Eve in Exile: What Did God Make Real Women For? (Psst: Enter to Win a Free Copy!)

Congratulations to Rebecca, Sarah and Sar! Each won a copy of Eve in Exile. I wish I had copies to give every entrant! I hope you’ll grab a copy though, because it will seriously give you an outlook and renewed vision that we so desperately need in a culture that marginalizes women.

It’s been a long time since I’ve gotten this excited over a book. Eve in Exile invigorated me to action, even though I already agreed with what she said. It’s hard to explain how Rebekah Merkle shatters every stereotype of women, from the swooning Victorian to the high-powered career woman, and paints a vivid picture of what actually does bring fulfillment to women and glory to God.

The book looks at the specific commands and privileges given to us as women, and blows the lid off of the feminist’s arguments (even “Christian feminists”) at every point, building a case for the intelligent, hard-working, transforming, cultivating, creative, free and fulfilled woman when she is looking into Scripture with the right lens.

And Eve in Exile might surprise you: she doesn’t offer hard and fast rules about what women can and can’t do, but the picture of what we get to do is so explicitly and beautifully painted, the other questions slip away. She also gives a refreshing look at the strength of women who are able to be both feminine and educated, obedient to Scripture and free to exercise their gifts, culture-changing women who understand their power and use it as God intended it. She even includes practical and inspiring ideas for single and childless women.

Another thing I loved was the shift away from the recent blogging trend of focusing on all the mess and brokenness and our failures, and though we need to be encouraged by each other and I’ll be the first one to say “let’s be transparent”, I don’t think it’s helpful to stay there without spurring each other on to the greater work of rolling up our sleeves, pushing past the difficulties, and creating a world of glorifying God through our life work. And to do that, we must be planting in soil where joy and gratitude and determination are.

It was hard to even choose a quote, there are so many I wanted to share. But I think this was a good summary of the vision:

“Feminine glory is fruitful. It produces. It builds, It creates. And it does so in ways that are profound and staggering and surprising ad beautiful and frequently messy and hilarious and ridiculous….Be the concentrated, intoxicating, incarnate poetry that tells the story of death and resurrection, and then throw yourself into the task of glorifying. Be fruitful. Buil your house. Work hard. Be ambitious. Be productive. Learn more. Run harder. Take the gifts God has given you, the desires He has given you, the constraints that he has given you, and then figure out how to weave those into something glorious, something compelling, a beautiful aroma that can’t be contained and that beckons a broken world to come and taste, to see that the Lord is good.”

Eve in Exile gave me a renewed sense of the BIGNESS of what God has given me to do, even beyond what I thought I already knew, and how when each of us understands it, embraces it and lives it to the glory of God, the world will change.

You’ll want to get this book and read it. You may even do a study at your church like we are doing. Either way, I think you won’t be able to read it without being changed by it. And that is a sign of a good book right there.

I am giving away 3 copies! Enter below. Giveaway ends Tuesday, May 16th.