As we journey together “let us think of ways to motivate one another in acts of love and good works”(Hebrews 10:24 NLT)

7 Women by Eric Metaxas

Eric Metaxas has had bestselling books for quite a while, and 7 Women is par for the course. In his book 7 Women, Eric  shares 7 Women and the secrets to their greatness. The 7 women written about are
Joan of Arc
Susannah Wesley
Hannah More
Saint Maria of Paris
Corrie ten Boom
Rosa Parks
Mother Teresa
Eric writes with great command of his material and this book is TRULY eye opening. One of the most interesting parts of the book is the introduction as he lays the groundwork for the book and masters an introduction powerfully. You have no doubts going into the book, how He views women and their incredible calling. Matter of fact some of the most quote able portions of the book come straight from the introduction. But more on that later. Eric brings to life women who history books pay little to no attention to. Going into this book I knew very little about most of the women talked about. I knew Rosa Parks refused to be segregated and refused to sit in the back of the bus. I knew Joan of Arc’s name, I knew Susannah Wesley had a whole bunch of kids….and she took time with each of them to pray and grow them and from her mothering came John and Charles Wesley……the fathers of the Wesleyan movement. I knew Corrie ten Boom was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, and that Mother Theresa cared for the poor. But outside of that…nothing els…and did you notice I left out two Women….I had never even heard their names before. Eric Changed all that through this book 7 women. These women were more than just What they accomplished. They accomplished great and amazing things because they embraced who God created them to be. They embraced their femininity and used the gifts God had given them to nurture those around them.

To quote Eric,

“The great men in seven men were not measured against women so why would women and seven women be measured against men.
To an interrelated attitude seem to be at play. first men and women are in some way interchangeable that what one does the other should do. Second, women are in some kind of competition with men and for women to progress they need to compete with men. This thinking tends to put men and women on equal footing, but in actuality it pits  them against each other in a kind of zero-sum competition in which they usually tear each other down.
When I consider the seven women I chose I see that most of them were great for reasons that derive precisely from there being a woman. Not in spite of it and what made them great has nothing to do with their  being measured against or competing with men.   In other words their accomplishments are not gender neutral but are rooted in their singularity as women.  all of them existed and thrived as women and shared quite apart from anything touching that kind of thinking I encountered.”

One of Eric’s friends Alice Hildebrand played a large part in Eric’s view of women and this is what he has to Say about her after hearing her speak and interviewing her,

” As she fiercely declared in my most recent interview with her , she is tremendously Pro woman and she was that evening we spoke but she will also makes it abundantly clear that it is precisely for this reason that she is a devout it and lifelong opponent of feminism. She firmly believes feminism to be anti-woman because it pressures women to become more like men. Even everyone who heard her speak that evening was surprised, but we were sternly schooled by Dame von Hildebrand on this subject. The lesson in all of this is that to pit  women against Men  is a form of the degrigation  of women, as though their measure must be determined by masculine standards. The worst standards of masculine value,  power usually at the top of those long lists become the very things that some women are told they must aspire to meet. How ironic that modern culture, by so often intimidating power as the highest good should force women to accept that amount to nothing less then patriarchal thinking in the most pejorative sense of that adjective”

I must confess that this book has struck a chord deep within me. I have always loved history, and to be honest this book fed two loves and passions….HISTORY AND MEETING WOMEN WHERE THEY ARE! Women are women….God didn’t create them to be more like men….if He had, He would have made them men. I love books that teach me new things, and are loaded with godly perspective rather than earthly desires and thoughts. All of these women did amazing things….through the power of God. Not their own and not by striving to be like their male counterparts. I don’t agree with all of their theology BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT.
I want to challenge you on your perspective of feminism and womanhood by reading this book. I was basically within Eric’s perspective but my positioned was sharpened and fine tuned greatly. I give this book 5 stars!

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Wiley Baxter’s book Chocolate Covered Cashews is the story of Wiley’s life.  It starts with a situation where he was surprised by God and he tells the story of how he found out that he was a father of twin daughters. It’s a very interesting story and how it takes place when he goes into a candy store to buy chocolate covered cashews. He then goes on to share various points in his life of struggles and a divorce and moments working when nearly lost his life. He shares God’s truth right through the stories and he expresses his love and devotion to God. He also expresses his desire for his readers to not make the same mistakes he did . The  scripture he uses is encouraging and his stories are funny at times and heartwarming . Then there are those that are scary and sad but show how God has spared his life and he shares honestly his struggles with him trusting God and understanding where he fits in with these twin daughters

This book is a super easy read and only took me a short time to finish I finished it in one evening I enjoyed this book because it was like sitting across the table from a grandpa or an uncle or even a member from our church who was sharing their life story. It’s not too detailed but in the same respect it gives you a  real cross-section of Wiley’s life.  I thoroughly enjoyed it

After reading this book I appreciated Wiley’s perspective on life and I thought it was written with a true heart, however he did have some flaws. I think that it is written choppy and that it can be hard to understand at some points . Such as:  how the first part the first chapter of the book how can fit with the rest of the book he starts with the story of finding out that he ihas  twin daughters and then he moves on to the rest of his life starting with his his parents and how they met and then growing up in through his years when perhaps it would’ve fit better if we if you would have started with his younger years first and worked up to and build up to that moment where he discovered that he had twin daughters. It is  called chocolate covered cashews because that’s what started out as the catalyst for him finding out he had twin daughters.   There seemed to be some question by others as to why it was called that.  I give it 4 out 5 stars solely on the choppiness of the book.  Outside of that it is amusing, encouraging book. I would recommend it!

