Preparing to Be a Help Meet

I have mixed feelings about Debi Pearl's book for single women, Preparing to Be a Help Meet. 

I really enjoyed her usual analysis of three types of men, The Command Man, The Visionary Man, and The Steady Man, as well as her additional commentary on three types of women.  I appreciated the way she advises young women to "have a life" of their own and not just sit around waiting for "Prince Charming" to come and whisk them away to happily ever after.  And I liked the way she recommended using the single years to focus on growing in the Lord and serving Him.  This was one of my favorite quotes:

"Run fast and hard after Jesus and look to the left or the right 

and marry the person who is at your side" (144).

Even though I liked some aspects of the book, I will not be handing it to Briana to read any time soon.  For one thing, it seems to me it is for young ladies a little past her season in life.  She is not ready to be married at this point, so while she is preparing in some senses to one day be a "suitable helper", she is preparing in different ways than this book focuses on.  I think if a young lady reads lots of books like this too soon, it can create a sense of discontentment for the season of the single years that might lead to jumping into a relationship prematurely.

The main thing I didn't like about this book was some of the stories she told, especially those supporting her apparent philosophy that the Lord has a certain person who is "the right one" for each of us to marry.  While I agree that the Lord knows who each of us will marry, I just can't find scriptural evidence that He has a specific person prepared for each individual and I certainly can't find evidence that He speaks to us and let's us know who is the "right one" He wants us to marry. 

I once heard a speaker say something to the effect that if we are married, then that is the person the Lord wants us to be married to; if we aren't married, then He gives us guidelines (such as being equally yoked) regarding the type of person we should marry.  I might be making too big of a deal of this, but I think we need to be careful not to buy into the idea that there is a "specific someone" we are supposed to find--our ideal soul mate. 

I can think of several people (four right this second off the top of my head) who think they finally found "the right one" in successive marriages after a divorce or two so now they are within the Lord's will by finally being married to the person the Lord intended for them.  If I thought I just wasn't walking with the Lord as closely as I should have been at the time I married Alan (which would be true) and that we don't really have a great deal in common (which could be true if we didn't work at developing interests to share) or that he isn't as spiritual as some other man (which I'm sure there is someone out there more "spiritual" than he is) and if I subscribed to this theory that God had a "perfect man for me out there somewhere" (which I don't), then I might just decide to ditch him and go in search of "the right one" (or he might do the same to me).  Do I need to list all the verses where God says that He hates divorce and that what He has joined together, we have no business tearing apart and not to forsake the wife of your youth or most amazing of all, that marriage is a picture of Christ's love for the church?  I just think we have to be very, very careful when this philosophy is presented as truth and follow it through to its logical (and unbiblical) conclusion.

I had a couple other issues with the book which I won't take time to go into right now, but would just recommend that a reader use discernment if you choose to read it and especially if you hand it to impressionable young ladies.  Much of the book is good, however, so I hate to "throw the baby out with the bathwater" which results in my "mixed feelings" assessment.