Exploring The Psychosocial And Psycho Spiritual Dynamics Of Singleness Among African American Christian Women In Midlife

Exploring the Psychosocial and Psycho-spiritual Dynamics of Singleness Among African American Christian Women in Midlife examines the complexities and realities of singleness in individual, familial, and communal contexts. These realities that are emotional, psychological, spiritual, sexual, and social are narrated by three African American women who have reached a critical midlife juncture and they give first-hand accounts of what it means to be Black, single, and Christian in the 21st century. This book provides a much-needed discourse on single African American women and the challenging social, mythical, sexual, and religious perceptions that are endemic to this specific population of women. Moreover, Exploring the Psychosocial and Psycho-spiritual Dynamics of Singleness Among African American Christian Women in Midlife gives insight and voice to the many pastoral concerns of single African American Christian women in the Black church and is purposeful in helping them navigate to a place of health and wholeness.

A Single Woman’s Concerns and Struggles: Reversing the Perception of Exclusion in the Church in the Twenty-First Century and Beyondspeaks to the many single, separated, single parent, divorced, and widowed women who have and are experiencing concerns and struggles that may lead to perceptions of exclusion in the church and community. Each church holds various amounts of information from many sources that may assist single women in reversing the perception of exclusion, but making the best use of these sources and resources can make a big difference in the life of a single woman. Dr. Johnson provides insights into the care, concerns, struggles, and perceptions of exclusion and provides a mentoring guide in encouraging inclusion in the local church and community in the twenty-first century and beyond.

Finally, a collection that celebrates, considers, contemplates, even criticizes'midlife' from a black woman's point of view. Age Ain't Nothing but a Number ranges over every aspect of black women's lives: personal growth, family and friendship, love and sexuality, health, beauty, illness, spirituality, creativity, financial independence, work, and scores of other topics. Midlife today isn't your grandmother's'change of life.' Today, black women call hot flashes 'power surges,' and menopause, the 'pause that refreshes.' These days, middle-aged women may be newlyweds or new mothers, as well as grandmothers or widows. They may experience the empty-nest syndrome and then the 'return-to-the-nest syndrome' as adult children move back home. They may navigate the field of Internet dating, travel the world, teach homeless women, take up pottery, or study international business. This anthology captures all of these aspects of midlife as experienced by some of the finest voices in African-American writing today. Featuring the work of Maya Angelou, J. California Cooper, Pearl Cleage, Nikki Giovanni, Susan L. Taylor, Alice Walker, and dozens of others, Age Ain't Nothing but a Number will make readers think, laugh, and cry and will be the perfect gift book for spring.

Taking the necessary time to minister prayer and forgiveness for oneself is vital: it enables one to remain fresh and vibrant while ministering to others. In addition, it fosters both spiritual and physical wholeness, as well as personal integrity. Taking the necessary time to minister prayer and forgiveness for oneself is vital: it enables one to remain fresh and vibrant while ministering to others. In addition, it fosters both spiritual and physical wholeness, as well as personal integrity. An action the middle-aged African-American woman can take toward self-care is the act of letting go. It is imperative to self-care: an individual cannot receive anything when they are full—full of caring and attending to others as well as unsettled concerns, emotions, or thoughts. The ability to let go is essential to move to a place of wholeness; it creates the space that is needed to receive more. It is impossible to pour more into a full cup, the cup will overflow: letting go of past experiences creates room for the new to emerge. “Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them” (Isa. 42:9 [KJV]).

Despite the fact that almost half of all Americans are single, singleness remains an often overlooked oddity in American culture and in Christian communities. Christians ought to be the people who most support singleness, given what scripture and tradition suggest, but this does not seem to be the case. In this exciting new book, Jana Marguerite Bennett examines a variety of usually forgotten models of singleness: the never-married, the casually uncommitted, the committed but unmarried, the same-sex attracted, the widowed, the divorced, and the single parent. Each chapter in Singleness and the Church takes one of these models and considers the cultural commentary, Christian debate, and a holy guide-figures like Paul, Augustine, Aelred of Rievaulx, Elizabeth Ann Seton, and Dorothy Day -in order to offer a new perspective on singleness, the church, and what it means to be a single Christian disciple. In Singleness and the Church, Bennett provides a fresh new theology of single life, a starting point for restoring singleness, in all its amazing varieties, to its rightful place in Christian tradition.

Black Christian women are sisters: We are connected through our identity in Christ and a common history forged by the African Diaspora. These cultural and spiritual legacies not only strengthen us, but also present us with unique challenges to our health and wholeness. As daughters of the Diaspora, we encounter negative stereotypes and denigrating images imposed upon us by others. As Christians, we can be tempted to overspiritualize our lives to the detriment of our wholeness. These realities can leave us merely surviving our fragmented lives, when in reality, we want to blossom! Well, Blossoming Hope: The Black Christian Woman's Guide to Mental Health and Wellness was written to help do just that. As a licensed psychologist, minister, and seminary administrator, Dr. Tonya Armstrong attends in Blossoming Hope to the need to transcend everyday stressors, difficulties of the past, and even mental health challenges to reach the highest purpose for which God created us. By taking seriously the cultural and spiritual identities of Black Christian women, Dr. Armstrong addresses the unique challenges of Black women and provides practical resources that promote wholeness. Using the transformative tools of psychoeducation, vignettes of Black Christian women living with mental illness, inspirational music, spoken word exercises, and a wealth of spiritual, mental health, and wellness resources, Dr. Armstrong guides us toward optimal functioning in mind, spirit, body, and soul. In short, Blossoming Hope equips you for full blossoming, firmly planted in the God of our hope.

Written by two leading health professionals, this groundbreaking, straight-talking book is for black women in midlife. Prime Time provides support, encouragement, self-tests, and up-to-date health information to empower women to put their own health first and to ensure a vital longevity.

Exploring African-American womens religious practices and spirituality from the perspective of healing, Mitchem offers a bird's eye view into the historical issues related to the subject.

The church needs to do a better job of speaking theologically to single Christians. Challenging prevailing evangelical assumptions about "the problem" of singleness, this book explains why the church needs single people and offers a contemporary theology of singleness relevant to all members of the church. Drawing on the examples of three important figures from the history of Christianity, the book helps today's church form a vision of life in the kingdom of God that is as theologically significant for single people as it is for those who are married.