To meet a great guy, first meet THE GUY.

If you’ve sauntered over from ChrisitanMingle.com, chances are you’re looking for a man to start an amazing life. We believe this is possible, and so do over a million people who are signed up with us. Happy endings happen all the time, but first you need to have a wonderful intro. As “uggggg” inducing as this is going to sound, I’m going to say it anyway: To meet a great guy, first meet THE GUY.

You know who I’m talking about ladies. And even if you’re annoyed at me for suggesting it, deep inside, perhaps it still rings true.

So, why not pause and consider perusing a few blogs that can inspire you to seek the Lord in a fresh and engaging way? 

“But I don’t have time for reading!”

This is a comment I hear a lot these days… and I get it. It can seem impossible to balance real life with a virtual life (let alone meeting a man online)!  After all, from Pinterest to Facebook… from email to Twitter… it’s possible to spend an entire day down-loading media.

The result of such steady sips of media is not unlike a cocktail buzz. Whether downing info at 140 characters or less, or ingesting 1,000 word articles, the result often leaves women feeling tired, unfulfilled and wondering exactly how the unproductive hours slipped by.  (Not to mention the hangover afterwards. That’s never any fun.)

Have you considered narrowing down time wasting media and finding just a few worthy sites? (Like ours, I hope!) 

Last year the Washington Post wrote an article featuring Nicole Pagano – a 26-year-old mother and full-time worker who found herself a bit too connected (pun intended) to Facebook. As an experiment, she decided to give up Facebook for Lent for 40 Days. It wasn’t easy, but it was life changing.

Without Facebook “I am forced to connect with people via text message and phone, which definitely makes things seem more personal when it comes to keeping my friendships,” Pagano says in the article.

With churches across the world encouraging the occasional technology fast to jumpstart their spiritual and personal lives, some women are taking a more moderate approach and limiting their time spent online.

With that in mind, here are 10 female Christian blogs worth checking out. They vary in tone and theme, but each has rich content that will inspire you and, just as important, make you think.

Got any female blogs of your own you love to read? Let me know on my  FB Wall or comment here.

10 Female Blogs I Love

I hope you will love these blogs as much as I do. They have all inspired me, got me to think, and made me laugh out loud on occasion. (And cry. It happens.) 

1. Rachel Held Evans – Rachel is a widely known author and blogger who speaks to issues of gender identity and roles in the church. She is considered a faith warrior who acts as a liaison between mainline/progressive and evangelical Christians. Her rise to literary fame began with her first book, Evolving in Monkey Town (Zondervan, 2010), which explores the relationship between faith and doubt and recounts the challenges of asking tough questions about Christianity in the context of the Bible Belt. Her second book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood (Thomas Nelson Oct, 2012), documents a year-long experiment in which she attempted to follow all of the Bible’s instructions for women as literally as possible. Evans is admired for asking the tough questions with a sense of curiosity, fearlessness and humor.

2. Momastery – Glennon Doyle Melton has been stealing women’s hearts worldwide with her raw, witty & relatable storytelling. Fiercely honest about her struggles with depression, as well as a past eating disorder, Melton packs blogs full of wit, honesty and humor. Her transparency is like a driver’s license, giving other women a free pass to drive down life’s highway with equal strength, expectation, joy and love.  In her own words, Momastery is… “A place to take a deep breath. It’s a place to drop out and tune in. It’s a place to stop striving, stop competing, stop suspecting, stop hiding. To hear and tell truth. Mother Teresa said, “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that We Belong to Each Other.” If we find peace here – it’s because we remember.

3. Shauna Niequist – Shauna writes about the beautiful and broken moments of everyday life – friendship, family, faith, food, marriage, love, babies, books, celebration, heartache and all the other things that shape us, delight us and reveal to us the heart of God. With beautiful photographs and courageous insight, Shauna gets real about what it is to have faith in a broken world. Her blog is admirable for her truth telling. She is open about her flaws. She doesn’t shy away from the hard questions. And, despite a very intelligent mind, she’s quick to always point to God for any gifts she has from Him. This is a super stylish blog with lots of great giveaways! Check out her bestselling books, too – they are well worth the read.

4. The Very Worst Missionary – A plainspoken blogger, Jamie Wright is brutally honest about her imperfections, and equally passionate about spreading the Gospel. If there is a mold about what a Christian writer looks like, it’s best to drag out your broom and dust pan. Jamie will shatter your expectations, maybe rile you up, but always make you smile. (And think! Thank the LORD she has us think!)

