When I took the position of Communications Coordinator for the ABWM of WV Executive Board, I started thinking about what I can share with the wonderful women across WV, and how to get that to them. I knew I wanted to create a new website for us, and I wanted to include a blog with a variety of entries…. Devotions, behind-the-scene stories, personal insights from the ABWM officers, results of events and mission work, and more. I especially liked the idea of providing a book review on occasions. Being in the Palmer West Virginia Master’s of Divinity program, I read a lot of books. A LOT!!!

This summer, I didn’t take classes, so it was refreshing to have the opportunity to spend time with my nose stuck in a book of my own choosing for a change. There’s just something about reading a book because it’s required that makes it a little less fun to indulge. I rarely get to read a book that I WANT to read (instead of HAVE to read), so getting to indulge myself this summer was a treat for me. So, I thought I would start with a book I recently finished called The Right Kind of Strong: Surprisingly Simple Habits of a Spiritually Strong Woman written by Mary A Kassian. It was published by Nelson Books in 2019, but it is still very relevant today…. maybe even more so considering we live in a post-COVID world full of wars, natural disasters, religious confusion, societal confusion, and political…. I don’t even know what word to use to describe our current political state…. and I’m looking both ways, ladies - left and right!! Ok… I digress….

The read is about 240 pages long with small print, so it seemed to take me a while to get through all the chapters (or Habits as labeled on the table of contents). Being an academic, I do tend to study a book even when I’m just reading it for pleasure. This means that I read, re-read, continue reading, re-read that then re-read the part I re-read earlier to find connections, highlight this paragraph, underline that comment, dogear a couple of pages, look things up in my Bible, do a Google search to learn more about an event or person that was mentioned, ask Alexia for the definition of a word I didn’t know, go back to reading, re-read…… do you see a trend there?? Although I can read fast, I study slow. This book is good for both casual reading, but it’s excellent for studying. I recommend studying it, honestly. Again… I digress….

Mary Kassian started the book out with a retelling of her first fist fight… with her brother…. which she won/lost??…. you have to read the book to discover the end result! Of course she was a just a kid at the time, but it gives the reader the insights of how a girl feels being called weak. Kassian didn’t write about how to become physically strong. She wrote about how to become spiritually strong.

In one of his letters to Timothy, Paul mentions the “weak women” of the Ephesian church where Timothy was ministering. Kassian sets the stage by introducing the reader to these women and does an outstanding job of helping us visualize them and the culture in which they lived. It surprised me as these ladies were not how you typically viewed women in the first century… treated as second-class citizens with no rights, no voice, no power. Instead, the Ephesian women were affluent, educated, well connected, prominent, powerful even. But they were not spiritually strong.

What made these women so weak? They were falling for false doctrine taught by false prophets. And with all that wealth, education, connection, prominence, and power, they were wielding negative influence on the people of the church. They were weak, but didn’t know they were weak. So Kassian identified the areas of weakness of the women of Ephesus to help women of today… that’s us, ladies…. become strong, courageous, unyielding in our faith, solid in our walk with Jesus.

Across seven chapters… or Habits… Kassian intricately weaves the weaknesses of the Ephesus women, modern-day real-life examples, and her own insights to how we can avoid falling into weaknesses by discovering the right kind of strong. The seven habits are efforts, mindsets, practices that Kassian claims we can easily do to find, build, and maintain our spiritual strength. She starts out with catching the creeps…. or realizing how sin is so deceptive and sneaky, a wolf dressed in sheep’s clothing, being aware and on guard. The second, third, and forth habits emphasize an inward focus to improve how and what we think; letting go of sin, regrets, shame, and guilt; and maintaining control of our emotions. The fifth habit is using self-evaluation and an always-learning attitude for personal spiritual improvement. Habit six involves courage and bravery to stand our ground when it is shaking beneath our very feet due to peer pressures, social pressures, and all the other pressures of the 21st Century. The final habit is critical…. admitting our weakness and fully trusting in Jesus for “God’s power is made perfect in her weakness.” (Kassian, 2019, pg. 266)

I encourage you to read Kassian’s book if you haven’t already. If you have read it, you might want to pick it up again for a re-read. In fact, if you click on the website for the book (click the title in the second paragraph), you will find discussion questions, chapter (Habit) videos, and more. I imagine this would make a great women’s Bible study for the ladies in your church. The world needs strong women… strong Christian women…. strong, creep catching, thought-controlling, baggage-shedding, master of emotions, always-learning, firm-standing, Jesus-trusting, Jesus-loving, people-loving, light-shining, salt-sprinkling Christian women.

I just started reading Kassian’s subsequent book, The Right Kind of Confident: The Remarkable Grit of a God-Fearing Woman. If you liked this post, let me know…. I’ll share my thoughts on the second book.