Let Me Be a Woman

Rating:
Summary: Elliot needs healing
Review: As a young 'educated' Christian woman, I felt that what I believed to be biblical values are no longer seen as something to strive for in this modern age. I know that I had every means of pursuing and achieving what most women of this age strive for, but I chose not to. I never felt comfortable with it bc I never felt it was God's role for me in His perfect plan for creation. This book has been incredible in reinforcing in me the importance and JOY of biblical femininity. Role are NOT unequal, both sexes are equally precious in God's eyes, but God has made us DIFFERENT for a REASON. If this was not the case, why would God have needed to make us different at all? Why would Adam need a 'helper suitable for Him'? This book was amazing and uncompromising in the message that is sorely needed in the world today.

Rating:
Summary: Burned Out Housewives, look no further!
Review: By the end of the first chapter in this book I felt like chearing. As a young teenager, this book let me know that it IS okay to be a woman like God designed me to be. Elisabeth Elliot did a wonderful job writing this book - she's funny and serious and gets her point across through both styles of writing. Now I'm in my late teens, have read this book several, several times, and will take it to college with me so that I can continue to read it. I'm so glad that my mom encouraged me to read this. Out of all the books she ever wanted me to read, this one is in the top 5 list of books that have affected my life the most. My daughters will read this when they reach their teen years, and I hope many other mothers will buy this book for their daughters as well. At the close of the book, I wanted to chear "Let Me Be A Woman!" In my early teens, it was so important and such a relief to realize that how I was made was the way GOD wanted me.

Rating:
Summary: Burned Out Housewives, look no further!
Review: Decided to review this book finally: Every copy I ever loan out never comes back, so I'm ordering 5 or 10 copies for friends getting married or already married. I was an on-the-go career girl till I got married: Self sufficient, self-supportive, and probably too self-indulgent. After I made the transition to stay at home mom (six kids), I thought I was losing my mind. This book gave me the refreshing, God centered perspective I needed to find and changed my life. So many women rush around trying to do things to validate themselves outside their home, that they miss how hugely important their role is in the home. This beautiful look at a woman's feminity will change your life.

Rating:
Summary: Appalling
Review: Elliot dropped the ball this time. Sure, she can put together a good sentence that, considered apart from its content, is a pleasure to read (hence its one star), but the content ruins whatever else one might have hoped for from a book on a Christian view of women.

Elliot's view boils down to the idea that women should appreciate being women simply because that's what they are (big revelation--very, very few people are confused about whether or not they are women), not because of any perks or blessings that come with the job. She claims that women should enjoy their men for being men, with all that that entails--including, but not limited strictly to, barbarism. Yes, women are told to love their men for (or in spite of) leaving dirty socks on the floor, forgetting to shower after working out, drinking straight out of the carton, urinating on the toilet seat, etc. Yes, having a penis is plenty of excuse, according to Elliot, for behaving badly/stupidly/unsanitarily. And women are supposed to love them for this and feel guilty for wishing that men could clean up after themselves and behave decently.

Please. I'll grant that Scripture teaches that wives are supposed to submit to their husbands, but it's preposterous to expect anyone to want to, much less love to, be around or be married to the kind of lout Elliot puts forth as being truly masculine. And it's not biblical to behave like that. The OT laws prescribe moral and sanitary codes that would, if noticed (which doesn't often happen in these days of 21st century Christianity), preclude most of the behaviors that women find most annoying. At least if you hire repair guys rather than marrying somebody you think will handle the repairs, the hired help take their butt cracks and go home; you don't have to live with them.

_...

Rating:
Summary: A Refreshing Reminder Of Woman's Creation & Role
Review: In an age when women, especially women in the church, search, flounder, and grow frustrated with discovering who God created us to be, the role He is requiring of us, and how we are to relate to men, especially our spouses, this book gives direction in a manner neither oppressive nor offensive. Elisabeth Elliot, through loving letters to her daughter, allows us the opportunity to find the heart of our Creator in a way that inspires and plants desire within us. I came away from reading this book with a fresh longing to be all - nothing less and nothing more - than my God designed me to be. I encourage every Christian woman, whether 12 or 99 years of age, to read this book and allow Elisabeth Elliot's knowledge of the Word to shape who you are in Christ.

Rating:
Summary: Creation - Woman for Man... or Woman for God??
Review: MAYBE if you're in the same place as Elliot's daughter (to whom she wrote the book) this might be a good book for you. But for those of us who are single and will remain that way indefinitely until God directs otherwise, I don't recommend this.

