boy meets girl

like i said, i have been very faithful in my extra-curricular reading this week. yesterday i finished Boy Meets Girl by Joshua Harris. i actually read it kind of by accident, because i had started to read some book in carmen's room a while back that i thought was this one, and i wanted to finish it, but actually that turned out to be When GOD Writes Your Love Story. i don't know how that one is.
but Boy Meets Girl wasn't exactly a pleasent surprize. it had a lot of good points and a lot of Godly perspectives on relationships, but for a lot of it, i was staring at the page thinking, "are you serious?" The chapter about gender roles particularly ticked me off. ol' josh essentially stated that a girl being "one of the guys" is unbiblical. well, i guess i'm in big trouble then. fact is, i rarely feel like one of the girls. groups of girls usually intimidate me. when i'm the only girl in a group of guys, i usually don't notice. i don't know what that says about me as a Christian, but i'm really not feeling convicted to change that about myself.
josh also talked about how motherhood is a disrespected "profession", and more girls should be eager to pursue it. he also clearly states that the guy is the breadwinner, and implies that it's very rare to find a woman pursuing a career that is staying "biblically feminine" (a term he never actually defines). alicia's family comes to mind here. her mother worked at a very respectable job and her father stayed at home with the kids for several years. now that the kids are older, they both work. i know a lot of families are like that. does that mean the women are denying their biblical gender roles? i don't think it does.
a few other things that made me mad... the tone of the book seemed to say that everyone gets married, and that GOD has "that special someone" for everybody. so no one ends up single? does GOD not love single people or what? it's nice to think about, sure, but i think that there are people that GOD wants to keep single. single people don't have to consider their family when thinking about going into missions or following a job.
also, joshua implies that the only way to get married is through the church. i think it's very good to get married through the church, but not being one to like denominational segregation, there's nothing wrong with marrying someone that goes to a different church. but josh talks about the pastor being involved. not pastors. hmmm...
oh, and only perfect people get married, by the way. he gives general advice, like don't marry someone with a bad temper or who disrespects his parents. good advice i guess, but there are people out there with quick tempers. so the people with tempers don't ever get married, or they are at least doomed to be unhappy all their days. sucks to be them. i happen to know a lot of easy-to-set-off guys who are happily married.
alright, i think i'm done griping about that. i would like to state, however, that if GOD wants me to stay single and never get married, bummer, but so be it. and i'm not above marrying a person from a different church (actually, as there really aren't any guys at my church, i hope for it). and i will continue to be one of the guys, unless someone can really prove to me that it's wrong. there ya go.