This book has been my small group's study since September. We took a 6 week break for the holiday season and just started up again last week. We will wrap up our discussions in 2 more meetings before taking another 2 weeks off then beginning a new study. This year, due to the continuing saga of Covid-19, I allowed 6 women to join my group here in my home and we did it as a Book Club style. I didn't require the ladies to get the accompanying Study Guide but a few of us chose to and I based our discussion on certain questions from whatever chapter we were doing. The Study Guide is vital I have found for this particular book. Parts of it are extremely "old fashioned" and a bit "odd" for today's Christian culture so I was thankful to have the study guide as that really clarified what the author was clumsily trying to portray in a couple of chapters.
SUMMARY OF THE STUDY
The book contains 14 chapters plus an Afterword, an Epilogue, a Daily Prayer ( I found this rather odd.....and too long.....too mechanical or something..hard to explain...it's just my opinion), a Prayer of Salvation (important for any unsaved readers), Acknowledgments and then Notes.
The chapter titles are:
- Does Anyone Ever Really Change?
- Looking Back with Mercy
- The Landscape of Our Lives
- Our Mothers, Ourselves Part 1
- Our Mothers, Ourselves Part 2 (ok but the story shared was very odd and a little concerning)
- From Accepting to Embracing (loved this one!)
- From Fear to Desire
- The Company of Women (loved this!!)
- Beauty Forged in Suffering (Excellent one)
- Stumbling into Freedom
- Becoming a Woman of Faith (another excellent one)
- Becoming a Woman of Worship (again, an excellent one)
- Becoming Our True Name
- Take Heart
MY THOUGHTS
Well. I had never done a study by this author and I probably won't choose any more of hers. I'm not a huge fan of her writing but the content was very good in most of the chapters. Very thought-provoking especially when doing the study questions.
I was very concerned with most of chapter 5. It reads like some kind of odd dystopian 1800s anecdote. She gives names to this family but no mention of the time it took place (was it the 1950s? 1960s? 1970s? 1980s??) It is odd and disconcerting because it reads like the family was involved in some kind of odd cult. Maybe it's just me but I would NOT want my teen girls when they first began to menstruate to have church leaders and family friends gather around to pray about it. That just seems so.......weird. I don't know...maybe there is some kind of sect I know nothing about but to this mom who is a progressive Evangelical Christian it just worried me......it's just something you'd have to read for yourself and decide your own opinion. I truly hope the teen girl portrayed in this anecdote wasn't a victim of abuse. And for a dad to go buy the dress for his teen?? that today is odd. What teen girl do you know wants to go the mall with her father to buy a white dress?? Not any that I know! YES we should embrace our womanhood as a beautiful thing...but let's keep certain things private.......I also see NO Biblical mention/reference of celebrating when a teen girl gets her period. Yes, as moms we want to train our daughters in what to expect, how to deal with it, and what it actually means but wow......the example used was bothersome. I was quite disappointed as were all of the women in the group. We all agreed it was an odd example of celebrating womanhood. I really wish she had gone into more of teaching our daughters to stay pure before marriage...and why.....to me, that is vastly more important than celebrating when a girl begins to menstruate! In our family, we discussed this (me with 1:1 time with each girl) as they could receive a purity ring when they turned 16 if they wanted. Our oldest girl was into that; our youngest girl said "I don't need a ring to decide to not have sex before marriage". hahah shows their different personalities! I did talk to both of my daughters of course about how to handle things and also taught them about birth control in case they made unwise decisions. NONE of that was presented in this chapter 5.
The bulk of the book was very good and very Scripture based. But you wouldn't necessarily know that unless you did some research on your own via the Scriptures used in the Study Guide. The questions were all excellent! I especially loved chapters 6-12. The heart of the book is contained in these chapters and the most learning occurred in our discussion of those chapters. It was "meat" compared to the other chapters.
Overall, this is an easy book to read and study and you walk away with a good sense that we are free to be whom the Lord created us to be. That we can be restored. That we can be living in freedom! and that yes, we can be ourselves through the everlasting Love of God.
In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 14 and older.
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 7.
2 comments:
I have to be honest and say I have never been drawn to either this author or her husband's books or studies. I would have concern that you need a study guide to interpret or discern what exactly she is trying to say. It should be clear just in the book itself for those that just pick up the book and don't realize to pair it with the study guide, with the study guide just going deeper. That does seem like an odd practice you mentioned in chapter 5 and I seem to recall a group that does that but can't remember which one. The Bill Gothard following? Not sure.
I agree with your review of this book. I finished and reviewed it a few months back and had some of the same issues with the same parts of the book. I also started started another book by the husband of this author and did not finish it. I can't remember which book it was, but some of the things in it just did not sit right with me. Thanks for your review. I am glad the book worked well for your small group study.
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