Does Debi Pearl’s book, Created To Be His Help Meet Contain Sound Advice?
“Slave Labor” was the title of an article that has circulated on the Internet for several years. The list was purported to be an extract from a high school Home Economics textbook from 1954. In summary, the girls were taught to be good housewives by preparing their homes, their supper meal, and their children for the arrival of their hard working husbands. It ends with, “Try to make your home a place of peace and order where your husband can relax”. In other words, treat him as you would a king arriving at the palace.
Those women who would consider such a suggestion as indeed an invitation to “slave labor” or, as a leading feminist called it, “a pleasant concentration camp” would not welcome Debi Pearl’s book, Created to Be His Help Meet. Indeed, the author was aware that some of the material would not be welcomed in today’s western culture and was tempted to leave it out. However, her husband Michael advised her, “If God thought it was important enough to inspire it as part of His Word to us, then you should include it”.
Herein is the first and great quality of this book. Her teaching is based on Scripture, not on popular ideas that come and go. Debi did a thorough study of the role of women in the Bible to prepare for this book. It is based on the principle of design, that God made women, especially married women, with a special, vital role in the world. The role for married women is to do all she can to make her husband a success. Attempting to take on the man’s role will result in damage to her marriage, her children, and herself.
It took four years, thousands of hours, many tears, revisions and distractions, but I finally finished my book. I had no idea God had so much to say to us ladies until I began going through God’s Word verse by verse, writing the different sections of Created to Be His Help Meet.” These words are from Debi herself.
The book is based on this idea: “Quit trying to make your husband into the man you think he should be and, instead, allow God to make you into the woman He designed you to be”. Often when the husband sees these remarkable, biblical changes in his wife, he will change also. In other words, if you treat him as a king, he may well treat you as his queen. However, this dare not be her reason for wanting to respond correctly.
Every such book can sound theoretical and there are plenty of stories to illustrate how a person’s situation is an exception to the rule. Debi does not skirt difficult situations but includes questions and answers from the Bible. She also deals with intimate subjects in a discrete but clear manner.
A clear endorsement of the book lies in the fact that, at this writing, it is in its 8th printing in less than 4 years. Though some churches have even banned it (!), the letters to the Pearls’ No Greater Joy Ministry telling of marriages that have been transformed as a result of reading and applying this book, speak volumes about its genuineness as a tool for women to see themselves as God designed them, not as inferior or superior, but as unique.
Debi Pearl is the author of multiple best sellers including Created to Be His Help Meet and The Vision. You can find out more on her website.
