happens when life doesn't turn out the way you always imagined? How do you stay hopeful when disappointments, unfulfilled longings, and frustrating detours come knocking on your door? Kristen Clark and Bethany Beal have asked these same questions themselves. In Not Part of the Plan, they open up their lives in the most raw and relatable way, sharing their own journeys through unexpected seasons of infertility, singleness, loss, and heartbreak. But in the midst of it all, they've learned that true hope doesn't come from getting the life you always dreamed of but from trusting God with the life He has for you and believing that His plans truly are good. Sister, wherever you are on your journey, your life has purpose and meaning in Christ, and thriving is possible--right now. "If life has thrown you a curveball and your future feels hard and scary, Not Part of the Plan is the book for you. You'll laugh. You'll cry. But most of all, you'll appreciate the advice of these wise friends as they teach you how to walk through pain and uncertainty and lead you toward a hope-filled tomorrow."--Mary A. Kassian, author of Girls Gone Wise in a World Gone Wild"Bethany and Kristen address the struggles we face when life takes unwanted detours and show us through Scripture and experience that our ultimate hope is found in Christ. Even in life's disappointments, we can be completely confident in God's greater plan that is for our good and for His glory."--Gretchen Saffles, author of The Well-Watered Woman, founder of Well-Watered Women
What does it mean to be a woman? What makes her her? Why are there differences between men and women? What do we lose as progressive movements try to erase those differences? And where do we go from here?With insight and passion, the founders of Girl Defined Ministries confront the confusion of our culture and the conflicting voices of the feminist movement in order to bring clarity to the biblical womanhood found in God's Word. This book will help you sort through the noise to develop a clear understanding of who God made you to be so you can stand firm and fearless despite the shifting winds of our society.With a discussion guide at the end of each chapter to help you dig deeper, this book makes an excellent choice for women's book clubs and Bible study groups or the perfect read to share with a friend over coffee.
The state's policy with regard to fathers and fatherhood had a great impact on concepts of citizenship and gender in France in the era of the two World Wars. Drawing on new material that has only recently become available from the archives of the Vichy regime, Kristen Stromberg Childers analyzes the ways fathers were promoted as saviors of the nation after France's humiliating defeat by the Germans in June 1940. Childers argues that concern for the family and for the status of fathers in modern France was not merely a response to falling birthrates and German aggression, but was fundamental to the very notion of citizenship and political participation. The debate on men as gendered beings, Childers demonstrates, is central to the political, social, and cultural history of France in the modern age. The father figure became a focus as participants from all classes and across the political spectrum debated what was wrong with the French family and what policies were needed to remedy the problem. Childers examines how these policies were implemented, what they reveal about the development of the welfare state in France, and how they help explain the importance of Vichy in twentieth-century French history. Twenty-eight illustrations, including fifteen photographs, many never previously published, complement her argument.
The world economic order has been upended by the rise of the BRIC nations and the attendant decline of the United States' international influence. In Breaking the WTO, Kristen Hopewell provides a groundbreaking analysis of how these power shifts have played out in one of the most important theaters of global governance: the World Trade Organization. Hopewell argues that the collapse of the Doha Round negotiations in 2008 signals a crisis in the American-led project of neoliberal globalization. Historically, the U.S. has pressured other countries to open their markets while maintaining its own protectionist policies. Over the course of the Doha negotiations, however, China, India, and Brazil challenged America's hypocrisy. They did so not because they rejected the multilateral trading system, but because they embraced neoliberal rhetoric and sought to lay claim to its benefits. By demanding that all members of the WTO live up to the principles of "free trade," these developing states caused the negotiations to collapse under their own contradictions. Breaking the WTO probes the tensions between the WTO's liberal principles and the underlying reality of power politics, exploring what the Doha conflict tells us about the current and coming balance of power in the global economy.
In Bleeding Borders, Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel offers a fresh, multifaceted interpretation of the quintessential sectional conflict in pre-Civil War Kansas. Instead of focusing on the white, male politicians and settlers who vied for control of the Kansas territorial legislature, Oertel explores the crucial roles Native Americans, African Americans, and white women played in the literal and rhetorical battle between proslavery and antislavery settlers in the region. She brings attention to the local debates and the diverse peoples who participated in them during that contentious period.Oertel begins by detailing the settlement of eastern Kansas by emigrant Indian tribes and explores their interaction with the growing number of white settlers in the region. She analyses the attempts by southerners to plant slavery in Kansas and the ultimately successful resistance of slaves and abolitionists. Oertel then considers how crude frontier living conditions, Indian conflict, political upheaval, and sectional violence reshaped traditional Victorian gender roles in Kansas and explores women's participation in the political and physical conflicts between proslavery and antislavery settlers. Oertel goes on to examine northern and southern definitions of ""true manhood"" and how competing ideas of masculinity infused political and sectional tensions. She concludes with an analysis of miscegenation, not only how racial mixing between Indians, slaves, and whites influenced events in territorial Kansas, but more importantly, how the fear of miscegenation fueled both proslavery and antislavery arguments about the need for civil war.As Oertel demonstrates, the players in Bleeding Kansas used weapons other than their Sharpes rifles and Bowie knives to wage war over the extension of slavery: they attacked each other's cultural values and struggled to assert their own political wills. They jealously guarded ideals of manhood, womanhood, and whiteness even as the presence of Indians and blacks and the debate over slavery raised serious questions about the efficacy of these principles. Oertel argues that, ultimately, many Native Americans, blacks, and women shaped the political and cultural terrain in ways that ensured the destruction of slavery, but they, along with their white male counterparts, failed to defeat the resilient power of white supremacy. Moving beyond a conventional political history of Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Borders breaks new ground by revealing how the struggles of this highly diverse region contributed to the national move toward disunion and how the ideologies that governed race and gender relations were challenged as North, South, and West converged on the border between slavery and freedom.