Unfortunately, it turned out a little more "cushy" than i was looking for. I was genuinely seeking... in a time of struggle, fighting with culture to "Let [Myself] Be a Woman," I was looking for a book to challenge me, to change me, to encourage me, especially as I deal with my identity as a young Christian woman discovering who God intends for me to be. If you are expecting this book to be that book I was looking for, I recommend looking elsewhere. (Where else - I know not; I'm looking too. I have started reading "Lies Women Believe and the Truth that Sets Them Free," and it has at least been more honest and helpful, but I've only just begun it). Although this is a "nice" book, it revolves too much around men and our relationship with men (Afterall, it was her wedding gift to her daughter).

I couldn't get into this book, I gave it til chapter five, "Creation - Woman for Man," and returned it to the shelf. If God created me only for man and not for Himself, I have failed and my life has no meaning. But my life is God's and no man's, and that does not make me less of a woman or less of a Christian. I didn't finish this book, because its underlying assumption is that our purpose is simply to marry and reproduce and be good wives and mothers. Don't get me wrong, those are WONDERFUL people to be!! But this book is only for those who are already wives or mothers or soon will be. I do not recommend this for single women, especially if all you really want IS to be a good wife and mother someday and it's not something God has chosen to give you. So while a woman is completely pre-marriage and pre-motherhood (or single and barren if it shall always be that way), she must struggle and learn who she is as a woman of God (because first and foremost she is His), especially in today's culture where the role of women has been severely confused. Anyone know any good books for the unengaged women of God?
1 Corinthians 7:32-35

Rating:
Summary: Learning to be woman of God...
Review: The book "Let me be a Woman" by Elisabeth Elliot is a biblical revelation for Christian woman. The author states, very humbly, her convictions which are scripturally correct and completely in-line with the word of God. It exposes the lies woman of the Church have allowed the world fool them with. The book explains how woman are to be submissive first unto God and secondly unto to their husbands.
It is not demeaning towards woman or in any way old-fashioned. Elliot herself is an example of proverbs 31 woman. She is not a weak woman, but rather a strong outspoken Christian woman. She admonishes woman with tenderness and love behind each word.
I cannot recommend a better book for woman who are truly seeking God, and honestly wiling to give him their all.

Rating:
Summary: More than wonderful!!!
Review: This book was a very refreshing thing to read! Mrs. Elliot shows how it is a good and desirable thing to be a true woman of God (submission and letting the husband lead). It was no mistake that a woman is a woman and a man a man! God has placed us in our rightful places. She also shows how the woman's roll is just as inportant as tha man's, it is just different!
I found this very freeing to read, because I now see how God has made me! I would give this book the highest rateings!!!

Rating:
Summary: Essays on women and marriage -- by no means thorough!
Review: This is a collection of essays written to Elliot's engaged daughter, Valerie, on the topic of womanhood and marriage.

An example from an insightful essay entitled, A Vocation - ...Marriage is a vocation. It is a task to which you are called. If it is a task, it means you work at it. It is not something which happens. You hear the call, you answer, you accept the task, you enter into it willingly and eagerly, you commit yourself to its disciplines and responsibilities and limitations and privileges and joys. You concentrate on it, giving yourself to it day after day in a lifelong Yes. Having said Yes to the man who asked you to marry him, you go on saying Yes to marriage...

The book has a very traditional view of marriage roles. It would definitely offend someone with an egalitarian view.

Let Me Be A Woman speaks to solely to women and identifies their circles of responsibility and ideal response to husbands. It never mentions the shortcomings of husbands, but rather encourages women to be who God designed them to be (again, from a traditional perspective) no matter what the marriage circumstances. Elliot often emphasizes the wife's self-sacrifice involved in spousal relationships.

While I don't think Susan Hunt would _disagree_ with Elliot, Hunt's book, By Design, offers more practical advice on God's design for women, and places more emphasis on _coming along side of a husband_ and being _actively_ supportive of his design as a man -- with examples.

To contrast, and perhaps it was not intentional, but Let Me Be a Woman, offered general advice on making a marriage work. In summary, that advice to women is to keep going about one's daily womanly chores, not to bother husbands with mundane things -- that is what your girlfriends are for -- and quietly go about the Lords work and let one's quiet, submissive consistency be a blessing to her husband. It is a more passive approach than Hunt's.

Let Me Be a Woman is by no means thorough regarding issues that come up in marriage - nor does it promise to be! It is, however, a decent collection of essays on the topic of marriage. There are lumps of coals and there are gems.

Because it is broken into very short essays, the book is an easy read. There are many great thoughts that would be helpful for encouraging others or to use to bolster a point in a lesson on marriage.

IMHO, a more helpful and certainly practical book (self-help / personal growth) on a woman's role in marriage is The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace.