Right now, my primary calling is to nurture the lives of {3!} little boys, but even though I have no female children, I am also called to cultivate and nurture life in girls and other women. I love studying and learning how to best glorify God in my womanhood. As God is teaching and shaping me, He expects me, not to keep what I learn to myself, but to pass it on to others. He expects that of all of us.
This summer, I’ve had the opportunity to read and discuss The Accidental Feminist: Restoring Our Delight in God’s Good Design {authored by Courtney Reissig} with some of my favorite college/just-post-college girls. We’ve kept it simple. We read a couple chapters a week, underline portions to discuss and meet at Panera one night a week for a few hours to talk about what God is revealing and teaching us, how we’re submitting to or resisting His truth, questions we have, etc. I think it’s been a fruitful time and that we’ve all learned a lot. And when a good resource is found, it should be shared. So, I’m popping in to briefly comment on the book we read.
For a while now, I’ve been looking for a book that both highlights the Bible’s teaching about our God-given purpose as women AND is relevant to women in various roles and seasons of life. This is the book I’ve been looking for. There are a lot of resources out there on marriage and motherhood. This book, however, addresses not just the wife and mother, but all women: teenagers, students, young women, older women, married women, single women, women that work outside the home, women that work inside the home. Reissig does an excellent job of bringing out the Bible’s teaching on womanhood for all who are made female, regardless of their particular season and circumstances. She shows all readers how to bring God glory by practically living out their womanhood. This book is very relevant.
The Accidental Feminist is biblically driven. Reissig seeks to assert only what Scripture itself asserts. She has a high view of God’s Word and is committed to helping women see the rightness and goodness of His plan and His way for those created in His image as female. The Accidental Feminist is also well-researched. Reissig has clearly done her homework about the American feminist movement and the effects it has had on the culture and the views of women from the 1950’s until now. She highlights the much-needed positives that have come from the movement {women’s right to vote and own property, etc} but ultimately demonstrates how the root of feminism is in opposition to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Skeptical? Give it a read!
Finally, The Accidental Feminist is honest and gospel-centered. Reissig is quick to remind readers that all of us {herself included} naturally resist God’s will and God’s way apart from Christ. That’s the nature of our sin and our fallen-ness. We question God because we think we know better than Him. We question His rightness and His goodness in all things and wonder if he really does have our best interests at heart. Isn’t that what Adam and Eve did when they ate the fruit? All of humanity has followed in their footsteps ever since. But, praise God, we aren’t left there in our stubborn rebellion. All throughout her book, Reissig continually drives readers back to the gospel and the hope of restoration that is found in Jesus alone, the One who perfectly submitted to His Father’s will and way even when it cost Him everything. Reissig reminds us that, on our own, every woman {and man} falls terribly short of God’s good design, but Jesus enables us to be restored to that good design when we trust and rest in Him alone.
My prayer is that God will use this resource to draw numerous women closer to Himself as we seek to image Him accurately in our womanhood. Read The Accidental Feminist and help nurture spiritual life by sharing it with other women in your life!
Gospel-Shaped Womanhood 