Why We Love Confessions of a Boy-Crazy Girl
It isn’t easy to take an honest, vulnerable look at your dating experiences. Try publishing it for everyone to read. In Confessions of a Boy-Crazy Girl: On Her Journey from Neediness to Freedom, Paula Hendricks describes how her revolving door relationship with “cute, innocent crushes,” eventually became costly investments. The writing manager of Revive Our Hearts and frequent blogger on Lies Young Women Believe opens up her heart (and her journal entries) to share all her personal triumphs, tears and the truth that set her free.
But this isn’t your typical dating/singleness/relationship book. It’s an invitation to follow God with the most vulnerable, fragile, and hope-hungry pieces of your heart, written by a young woman offering her personal journey as “Exhibit A.” For Paula, trusting God with her love life meant total surrender: “I never thought I’d say this, but I was treating God like a math equation: trust God + wait on God + pray about everything +be led by Scripture = getting the guy and the love I’ve always wanted. But I was never any good at math. And God is not a formula.”
The book is divided into two parts, sort of a spiritual before-and-after: “The Searching (Doing It My Way)” and “The Breaking and Remaking (Relinquishing Control).” What I love about Paula’s book is her ability to hit the root issue of the heart, sometimes even hitting a nerve. She talks about the danger of “Awakening Love” (ch. 3) before the right time and running ahead of reality with “The Relationship in My Head” (ch. 6). And who hasn’t bought into the lie that romantic bliss is just a cosmetic counter away, convincing ourselves, “If I Could Just Be Beautiful Enough” (ch. 4)? She even addresses that confusing time, “When You Get What You Want But It’s All Wrong” (ch. 12) and the painful, humiliating setback of rejection in “The Part Where Everything’s Supposed to End Happily Ever After (ch. 15).
After a string of heartbreaks and disappointments, Paula came to a profound realization: In running after love, she was actually running away from it. The love and the identity she had been chasing was a God-sized craving. And in a moment of total soul-transparency, Paula’s love life was changed from the inside out. “Suddenly I realized I didn’t have to be jealous of that pretty girl. I didn’t have to covet every guy I saw. I didn’t have to hate that guy for not liking me. I wasn’t powerless anymore. In fact, in Christ I was no longer that helpless, hopeless boy-crazy girl. I had a new identity now.” To discover how…you’ll have to get the book!
I wish I’d had read this when I was in college! Ideal for young women in their teens and twenties, Confessions of a Boy-Crazy Girl is both lighthearted and spiritually deep. Paula writes in a voice of emotional maturity and a candidness that makes you feel like you’re sitting together and sipping Caramel Macchiatos. Its fast-paced chapters are saturated with Scripture, sound theology, and Paula’s witty sense of humor. Make sure you, your daughter, or the boy-crazy girl in your life has this book for the journey from neediness to freedom!
Enter to win a free copy of Confessions of a Boy-Crazy Girl: On Her Journey from Neediness to Freedom. Just leave a comment on this post and we’ll enter your name in a drawing.
Big thanks to Paula and Moody Publishers for sending a copy of her book! Opinions are mine and unsolicited. In fact, they didn’t even ask for a review – it’s just that great of a book that we had to share it with you!
Click here to buy at Amazon!
Katie McCoy
Assistant Professor of Theology in Women’s Studies and Editor of Biblical Woman at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary
Katie McCoy serves as Assistant Professor of Theology in Women's Studies at Scarborough College of Southwestern Seminary. She holds a PhD in Systematic Theology from Southwestern (2016). Her research focused on Old Testament laws about women's personhood and what they teach us about women's dignity and social justice.
Would like this for friend and daughter.
Great post KT! Sounds like a great book 😉
I”m married now, but would still love to read this!
I am a youth pastor and would love to be able to use this book to minister to teenage women in my youth group
I ordered my copy a few days ago, so am eagerly awaiting its arrival. As mum to two late-teenage girls, I”m looking forward to reading it for myself first, and then giving it to them to read. If I read it first myself, it”s easier for us to talk about what”s in it….
The ”blurb” sounds exactly like what I was like, and what – dare I say – I see glimpses of in my daughters.
Sounds like a great I could share with my girlfriends & the young women/girls I come into contect with!
*A great read
This sounds like a great book. I would love to read it. Thanks for sharing it with us!
This looks good! Sharing it with my readers.
Oh! I would love to read this!! 😀
Would desperately love to gift this to a precious sixteen year who seems to insist on traveling down the wrong path :-(.
This little snipette sounds amazing, definitely sounds like a book every girl/woman should have in their repertoire!
I would love to own a copy of this book. I need this in my own life and I would love to pass it on to other women in Christ struggling with the same sin.