5. Sarah Bessey – Sarah Bessey looks like a sassy Snow White with her milky skin, dark hair and funky glasses. But make no bones about it – this is no fairy tale princess. Sarah writes about her own faith and spirituality, about what love, mothering, ecclesiology, theology, women’s issues, social justice and “pretty much everything else that you are not supposed to discuss in polite company.”  Her internationally praised book, Jesus Feminist, is a must-read for those wanting to take a second look at gender roles within the church. In her own words, “I am one of those happy-clappy Jesus followers with stars in her eyes. I’m an uneasy pacifist, a Kingdom of God focused woman, postmodern, liberal to the conservative and conservative to the liberal in matters of both religion and politics (not an easy task, I assure you), a social justice wanna-be trying to do some good, and a nondenominational charismatic recovering know-it-all slowly falling back in love with the Church.”

6. Sparks from the Soul – Maggie Johnson is passionate about bringing hope and freedom to the many forms of oppression: women who have been told that theology is masculine and therefore not for them, those who have been or are being abused, the one who is bitter because the church hurt them deeply. If Sarah Bessey had a younger sister, Maggie Johnson would be it. She writes along the same themes as Bessey, but her writing is a bit lighter. Johnson writes from the perspective of someone newly married, sans kids, who is still working out the kinks of what it means to live radically for Jesus but live in the real world. She’s smart and quirky and someone you wouldn’t mind having over for coffee because she just seems like a sweetheart. (With a brain!)

7. Nadia Bolz Weber – Known as the Sarcastic Lutheran, Nadia is a fresh voice that blends traditional Lutheran sensibilities with a funny, irreverent take on how to put our faith into action in a rapidly changing world. Covered in tattoos with a background in stand-up comedy, Nadia never considered becoming a passionate pastor who would transform broken lives through the Gospel until that fateful day she lead a friend’s funeral in a smoky downtown comedy club. Surrounded by fellow drinkers, depressives and jaded nomads, she came to the stunning conclusion that these were, indeed, her flock. She would be their pastor. In her blog and book, she weaves stories about a hopeful-but-haggard commune of slackers who she leads toward God.  Using colorful, sassy (shhh… sometimes profane) narrative, her no-holds barred honesty reveals a woman who is both deeply faithful and deeply flawed, giving hope to the rest of us along the way. (*She is particularly a good read for people who feel that Christ could not accept someone as flawed as “them.” Hint: Of course He can!)

8. Time for Tea – With great photographs and prose that sings from its pages, Kimberly Cole writes about motherhood, marriage, God and everything in between. Kimberly’s writing feels softer than some of the above blogs. She’s not covered in tats and her blogs are full of feminist angst and Dorothy Parker poetry slam zings. She’s a mom, a wife, a crafter. She’s big on God’s love and using it to raise a well-rounded, grounded family. She’s the woman you wish lived next door from you, because when you were sick, you could borrow one of her many books and drink some tea in a fabulous cup. In her own words, “I hope you’ll find something you like here and stay for a while. I try to find time to write here, cup of tea in hand, when I am not busy with the stuff of everyday life. I write about faith, family, and my previous life as an American expat living in Europe. Sometimes I write about my love/hate relationship with running, and other times I write about words themselves and how I hope to make a life out of writing them. But mostly, I write about the minutiae and messy bits of life, and how to find beauty in the middle of them.”

9. Conversion Diary – Once a devout atheist, Jennifer Fulwiler had a crisis of faith when her first child was born. In this enticing testimony, Fulwiler outlines her conversion from a person in the world to a person of the world. Fulwiler did not convert easily. She devoured hundreds of theology books, and even created her own website debating various Christian and non-Christian traditions, before settling on Catholicism. Whether or not you’re a Catholic, there’s a decent chance you’ll appreciate Fulwiler’s spiritual and intellectual disciplines that she writes so eloquently about in her blog.

10. Elizabeth Esther – A mother of five, living in Southern California, Elizabeth’s blog chronicles her life as a person of faith who is learning to trust God after escaping the chains of fundamentalism. Her book, Girl at The End of the World: my escape from fundamentalism in search of faith with a future, will be released in March 2014, by Convergent Books. Without pulling punches, Esther writes of her experiences with enough emotion to engage you, but detached enough to explain her points cohesively and strongly. Why does she write? In her words, “This blog is mostly about my recovery from fundamentalist religion. I deconstruct harmful beliefs like how I was taught to never trust my heart, why I believed I was an inherently evil human being, and the abusive idea that God wants parents to spank their children until their “will is broken.” I’ve written about learning to forgive and be forgiven through Confession , the damaging effects of “purity culture” and how Mary brought me back to Jesus. I entered the Catholic Church in 2009.

Leave a comment or Write me Personally! I love hearing from readers with suggestions or comments, so write me at APaventi@Spark.net