My dear friend Ashley Urke from Domestic Fashionista just released her second book based on her popular blog series, and I was one of the lucky few to snag an advance copy. Woo hoo!

31 Days of Serving My Husband: The Devotional is a daily workbook designed to help modern women have the type of marriage they’ve always dreamed of. Through Ashley’s candid stories about her own marriage (the good and the bad), we can learn what being a wife really means within our own individual marriages.

And although it’s called a “devotional” and there are some Bible verses sprinkled throughout the book (along with quotes from other books), it’s not reserved for Christian wives. As a Buddhist, I found the lessons to be universally appealing.

What Does Serving My Husband Mean?

At first glance, you might think that this book should be bundled with an apron, rolling pin, and a time machine back to the 1950s.

Serving my husband??? Is this lady a throwback to another time when women were expected to look pretty, make sandwiches, and shut up?

Whoa, Nelly! Before you get all high and mighty, let me tell you that I’m a total feminist, and I loved this book.

Ashley knows what she’s doing, and it’s brilliant marketing to get people talking about the title and then slipping in her powerful message.

If you’ve read her blog, you know that Ashley’s a normal, modern women who you’d want to hang out with or invite to your book club. And she’s a total sweetie in person too.

Her uniqueness comes from her dedication to her marriage. She knows that a partnership takes work, and she’s serious about putting in the effort. That means focusing your attention on what truly matters.

As Ashley says in the introduction, “I can plan a beautiful birthday party, get a new area rug, and come up with my next best ice cream recipe, but if my marriage is not being taken care of first, the rest of these things seem to not matter so much.”

And maybe that dedication is something missing from a lot of marriages.

Serving her husband is about remembering why she got married in the first place—because she fell in love! It’s out of love that she gives her husband the attention and care he deserves.

In case you were wondering, Ashley’s hubby does plenty of serving in his own way—in fact, there’s a whole chapter about it! He works hard to support the family and gives Ashley the freedom to work from home and decorate/design the interior of their gorgeous house to her choosing.

Chapters Include

• Baking Cookies is Not Always Enough
• Being His Support
• Looking the Same Direction
• Pinpointing Distractions (This one’s my favorite!)
• Taking Care of Yourself
• Celebrating the Small Things
• Saying Yes to Intimacy (Yep, she goes there.)
• Setting the Atmosphere of My Home
• Being My Husband’s Friend
• And much more!

The Takeaway

Serving your husband doesn’t mean scrubbing the floors all day. It does mean scrubbing away your preconceived notions about what a marriage should entail.

One of my favorite parts of the book is how Ashley says to stop comparing your marriage to other people’s marriages. I admit, this can be so hard sometimes! But everyone’s lives are different, and you can find ways to be grateful for the circumstances of your relationship.

If you want to get the most out of this book, I suggest reading one chapter a day, answering the study questions at the end, and perhaps journaling or meditating on the quotation.

This daily introspective exercise can help you deepen the bond with you husband and fix the places in your marriage that could use a tune-up.

If marriage is a partnership, are you contributing your share?

And more importantly, are you doing it out of love?

Click here to get your copy of 31 Days of Serving My Husband: The Devotional.

You can get it as an ebook or a paperback book. How cool is that?

And click here to read Ashley’s interview for The Sweet Life series.