I recieved a complimentary copy of Chocolate Covered Cashews in  PDF format from BookLook Bloggers for review purposes and in no way am I expected to give a positive review nor am I paid for such a review.

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Anything:The prayer that unlocked my God and my soul by Jennie Allen.  Jennie and her husband Zac  are in full-time ministry that as a pastor’s family and Jennie Blogs as well.. She has written this book about their journey about saying ANYTHING to God and how when they prayed anything that it was a true test of their willingness to trust God because when you pray anything you have no idea where God is going to take you.

The book is broken up into three sections. Part one is everything keeping us from anything and it talks about all the things that we should abandon when we are trying to give God anything. So we should abandon unbelief.  We should abandon pretending, abandon shame, abandon approval, abandon entertainment, abandon fear, and abandoning this whole life. It really comes down to If he’s going to use our entire life for anything he needs to have all of it.

Part 2 is about praying anything and it talks about waking up,  new eyes, and real change, big God , praying anything , a thousand little problems, got brushes and dominoes, no turning back and spreading insanity lots of yeses.  This talks about how we don’t know where God is going to ask us for or do anything; whether  we can give anything over or we can give our homes, we can give our children, we can give God our cars,our ministries, ourselves and being willing to say yes to whatever he has for us. It’s a very scary process but as Jennie points out,  in the end it is one of the most rewarding and exciting processes.

And section 3 Living Anything. Seeing God:our purpose here, Blast Off: Overcoming doubts, Out of control:God in the Chaos War on: fighting brave, backward: where freedom hides, better dreams: poured out, and wind:everything different. It takes a lot to give God Anything. and when it rains it pours…it can be downright craziness. God may ask for a whole lot of Anything all at once and that can be very overwhelming. God blesses those who pay attention and so we want to make sure that we understand that even though God blesses those who are willing to give anything that also can be really difficult as we are promised that things aren’t always going to be good or easy, bad things are going to happen, that we’re going to be tested and the trials are going to come and we need to be willing to step out in faith and give him anything anyway.

One of the my favorite chapters in this book is chapter 15 and it talks about doubts and so many times when we step out in faith and we give God anything and one of our biggest struggles can be doubting whether or not God wants us to do something. I struggle with this a lot. We can either let those doubts rule and give in and say I’m not going to do that but if we’re really really giving God anything we’re willing to step out and if it’s not from God, God will close the door but we need to be willing to take that step and trust God with anything….and everything.

I must confess I really enjoyed this book though I don’t know if it necessarily struck me where I am at this moment. I think that it’s a perfect picture of where today’s churches are. I see a lot of what Jennie’s talking about in our church and in churches across the Christian spectrum. I believe that she’s in touch with the nerve of those who have inherited their faith. (I don’t believe that you can go to heaven on your inherited faith that you must accept Jesus as your personal savior ) but when you do that in the young age when you’re raised in a family that trained you to trust and to believe in Jesus especially her first chapter that talks about A plastic God that she hits the nail on the head with how we we feel like God is sitting on our mantle and we do things to please him but he isn’t real to us and so I think she strikes a chord within the church today. I gave anything to God at a young age (16) and so I can see as she was explaining throughout her book about anything, those processes that I too went through as a young girl giving anything to God and anything took me halfway around the world. anything took me to Bible college . Anything married a pastor, anything gave me children, anything gave me a child with special needs, anything gave me something I didn’t want something I didn’t expect. Anything means to extend grace and to love far deeper than I ever expected! What anything taught me in Romans 8:28 and 29 is all things work together for good for those who love and serve the Lord isn’t just what my “good” is but what God’s good is. God’s good is that I grow and I become more and more like Christ and that’s really really hard to fathom, In the entire book which I I pretty much enjoyed there wasn’t anything that I disagreed with. I believe that Jennie is right on. There was one negative : it was slightly confusing because in the forward of the book Jennie says to do the study that comes with the book with friends OR ON YOUR OWN however when you get to the study in the back of the book it says do not do the study on your own. It is very explicit in saying that you should not do the study alone that you should do it with a group of friends for accountability purposes. I’m fine with either one of those however if if you want me to do it with somebody probably shouldn’t say it’s okay to do it alone in the forward of the book. So that’s my only gripe about the entire book, it’s really not much though. I do give it a five out of five stars.

HERE ARE A FEW FAVORITE QUOTES FROM THE BOOK

One of my favorite quotes comes from chapter 10 Big God

“ if God is really real and we are going to live with him forever shouldn’t he be the only thing.”

Another favorite quote comes from chapter 9 New Eyes and it says

“until there is total surrender there is no vision”

And another quote comes from “scrapbooks” and it says

“God gives us enough faith for whatever the stories of our lives will hold even in the worst of days”

and this this struck a chord because this last year was one of those worst of days matter fact it held six months worth of worst of days and it’s so refreshing now that we are coming out of those dark dark times that we have these promises and it’s so true and God gives us that faith . Another quote from that same chapter is

“God builds our lives whether we give him permission or not”

so if you give him permission and you’re willing and you’re watching and waiting you’re going to expect that. However if you don’t give God permission God still grows your life. It can be excruciatingly painful, worse then if you were expecting it.

This book was provided free of charge for review from BookLook Bloggers.

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