Me, Linda (my friend & Shaunti’s staff director), and Shaunti
Keep reading – I’m giving someone a free copy of For Women Only by Shaunti Feldhahn at the end of this post.
It has been almost ten years now since I met Shaunti Feldhahn.
It sticks out in my mind because we met during one of the most tumultuous times in my life. I was a 24-year-old newlywed with newly diagnosed bipolar disorder and lots of baggage from a rough childhood. I had just gotten fired from my job and was about to be evicted from the house my husband and I were renting. I was babysitting my nephew five days a week and got bored when he took naps, so I picked up her novel The Lights of Tenth Street so I would have something to do. It turned out to be a good book. 
I could relate to one of the characters in the story, so I dropped Shaunti a line to let her know it registered with me. She wrote back. Then I wrote back. We wrote back and forth a lot after that.
It had to be a “God thing” because I was this needy young woman, still in the partying phase of her life, dumping my life story on this random author in Georgia, and somehow we became good friends through it. The emails turned into phone calls, and eventually visits. I’ll tell you unashamedly that I love Shaunti something fierce. Any friend that sticks with a bipolar person when they decide to stop taking their meds is worth their weight in gold, agreed?
There’s a good chance I wouldn’t be married right now were it not for Shaunti. She was in the middle of writing For Women Only when we met, and I was a struggling wife with unresolved issues who simply didn’t know how to be a good partner. Shaunti started sending me snippets of the book as she wrote it, and imagine my surprise when I applied her words and they actually worked! I have to level with you – I was skeptical. Self-help books? Nah, I didn’t think that would do me any good. (I later went on to write one of my own in 2005 – and yes, this is a shameless plug.)
The great thing about For Women Only is that it’s not just some author telling you how to live your life. It’s not a psychology professor giving you textbook relationship answers. This book – and its counterpart, For Men Only - is based on thousands of interviews with regular women and men about the way they think. FWO and FMO help you get into the minds of the opposite sex, so you can understand where they’re coming from and what they need.
That’s what *I* needed – I needed to understand my husband. I needed to understand myself (the books will help you do that, too!) I sort of felt like maybe I was married to a space alien or something, because I just couldn’t figure him out. FWO helped me figure him out. My 13th wedding anniversary is coming up this fall and even though it hasn’t always been easy, I have a great marriage, and I feel like I have the tools to tackle life’s problems as they come to us. My husband – who prefers Playstation over blogging – would tell you that he learned much from reading FMO.
I’m starting to feel like I’m in a ShamWOW! commercial or something.
I have an extra copy of For Women Only sitting here. It’s fresh and new – I haven’t even allowed the cat to sleep on it. Who wants it?? Get educated, uplifted, keep your coffee table from getting rings, and prop your bed up all in one shot! The third person to email me and MENTION SHAUNTI in the subject line will get it.
Follow me on Twitter and check out the Amazed By Grace Facebook page to connect with others who read this blog and get what we’re going through.
Blessings!
