Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn't Expect [Paperback]

Connally Gilliam (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 26, 2005

Turning our culture's Sex in the City worldview completely upside down, Revelations of a Single Woman celebrates God's enticing, life-giving promises, even when life takes you down a path you didn't plan for. Connally Gilliam explores what it means to live in a world for which her mother never could have prepared her. Through this collection of thoughtful, honest, and humorous memoirs, the author delves into what it really means to be “the remainder” in a world that caters to couples, and what it means to be the one who lives out moral values that her peers think died in the sixties. As readers walk with Connally through each humorous and poignant experience, they will discover that God doesn't promise happiness somewhere in the future, but abundant life in the here and now.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: SaltRiver (December 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1414303084
• ISBN-13: 978-1414303086
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #329,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Connally Gilliam earned a master's of teaching (English) from the University of Virginia and has taught high school and college writing. She now works for Navigators as a life coach for twentysomethings in the Washington, D.C., metro area. She loves sharing coffee with friends and discovering how God is real, even in a crazy, changing, and unintentionally single world.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

90 of 92 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reviewing a book I didn't expect, April 17, 2006

By 

makaher "makaher" (Arlington, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn't Expect (Paperback)

This book blew me away. It is fabulous. It is the kind of book for singles that I have thought doesn't exist. Let me confess: I hated being single two years ago, even tho I am really happy about it right now. It just felt so unfair. So I thought "You need a Christian self-help book for singles, that will fix it". And oh what a great choice we have. There is Michelle McKinney-Hammond, whose books on the topic did virtually NOTHING for me. Her writing, it is ALL about *preparing* and waiting for that perfect God-blessed relationship. Sorry, but I don't even KNOW whether God has that planned for me, so why would I spend so much time *getting ready for Mr Right?*. Then there is Nancy Leigh Demoss. Her apporach is far more true to God's word and actually considers the concept and joys of life-long singleness. Or at least a life that doesn't center on waiting for God-sent Prince Charming. I liked that. Because it destroyed the myth that only a life spent in a relationship is a life worth living. BUT....what I am missing in this type of book is my down-to-earth everyday life as as single and how I sometimes *coughs*euphemism*coughs* struggle with it. You know...finding out that even God-trusting singles of the kind that strive to please God have to come to terms with certain things. And Gilliams's book addresses all that in a way that I -a woman who is in her mid-20s in 2006 and was raised in a non-Chritian household in a pleasure-obsessed world- can relate to. Chapters like "I Just Gotta Be Queen", "Not Getting It" (and yes, she means *it*) and "So, Why aren't you married?" give an idea. This is no dreamy Christian-Women-have-no-physical-and-emotional-desires-and-naturally-bloom-in-volunteer-work type of book. This is about your average woman who has made a commitment to the Lord that seems to be against everything modern western culture advocates and against what a not-to-be-understimated part of herself simply *wants*. Don't get me wrong, the author NEVER fails to give God His place in this book, but she understands that striving to be a woman after Gods' own heart does NOT mean being "naturally" and "effortlessly" chaste and happy-about-her-situation. In fact, Gilliam points out that it is the struggle, the effort and yes, the suffering, which help us to follow and understand Christ. So: Does THIS book help me at all? yes. It makes me feel I am being understood by other people in this situation and reminds me that the ultimate reason for going through what sometimes is not a pleasure is to glorify God. And the author does all that in the funniest, most down-to-earth yet biblical way I could possibly have wished for. Highly recommended.

69 of 71 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dealing with Unfulfillled Expectations, March 26, 2006

By 

John E. Robertson (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn't Expect (Paperback)

REVELATIONS OF A SINGLE WOMAN

Loving the Life I Didn't Expect

By Connally Gilliam

Why would a happily married (for 33 years) father of three and grandfather of four read a book with a title like this? For one thing I have a single daughter, and I wanted to understand it better before passing it on to her. Most importantly, however, this is a book about unfulfilled expectations, and everyone has to deal with that sooner or later. The subtitle "Loving the life I didn't expect" should have tipped me off, but I was 80% of the way through the book before it hit me that this is really a book about unfulfilled expectations.

