Alsup “gets it” that Christian women are, first and foremost, simply Christians. She makes it clear that Jesus—not Ruth or Esther or even the Proverbs 31 woman—is our primary identity. Why do most books for Christian women focus more on the externals of femaleness than on the heart of discipleship?

Wendy Alsup. The Gospel Centered Woman: Understanding Biblical Womanhood through the Lens of the Gospel. CreateSpace, 2013. 154 pp. $7.28.

Two thumbs up. Author and blogger Wendy Alsup has done what many others have overlooked. In writing for Christian women, most err in one of two ways. Some describe discipleship of women in a way that’s undifferentiated from men. Others only address the specific roles of wife, mom, homemaker, single, career woman, and so forth in a way that neglects the larger issues of discipleship that actually empower their performance of those roles from a gospel perspective. Roles that require submitting and helping aren’t fueled by the commands themselves. These actions witness to something that has preceded. Many people get this wrong, and droves of women spend fruitless hours trying to be the perfect person their study books describe. They end up on the hamster wheel of performance and appearance, never progressing beyond comparison with their contemporaries—who serve as their measure of success.

Alsup “gets it” that Christian women are, first and foremost, simply Christians. She makes it clear that Jesus—not Ruth or Esther or even the Proverbs 31 woman—is our primary identity. Why do most books for Christian women focus more on the externals of femaleness than on the heart of discipleship?

Not Embarrassed to Help

Few appreciate what being a “helper” really is. I’ve often found that women, after learning the real meaning, are greatly encouraged about that role. The scriptural song “O God Our Help in Ages Past” reminds us God isn’t embarrassed to be a helper. And Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit who will come as our Helper. What Christian wouldn’t be thrilled to be summoned to the same role God the Father and God the Spirit perform for our sake? And what Christian could ever again denigrate being called to submit after seeing our great Savior, God the Son, submit for our salvation? How could we ever match the humility of Jesus, serving without sin unto death? We can’t, of course, but the gospel inspires us to want to.

For women, much of our pain arises from unsatisfied desires for good things. For instance, a single woman may yearn for a husband, a married woman feel despondent about not having children, or a woman with children feel tortured by their rebellion. To be clear, we may righteously desire that God has called good, including a husband, children, and godly offspring. But when unfulfilled these things can cause significant pain and suffering in this life and represent some of the major issues with which believing women struggle. How can it be that something God has called good would be withheld from his children?

Those can be hard providences, to be sure, but rightly surrendered to God, they turn the satisfaction of our longings from humans to him. These lessons are hard but necessary, since life is only truly good when God is the chief object of our desires. Time and again we seek to get our needs met through people, putting them in the place of God, only to be hurt and disappointed. We must be trained anew to run to the Lover of our souls, where real security and happiness can be found.

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Donna Dobbs is the Director of Christian Education at First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi.