This is a short book, but contains some pretty deep soul-searching. Reading it, you are forced to ask yourself, "am I being a nice girl?"What's so bad about being a nice girl? Well, nice girls carry with them their childish impression of God, an idol that can wreck their lives. Nice girls worry about what others think. Nice girls see others as being more valuable and capable than themselves. Nice girls hide when they are scared.
Instead we are called to be "good women." A good woman is a dangerous woman because she relates to the living, breathing God. She knows her unique passions and abilities are valuable. She doesn't let fear stop her.
A lot of what is written in this little book resonated with me, but my favorite stuff is the stuff about fear. Lynne talks about being invited to give a series of talks in Northern Ireland and she immediately thinks of all the reasons she is afraid to do it. But she sense God asking her "if you weren't afraid would you want to do that?" She realizes the answer is "yes" and she goes. I absolutely love that question: If you weren't afraid, would you do it? As an artist, trying to grow and learn and get my stuff out there, I need to ask myself that question all the time.
She also talks about "talking down your fear" (which came up at the Summit.) Here's an excerpt:
"I've...learned that my first response to just about everything is fear. If I listened t the voice of fear, I would basically do nothing. But part of what it means for me to move from being a nice girl to being a good woman, is that I choose to talk down fear. When fear says, "What have you gotten yourself into now?" I say "I think I've gotten myself into the will of God, and I'm not going to back down."
I really enjoyed this one, and hope Lynne will be writing more in the future!
(If you don't want to wait for the wide-release by Zondervan you can get the book through the WCA.)
5 comments:
Kim I can not wait to read this book. I can't wait even more after reading your post. It sounds like ME!!! I am going through a lot of what you talked about RIGHT NOW!!! I am so excited to read it!!!!!!!!!!!!
cool! So you read it? Isnt it amazing!?
One of the many things I love about Christianity is the way it does empower women. Not to the extent of the radical man-hating feminists, mind you, but unlike many of the other major religions of the world, Christianity gives value to women. I was reading through 1 Peter last week. In Chapter 3, Peter begins by saying "Wives, be submissive to your husbands..." While the radical feminists may decry this as acute chauvanism, for the time period in which Peter wrote, this was radical. He implied that women were more than the half-humans the culture valued them as, and that they indeed had moral responsibilities just like men. In fact, Peter admonishes the women to be submissive to their husbands so that, if their husbands were not yet believers, they may come to know Christ through their wives' godliness. I know this is long for a comment, so I'll stop here.
I am thinking about getting this for a friend for her birthday coming up.
Great comments Patrick!
Hi Bubba, that's a great idea. I also think this book would be great for teenage girls.
Noah, noah, noah. What kind of brother are you? That better be one cute cat!
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