Historians have long known that German immigrants provided much of the support for emancipation in southern Border States. Kristen Layne Anderson's Abolitionizing Missouri, however, is the first analysis of the reasons behind that opposition as well as the first exploration of the impact that the Civil War and emancipation had on German immigrants' ideas about race. Anderson focuses on the relationships between German immigrants and African Americans in St. Louis, Missouri, looking particularly at the ways in which German attitudes towards African Americans and the institution of slavery changed over time. Anderson suggests that although some German Americans deserved their reputation for racial egalitarianism, many others opposed slavery only when it served their own interests to do so. When slavery did not seem to affect their lives, they ignored it; once it began to threaten the stability of the country or their ability to get land, they opposed it. After slavery ended, most German immigrants accepted the American racial hierarchy enough to enjoy its benefits, and had little interest in helping tear it down, particularly when doing so angered their native-born white neighbors.Anderson's work counters prevailing interpretations in immigration and ethnic history, where until recently, scholars largely accepted that German immigrants were solidly antislavery. Instead, she uncovers a spectrum of Germans' ""antislavery"" positions and explores the array of individual motives driving such diverse responses. In the end, Anderson demonstrates that Missouri Germans were more willing to undermine the racial hierarchy by questioning slavery than were most white Missourians, although after emancipation, many of them showed little interest in continuing to demolish the hierarchy that benefited them by fighting for black rights.
Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel's Seeking Freedom in Indian Country is the first comprehensive study of African chattel slavery within the Five Tribes: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole Nations. Oertel examines how chattel slavery functioned among all Five Tribes before and during the removal process, how the tribes reconstituted slavery post-removal in Indian Territory, and how enslaved Black people promoted freedom-seeking strategies at each stage. Furthermore, her work considers how the conflict over slavery in Indian Territory contributed to the larger national debate over slavery's fate on the eve of the Civil War. Historians have examined how the practice of African enslavement emerged within one or two tribes, how forced migration affected slavery within particular nations, and how the debate over slavery divided multiple Indigenous nations. Oertel, however, is the first to examine Indian Territory as a whole, its significance to the sectional debates, and its role as an incubator of emancipation policies in the United States. Knitting together these individual tribal narratives and supplementing them with extensive primary research on how slavery functioned across Indian Territory, she integrates Indian country into the antebellum march toward the Civil War. Seeking Freedom in Indian Country joins a rising chorus of studies that integrate southern and western history, which, by default, also pulls together the history of the so-called Indian Wars with the Civil War. Oertel suggests that we cannot fully understand the causes of the Civil War without also considering the changes brought about by the forced removal of Indians. She argues that settler colonialism and the expansion of African chattel slavery together set the stage for sectional conflict to explode in the West. Ironically, both Indigenous resistance to settler colonialism and Black resistance to slavery challenged white supremacy in ways that foretold the end of slavery but also furthered the settler colonial project.
Why is it that many students' performance tends to drop in the middle school years, and what can we do about it? This book tells the stories of educators who embody best practices in their day-to-day activities - practices that consistently lead to higher student academic achievement. The authors share what they have learned about how some middle schools consistently foster better academic performance than other similar schools. These schools have learned to successfully adapt to the climate of accountability while practicing the essentials of effective middle-level education. ""Best Practices from High-Performing Middle Schools"" is essential reading for everyone who cares about adolescents and wants to ensure their success in later schooling and in life. Teachers and administrators will find research-based practices that they can adapt to their own unique contexts. Parents, policymakers, and community members will better understand how they can contribute to the improvement of their middle schools.
