Seven Women: And the Secret of Their Greatness

Each era has the fatal hubris to believe that it has once and for all climbed to the top of the mountain and can see everything as it is, from the highest and most objective vantage point possible.

How can you change the world? The answer: find seven women, turn them loose, and watch Satan tremble in their presence.” —

She firmly believes feminism to be anti-woman because it pressures women to become more like men. Everyone

Men and women were deliberately designed to be different. Indeed we are specifically created as complements to each other, as different halves of a whole, and that whole reflects the glory of God. It’s patently obvious that we were physically created to fit together, and of course if that weren’t the case, we could not create life. So when men cease to be such or when women deny their uniqueness, they make that complementarity impossible, and the whole, as it were, suffers. There’s much to be said on that subject, but the point to make here is that we are meant to be different and God wants us to celebrate and rejoice in our differences, never to suppress them or denigrate them.

The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for me. 'These words struck through my heart, and I knew that God for Christ's sake had forgiven me all my sins.' - Susanna Wesley

She was so pure and so brave and so singular in her faith and obedience to God that, perhaps like Francis of Assisi or even like Jesus himself, she challenges many of our deepest assumptions about what a life can be.

The lesson in all this is that to pit women against men is a form of denigration of women, as though their measure must be determined by masculine standards. The

When I consider the seven women I chose, I see that most of them were great for reasons that derive precisely from their being women, 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

am convinced that anyone who has shared this experience of eternity, if only once; who has understood which way he is going, if only once; who has perceived the One who precedes him, if only once: such a person will find it hard to deviate from this path, to him all comforts will appear ephemeral, all treasures valueless, all companions superfluous if

So whenever men have used their positions of authority or their power to denigrate women, they have denigrated themselves and have denied themselves the fullness of manhood …

strong resolution: We are going to save every little child, every unborn child, give them a chance to be born. We are fighting abortion with adoption.

our people could only see all this, they would stop grumbling about their own misfortunes and offer thanks to God for blessing them with such abundance.

men and women are not interchangeable. There are things men can and should do that women cannot, and there are things that women can and should do that men cannot. So comparing men and women is something like comparing apples and oranges, except apples and oranges are actually far more like each other than are men and women. Apples and oranges can exist without each other, but men and women cannot.

Joan of Arc was no fierce amazon. Far from it. There was nothing even slightly “manly” about her. On the contrary, it was her youth, innocence, purity, and holiness that made it possible for her to do what she did. Only just past girlhood she was deeply affected by the suffering she saw in the battles around her, never becoming inured to the carnage and agonies of war, as a male soldier typically will do. It was precisely her vulnerability and womanly virtue that stunned and inspired the rough soldiers in a way that no man ever could do. It was because of these qualities that they were in awe of her and respected her. Though her spirit was as large as anyone’s who has ever lived, she herself was neither big nor strong. In other words, there could never be a male Joan of Arc. The very idea is a laughable oxymoron.

Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney, who was the first female Top Fuel dragster champion, but

The woman who twice endured the loss of her home by fire wrote: “Help me, O Lord, to make a true use of all disappointments and calamities in this life, in such a way that they may unite my heart more closely with thee.”29 In