Well hello there. I know it's been a hot minute since I posted an actual book recap around here, and I'm jumping back in today with this non-fiction read from September. This book has been sitting on my shelf for years. And not just like, more than two years; I'm talking more than ten years. Easily. When I was in high school, a friend and I went through A Young Woman After God's Own Heart with a mentor at our church. That same friend chose this book for our book club to read together this fall. For me, it came in the middle of a real spiritual dry spell. With all the craziness of our lives this summer, my quiet time had become nearly non-existent, and picking up this book at the beginning of September felt like a sweet and much-needed reset for me.
A Woman After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George was originally published in 1997, and this updated and expanded version was released in 2006. George's goal in writing this book is to share practical, scriptural insights on how any woman in any stage of life can pursue God's priorities in her personal life. While A Woman After God's Own Heart was written for "any woman in any stage of life", one-third of the book is specifically aimed at wives and mothers and I could easily see how a woman who is not in that stage of life but wants to be might not feel very helped by this book.
That being said: I personally found this book extremely helpful. To be blunt, the beginning and the end of this updated and expanded edition are not great, but the meat of the book when George gets into the nitty-gritty of daily life and her practical advice on how to pursue God's priorities was highly profitable. George's introduction and "Word of Welcome" seemed a little self-congratulatory to me, and the opening chapters came off a bit clichéd and very surface level. But the chapters on serving, following, and loving your husband were a stark reality check for me. Much like when I read Elisabeth Elliot's Let Me Be A Woman a few years back, I immediately felt myself get defensive when I started to read about ways to serve my husband—specifically her practical tips about keeping the house clean and having a meal ready for him after a long day of work. Who am I, June Cleaver?! Have we reverted back to the 1950s?! But as I calmed down and took time to think critically about her advice, I came back to my own firmly-held convictions about my role as a woman and a wife. While the implementation of George's suggestions will not look the same for every woman, the heart of her counsel rings true. It was challenging for me to read her words and wake up to some of the ways I have slacked off in my God-given role, and it was clear how that slacking off had contributed to the dry spell I was in spiritually.
While George certainly doesn't pussyfoot around with her guidance to pursue God's priorities, she somehow does so gently. Right about the time I started to feel like I was failing on all fronts as I was reading her book, she softly reminds the reader that—to borrow the old Chinese proverb—"a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Throughout her book, George reminds the reader that something is better than nothing. Praying for five minutes today is better than not praying at all. Rather than berate myself for all the ways I could be doing better, I just need to do my best. What a sweet reminder.
Like I mentioned briefly, the end of the book also wasn't great. It felt like a bit of a sales pitch. Talking about the "legacy" of A Woman After God's Own Heart didn't really do much for me, and I don't think the "updated and expanded" version of this book added much to the original work.
But all-in-all, A Woman After God's Own Heart is a book I can see myself revisiting—at least in part—in the future. It came to me at a time when I really needed it, and it has helped me to reset and resolve to pursue God's priorities as a woman living in 2023. I would recommend this to any woman seeking to follow close after God's heart with the caveat that if you're particularly longing to be a wife and mother, this may not be the book for you right now. While I think this book can be helpful for single women, it may pour salt in the wound of a hope presently deferred.
Have you read any non-fiction that has been especially helpful to you lately?
“…if you're particularly longing to be a wife and mother, this may not be the book for you right now. While I think this book can be helpful for single women, it may pour salt in the wound of a hope presently deferred.”
ReplyDeleteThank you for acknowledging that. I did feel that while reading this book. I skimmed a lot of pages. But I agree with you in that one of my main takeaways was to fight against the tendency to eschew what “little” I’m doing for the kingdom and always feeling like I could do more. Sometimes I’m too hard on myself, and I need to be willing to meet with God for even 5 minutes rather than not meeting with Him at all.
I hope that makes sense…
Definitely makes sense! 💛
DeleteI appreciate your take on the prose and the way in which you absorb the information and articulate your feelings on it. as someone who outwardly presents my spiritual relationship in a pragmatic and often irreverent way (that can make some people uncomfortable), while still holding it as something deeply personal and very precious to me, I appreciate when someone can frankly discuss these things.
ReplyDelete💛 It's tough reading and reviewing a book like this one because to the modern reader, it's going to sound dated; but once I took the time to actually think critically about it, I realized how much secular philosophy has taken root in my own thinking. I wasn't expecting this book to be such a wake-up call, but it definitely was.
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