In cities across the nation, communities of color find themselves resisting state disinvestment and the politics of dispossession. Students at the Center—a writing initiative based in several New Orleans high schools—takes on this struggle through a close examination of race and schools. This book builds on the powerful stories of marginalized youth and their teachers, who contest the policies that are destructive to their communities: decentralization, charter schools, market-based educational choice, teachers union-busting, mixed-income housing, and urban redevelopment. Striking commentaries from the foremost scholars of the day explore the wider implications of these stories for pedagogy and educational policy in schools across the United States and the globe. Most importantly, this book reveals what must be done to challenge oppressive conditions and democratize our schools by troubling the vision of city elites who seek to elide students’ histories, privatize their schools, and reinvent their neighborhoods.Contributors include Michael W. Apple, Wayne Au, Adrienne D. Dixson, Maisha T. Fisher, Joyce E. King, Pauline Lipman, and Vanessa Siddle Walker.
Both higher education and P–12 faculty play a critical role in the preparation of new teachers, yet they have traditionally operated in silos. This book, designed to be read and applied immediately, will help teacher preparation programs and schools work together to best prepare preservice teachers. This is accomplished by clearly describing the roles and responsibilities of both stakeholders, specifically with a focus on the preparation of the mentor teacher. The author outlines ways for schools and teacher preparation programs to collaboratively choose, train, and support mentor teachers, along with suggestions for connecting P–12 and higher education faculty more regularly. Driskill provides a replicable blueprint that has been put into practice and found to be effective. School districts and teacher preparation programs can use the blueprint to reform clinical practice, which ultimately puts more highly qualified teachers in more classrooms.Book Features:Offers a proven-effective method for preparing and supporting mentor teachers in clinical practice.Focuses on what exactly clinical practice entails, including the roles and responsibilities of teacher prep programs and P–12 schools.Explores how mentor teachers are currently identified versus how they should be identified.Outlines topics and strategies for initial training and ongoing support for mentor teachers.Contains specific steps both school districts and teacher preparation programs can take to form successful partnerships.
Both higher education and P–12 faculty play a critical role in the preparation of new teachers, yet they have traditionally operated in silos. This book, designed to be read and applied immediately, will help teacher preparation programs and schools work together to best prepare preservice teachers. This is accomplished by clearly describing the roles and responsibilities of both stakeholders, specifically with a focus on the preparation of the mentor teacher. The author outlines ways for schools and teacher preparation programs to collaboratively choose, train, and support mentor teachers, along with suggestions for connecting P–12 and higher education faculty more regularly. Driskill provides a replicable blueprint that has been put into practice and found to be effective. School districts and teacher preparation programs can use the blueprint to reform clinical practice, which ultimately puts more highly qualified teachers in more classrooms. Book Features:Offers a proven-effective method for preparing and supporting mentor teachers in clinical practice.Focuses on what exactly clinical practice entails, including the roles and responsibilities of teacher prep programs and P–12 schools.Explores how mentor teachers are currently identified versus how they should be identified. Outlines topics and strategies for initial training and ongoing support for mentor teachers. ? Contains specific steps both school districts and teacher preparation programs can take to form successful partnerships.
Dear Expecting Mama, Praise Jesus Hallelujah God has blessed you and your husband with a baby It's your turn to experience the beautiful chaos that is pregnancy and motherhood. Letters To The Expecting Mama has a separate letter for each month of your pregnancy--each full of candid truths, love and encouragement, comic relief, and helpful advice. They're designed to be read slowly; to progress with you one exciting month at a time on your journey to mama-hood. You will read about important things that don't always get covered: Staying in love with your husband Dwelling in God's love and protection Stifling self-doubt Labor and delivery strategies Loving your body Maximizing time and energy Sex, pushing out a baby, and other awkward things Postpartum expectations Dealing with pregnancy symptoms Let's have the heart-to-heart you're craving and celebrate this wild adventure together Love, Kristen
In the 1930s, Shirley Temple was heralded as “America’s sweetheart,” and she remains the icon of wholesome American girlhood, but Temple’s films strike many modern viewers as perverse. Shirley Temple and the Performance of Girlhood examines her early career in the context of the history of girlhood and considers how Temple’s star image emerged out of the Victorian cult of the child. Beginning her career in “Baby Burlesks,” short films where she played vamps and harlots, her biggest hits were marketed as romances between Temple and her adult male costars. Kristen Hatch helps modern audiences make sense of the erotic undercurrents that seem to run through these movies. Placing Temple’s films in their historical context and reading them alongside earlier representations of girlhood in Victorian theater and silent film, Hatch shows how Shirley Temple emerged at the very moment that long standing beliefs about childhood innocence and sexuality were starting to change. Where we might now see a wholesome child in danger of adult corruption, earlier audiences saw Temple’s films as demonstrations of the purifying power of childhood innocence. Hatch examines the cultural history of the time to view Temple’s performances in terms of sexuality, but in relation to changing views about gender, class, and race. Filled with new archival research, Shirley Temple and the Performance of Girlhood enables us to appreciate the “simpler times” of Temple’s stardom in all its thorny complexity.