Victor, Frankl, who survived a Nazi concentration camp, said that the ultimate freedom is the freedom to choose one's attitude. Connally Gilliam has learned this through unintended singleness. She never expected to still be unmarried in her late thirties, but that is how it turned out, and she deals with it by exercising this ultimate freedom to choose her attitude. She writes movingly of how she has discovered that the real source of joy is not to be found in a relationship with another human being but rather in a relationship with the triune God. She writes:

"I say this now with greater clarity and conviction than I did a few years ago. It has taken me a while to get this `source of joy' thing straight. The struggle is probably half of what this book is about. And even now, I must be reminded of what's true in a myriad of ways from a myriad of sources....at the risk of sounding like a clichéd bumper sticker, I'm just going to say it. There's one true, if mysterious, source of inexpressible and glorious joy: the triune God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit - a.k.a the Joy Maker."

She quotes the wife of an older mentor: "It is better to be single, wanting to be married than it is to be married wanting to be single." There is a lot of wisdom in that, and if the divorce statistics are any indication, there are a lot of married people who want to be single, because at least half of them go through the messy, expensive process of becoming single again. One suspects that there are a sizable number in the other half who are "married wanting to be single" but who stay together for the sake of the kids or for appearances or whatever.

But that is small comfort to single people, especially single women who long to be married. Connally Gilliam writes about this longing poignantly and intelligently.

This book touches on many of the issues facing this generation of women, which is arguably the first generation of "liberated" women who have access to career choices that previous generations only dreamed of. The author does not disparage women who have ambitions to succeed professionally, but she does note that, for all they have gained, women have lost something as well.

The book does not shy away from the hard questions either, in particular questions of sexuality. In an age where anyone who is not sleeping with a member of the opposite sex is suspected of being gay (this actually happened to Miss Gilliam), celibacy is the exception rather than the rule. The author honestly faces these questions in three well-written chapters devoted to the tensions and misunderstandings faced by a celibate single woman.

Work and career also receive excellent treatment. The question of the tension faced by women who want meaningful work and marriage is raised. Successful, ambitions single women are often a threat to men, so should a girl "hold back" professionally in order to improve her chances of marriage?

This is an excellent work on the tensions and issues faced by women who are unexpectedly single at the beginning of the 21st century. I would recommend it highly to both married and single women, as well as to men who have to relate to women. And who doesn't?

John Ed Robertson

March 20, 2006

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From a Single Woman who Doesn't Like Books on Singleness, January 13, 2006

By 

JN, reader (southest, usa) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn't Expect (Paperback)

When Connally Gilliam asked me to review her book, Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn't Expect (Tyndale, 2006), I considered it a good way to get to know Connally. I have appreciated her posts on this site, especially the one entitled, "The Jealousy of God." And I thought we had a lot in common: English majors who grew up in Virginia, serving in parachurch ministry, similar age, and single and loving our lives.

Where I hesitated internally-and I didn't tell Connally this-is the subject matter. I don't care for books about being single. There are so many thoughtful books waiting on my bedside table that a singleness book is not a priority. (Not to say there aren't thoughtful books about singleness.) But usually they end up as commands to be content, instructions on keeping clear sexual boundaries or how to's in using this season of "freedom" to serve God.

Thankfully, Connally's book is not centered on these topics. Instead, it is about a wise woman's experiences with her God, with her friends (male, female, married, single), and with her self. Connallly asks all the questions I've asked myself: How do I live with the fragmentation and isolation of today's world? What does it look like to have life-giving relationships with my family, my friends, my community? How much of myself do I give to my career? Is full satisfaction available this side of heaven? What do I think a man should be/do/stand for?

And Connally's voice is clear and strong, a real tribute to a first-time author. Her personality jumps off the pages; she is honest in her longings, true to her faith story, and welcoming in the conversation. Plus, she's downright funny! She introduces the reader to tens of her friends' and their experiences and thoughts. I liked that. Hearing from all sorts of people gives Revelations of a Single Woman a broad reach--but not so broad that that it thins out. In fact, I think this book has so much content it could have been two, or even three!

Connally is at her best, though, when she offers more of herself than even she, a clear extrovert, feels comfortable. My favorite exchange occurs in Chapter 13, when an old, wise friend challenges her to "suffer well" the isolation of singleness. Connally tearfully asks what it means to do so. "It meant admitting that the confusion plaguing me . . . was real and not easily navigated. It meant owning my unmet desires and the related disappointment. And it also meant holding on to and holding up the goodness and realness of God in the midst of it. [Her friend's] words about suffering prophetically had felt like a gut-level punch. But in reality, they were more like the compassion-induced Heimlich maneuver, freeing me to live."

May her courage be contagious--in the lives of all believers.