Girls with grit

WOMEN OF FAITH & COURAGE
By Vance Christie
Christian Focus. 284 pages. £8.99
ISBN 978 1 845 506 865

‘Of the making of books there is no end.’ So says the writer of Ecclesiastes and so said I when this book arrived.

I looked across at my bookshelf and saw that I had at least one book on each of the women featured in this latest collection of abridged biographies. So I approached this book reluctantly, wondering what it could add to those detailed accounts. I found, to my surprise, that it did add something valuable.

Placing these women alongside one another provides a powerful witness to the variety of people and situations that God uses to extend his kingdom. Susanna Wesley and Catherine Booth served God as wives and mothers; Corrie Ten Boom was a faithful daughter and sister who exercised an outward-looking compassionate hospitality; Fanny Crosby, undiminished by her disability, used her love of poetry to pen some of our greatest hymns. These were ordinary women to whom extraordinary things happened, but what becomes clear is that these women put God first in their lives. They served where they were and became effective because of their faithfulness in small things. The variety in their stories shows that God can use us wherever we find ourselves, even in the hard and tough places which seem full of suffering. Only Mary Slessor actively sought out a missionary life and the descriptions of the situations that she faced provide a sobering reminder of what a society without the gospel looks like.

This book avoids the sentimentality that plagues some biographies, because the author is prepared to show the women’s flaws. Indeed, he sets out to show that God can accomplish significant things through imperfect people. A discerning reader may question some of the ideas and doctrinal positions that these women held but their own overriding concern for the gospel was evident through it all and Paul’s words to the Romans sprang to my mind: ‘Who are you to judge someone else’s servant?’ These women were serving Christ and the value in reading about their lives is to challenge us regarding our own service, not to be critical of theirs. It is not the heroism of these women that is seen, but the power of the gospel at work in history.

Vance Christie succeeds in taking a fresh look at these familiar lives and, for those who may be less familiar with these characters, it provides an excellent easy-to-read introduction. But that is not why you should read it; this book is worth reading to remind ourselves of the gospel’s power — God can use us wherever we are if we are willing.

Karen Soole,

Chair, Northern Women’s Convention