What Women Fear
By Angie Smith
B & H Books September 2011
As wives, as mothers, as women, we tend to fear a lot of
things. We worry that our husband might lose his job, our mother could have
another stroke, or that our precious child might get hit by a car while out
riding their bike. Angie Smith’s book What
Women Fear looks at her own deep-seeded fears in light of the Bible and a
relationship with a heavenly Father.
Each fear is connected to someone from the Bible. Fear of
the what if correlates with Hagar, who wondered if she could have done
something different to keep her son safe with his father instead of dying out
in the desert. She is so consumed with fear that she doesn’t even see the well
that God has provided to save him. Job has fears of rejection, abandonment and
betrayal when his wife and friends tell him that God has left him and he should
curse his maker. Jonah fears what God has planned for his life and that it will
not match his own plans.
The most striking chapter concerns Peter walking on the
waves towards Jesus. Smith writes about doubt, our fear that God isn’t who he
says he is or doesn’t have the power to fulfill his promises. “I don’t think
it’s possible to live this life without room for doubt. And even more
shockingly, I don’t think God holds it against us. After all, if He wanted us
to know we could walk on water, I think He would have designed us to do it.”
This book is obviously not going to pack as much of an
emotional punch as Smith’s previous book, I Will Carry You. That being said, this would be a great book for a women’s bible
study. Actually, it’s a great book for anyone, although it is marketed towards
women. Many of the biblical examples are men and I have to imagine that men
have fears too…they just deal with them differently.
Ms. Smith is a lovely writer. You can tell with each
sentence that she really wants to help her readers find faith in spite of their
fear, instead of being paralyzed by it. She believes that we can all find balance on this tightrope of life, that
“the more we tap into a life balanced by Christ, grounded in knowing Him and
His Word, the less we have to worry about falling off. It’s still scary up
here, no question, but if we can get a firm grip on that which steadies us, it
will look different.”
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