Stress Point: Thriving Through Your Twenties in a Decade of Drama [Paperback]

Sarah Francis Martin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 5, 2012

Want to ditch the drama and thrive through your twenties?

Body image. Friendships. Career. Money. Dating. All these issues and more serve as points of stress for the 20-something woman, and combined they can make for a decade of drama in a girl's life. Sarah Francis Martin is the slightly older girlfriend who’s been there, done that, and got the not-so-cute t-shirt. Through this interactive Bible study, Sarah helps young adult women address each stress point by encouraging them to wait on the Lord, worship Him, and make Him the focus of their lives.

In Stress Point you will:

• Find interactive chapters covering ten stress points for the 20-something woman
• Dig through Scripture to apply truth to each stress point
• Engage with real, raw, and relevant stories from girlfriends just like you
• Journal through each chapter to engage with God in a meaningful way
• Interact with Sarah through her video blogs for each chapter
• Connect with your girlfriends in a Stress Point Survival Group; leader guide included

Sarah Francis Martin has a passion to encourage and relate to women in their twenties, and is honored to do so through She Seeks, the 20-something ministry of Proverbs 31. Her relevant and conversational style will lead young adult readers to live out the Kingship of Christ in everyday life in order to find godly success, purpose, and well-being. Obsessed with pink lip gloss and all things artsy-crafty, Sarah lives with her husband and son in North Carolina. Her ministry, LIVE IT OUT!, is a space for 20-somethings to connect with one another and grow closer to Jesus (www.liveitoutblog.com).

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Sarah Francis Martin works with She Seeks, a division of Proverbs 31 Ministries, and has a passion to encourage and relate to women in their twenties. Her relevant and conversational style will lead young adult readers to live out the kingship of Christ in everyday life in order to find godly success, purpose, and well-being. Sarah lives with her husband and three-year-old son in North Carolina. Hometown: Pinehurst, North Carolina

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson (June 5, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1418550795
• ISBN-13: 978-1418550790
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 0.7 x 8.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #350,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

My passion to do life and ministry with twentysomething women and encourage them to LIVE OUT! the Kingship of Christ in everyday life.

Some random facts about me:

~My latest obsession is anything artsy/crafty, I love eating cereal for dinner when I'm not working or writing, you can find me curled up in bed watching the Fox News Channel.

~Favorite Books: Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper, Eye Of The God by Ariel Allison, Beach Music by Pat Conroy, Pursuit of God by A. W. Tozer

~Fun Fact: I have about 50 tubes of lip gloss ... all in the shade of PINK ... really? ... seriously!!??

~Worst Habit: Rather than sleep walking, I have a crazy habit of answering emails {coherently} on my Blackberry while still asleep

~I {secretly} want to be a CIA special agent...Vince Flynn novels are my guilty pleasure.

I blog regularly at www.liveitoutblog.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but could be better June 30, 2012

By Melissa Griffin

Format:Paperback

Stress--It accompanies every decade of life, and the experience of a twenty-something is no exception. In her book, Stress Point: Thriving through Your 20s in a Decade of Drama, Sarah Francis Martin seeks to help young women navigate through some of the major challenges they're likely to face during this stage of life.

Overview

Martin devotes one chapter each to ten different stress points: career, self image, body image, love and dating, serious romantic relationships, friends and family, money, independence, making a difference, and spiritual maturity.

Each chapter follows a specific structure. Martin begins by illustrating the chapter's particular stress point with three case studies, often using stories from popular TV shows, movies, or her own life to help the reader relate to the topic at hand.

She then directs twenty-somethings to the necessity of "Worshiping at the Throne of the King" by highlighting a name of God and teaching how His character is revealed through that name. Worshiping leads to "Waiting at the Throne of the King" as Martin encourages readers to see that waiting on the Lord is an active and beneficial process, rather than passive and useless as it often appears to be. Finally, each chapter concludes with "Finding Focus on the King" where the author explains how readers can find satisfaction and fulfillment by keeping the Lord central in all that they do.

Stress Point's Strong Points

I greatly appreciate the goals that Martin aimed for in writing this book. As a result of the lack of solid biblical instruction in many homes and churches today, young Christian women often move into adulthood with a great deal of confusion regarding how their faith should shape every aspect of their lives.... Stress Point offers some much-needed teaching that will help readers see how they can please God even in the midst of major life changes.

Martin repeatedly hammers away at the importance of living under the Kingship of Christ and seeing that He is Lord over every stressor a woman may face. By providing questions and journaling space in each chapter, she encourages personal application of the material covered as well as interaction with the Scripture.

I particularly appreciated Martin's emphasis on worship and the need to deepen one's knowledge of the character of God. These topics, which are often neglected in modern Christian women's literature, are truly vital to understanding our identity and purpose on this earth. When a young woman grasps the biblical truth that she was created by a wise and loving God to bring Him glory in all that she does, her life is infused with meaning and direction she would otherwise never experience. Stress Point provides valuable assistance in this regard.

Stress Point's Weak Points

As much as I wish I could give Stress Point my wholehearted approval, I do have some reservations about certain aspects of the book. The first concerns Martin's handling of Scripture. In a few instances, she takes an Old Testament passage which refers to a particular individual or where God is speaking to the Israelites in general (for example, Ps. 45:11; Is. 62:3-4), and she attempts to apply it directly to individuals today. Although all of Scripture has bearing on the lives of Christians, it is a mistake to interpret any passage without considering the original audience and context.

This problem leads to my second concern--Martin's attempt to bolster the reader's sense of self worth by using these Old Testament passages to assure readers that God is enthralled with or captivated by their beauty. In my opinion, this approach actually undermines Martin's stated desire to help women turn their focus from self to Christ because attention is still being placed on self and human beauty rather than being placed on the Lord and His beauty.

As human beings thoroughly marred by sin, we must remember that any beauty we have is derived from God Himself as our Creator and from Christ as our Savior. We have worth as human beings because we're created in God's image; we have beauty as believers because we've been clothed in Christ's righteousness. So whenever we speak of our worth or identity as individuals, it needs to be done in biblically accurate terms or we can easily make the mistake of sounding as though we have some sort of loveliness that is not directly derived from and dependent upon God Himself.

A third area concerns specific illustrations and points made on the issues of drinking or visiting a bar and physical relationships with the opposite sex. For the sake of space, I can't go into detail here, but I thought some statements should have been avoided and more should have been said to encourage avoiding temptation and sin in these areas.

Final Point

There is a great deal of good contained in Stress Point, and for that reason, I truly wish I could enthusiastically recommend it. While readers will benefit from much of Martin's teaching, the concerns I've mentioned above prevent me from giving it my full approval. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Stress Point June 11, 2012

By mika

Format:Paperback

Stress Point is an easy-to-read devotional and journal for 20-somethings. The book engages topics such as body image, career choices, money, and dating, and is meant to bring young women struggling with these topics in a "decade of drama" to face these issues with the understanding that God is in control!

I would say the book definitely cuts to the chase. It does cover a lot of issues young women college age and older are dealing with, and I think it deals with them quite well! Sarah Francis Martin does a good job steering the focus back to God in each issues, and gives the reader a chance to journal (within the book), providing thought provoking questions to help the process. I think the books is quite effective as a whole at bring the focus back to God, but for me, it just isn't what I am looking for. I would say this is more of a self-help devotional, than a getting over self devotional. It does I think give your typical devotional a boost into reality (that life is full of these issues), but I found it lacking in that when I want to have time with God, I want to put away worldly things and thoughts and worries, and I want to be encouraged to think on what matters...and that is where I found this devotional lacking.

Would I read it again? Probably not, I didn't finish it as it was, but not to say that it is not worth reading! I think for someone in a different place than I, it could be quite encouraging.

I received this book free for review from BookSneeze® as an advanced reading copy.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Stress Point June 12, 2012

By Sheri Newton

Format:Paperback

Stress Point by Sarah Francis Martin is a devotional and journal for women in their twenties. It focuses on some of the main stress points in a woman's life, including their body image, money, love life, career, and other things that women tend to stress out over. We don't have to let those stressors control our lives though, and Martin explains how through God, we can stop focusing on those issues and live a more fulfilling life.

Stress Point takes the things that stress out women in their twenties most, and reflects on how these issues can be turned around to God and made into something less stressful. I think that she did a good job with this, and many women will definitely benefit from this book.

She uses examples on each chapter (or issue) that explains how a certain person (real or fictional) dealt with the stressor at hand. For many of these issues, I just didn't connect with the message of the people described. The author also liked to use a lot of personal examples of her struggles with these issues when she was in her twenties. For me, this made the book seem more of a blog follow along devotional journal, which was not what I was interested in reading.

Overall, I think that this book will certainly help some women. I wouldn't read it again, but it isn't not worth reading either.

* Thank you to the publisher of Stress Point, Thomas Nelson, for providing me with a copy of this book for review as part of their Book Sneeze program. All opinions expressed are my own.

5.0 out of 5 stars Stressing the Important Things March 30, 2013

By Grace abounds

Format:Paperback

I remember my 20s. Puffy hair. Shoulder pads. Yikes. What I remember most is not having someone older to talk to--someone real. Well, I made it through my 20s, and, now, my daughter is in her 20s. As much as I'd like to be her older, wiser girlfriend, I realize that's not likely to happen. When I read the description for Sarah Francis Martin's Stress Point: Thriving Through Your 20s in a Decade of Drama, I realized this was a book I would have enjoyed during that turbulent decade. It took me quite a while to get into the book, probably because I'm 30 years to old for it. I found it thoughtful and full of good advice. The formatting was a little too chopped up for these old eyes, but I'm confident it will appeal to my daughter's generation.

Martin's book is straight talk for young women who want to life their faith in a faithless world. She covers topics like career, body-image (especially good), love/dating, friends and family, money, and spiritual maturity. Each chapter begins with her introduction, then three "girlfriend" stories, and includes topic and space for journaling within the text of the book. It's an active, long-term study, useful for the individual or for groups. In fact, she has videos on her website [...]
to accompany each chapter, which should appeal to her targeted audience.

Do I recommend the book? I do. In fact, I'm recommending it to my daughter. I suggest you do, too.