Tara Klena Barthel - Peacemaking Women: Biblical Hope for Resolving Conflict

This book tells the truth. The authors know the struggles of women, and they offer hope rooted in Gods Word to transform conflict into grace in lives, families, churches, and communities.

Charles Colson, founder, Prison Fellowship

The rifts in the Christian community are legion and legendary. The breakdown between two people or in our own walk with God saps more energy for the gospel than any one factor. Whatever the cause, the tragedy is most Christians dont have hope for repentance, reconciliation, and restoration. This bold and compelling book by two wise Christian mediators and peacemakers is a tour de force in offering a pathway for rebuilding broken relationships. Judy and Tara live and breathe what they write and know personally and professionally the glory of fighting for peace. Their labor of love will draw you back to the one who gave his life for our peace. Take it and read with hope and courage.

Dan B. Allender, president, Mars Hill Graduate School

Peacemaking Women is not just for women and is not just about peacemaking. This powerfully honest book is about the peace the gospel brings every heart that applies the truths of the gospel to past wounds and present brokenness. And this book is about how personally embracing this gospel of peace makes each of us a loving instrument of Gods grace to others.

Bryan Chapell, president, Covenant Theological Seminary

If I could put one book in the hands of every Christian woman, in addition to the Bible, it would be this one. The book is marked by courage, vulnerability, integrity, respect, variety, and scholarship. It is a delight to read and a joy to ponder. Reading it has been beneficial to me as I am sure it will be to many.

Laura Mae Garner, former president,
Wycliffe Bible Translators International

Peacemaking Women is worth a dozen counseling sessions. The chapter on romantic love is worth the price of the book.

Charles Mylander, coauthor of Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Judy Dabler and Tara Barthel weave into Peacemaking Women their wealth of wisdom and experience in counseling and conciliation. They show that conflict resolution demands more than communication techniques and negotiation strategies. Real peace (with God, others, ourselves) flourishes only when the deep drives of our hearts are captivated by the God of peace. In other words, the gospel of the crucified and risen Christ alone contains the life-changing mercy and power to heal our relationships with our Maker, each other, and our own conflicted hearts.

Real people populate these pages, not only the authors but also the women (and some men) whom they have helped find peace in the love of Jesus (and some whom theyve tried to helptheir realism also admits that not everyone wants peace on Gods terms). Their stories, told with refreshing humility and honesty, show how concretely practical the Bibles theology of peace is and speak hope that Gods shalom can and does invade our broken lives and relationships in sovereign grace. I learned much about women, myself, and my God and his grace from Peacemaking Women. I highly recommend it.

Dennis E. Johnson, academic dean and professor of practical theology, Westminster Seminary California

Women know how conflict can threaten to tear apart relationships and homes. And worse yet, this conflict frequently begins within our own hearts, working its way out in demands and desires that can seem overwhelming. Peacemaking Women isnt just another book on communication or conflict resolution. It will open your eyes to the role our idolatrous hearts play in our conflicts and then point you back to the Peacemaker who took peacemaking so seriously he was willing to die for it. I strongly recommend it!

Elyse Fitzpatrick, author, Overcoming Fear, Worry, and
Anxiety: Becoming A Woman of Faith and Confidence

Living in a world of conflict, we desperately need to discover the art of peacemaking. Tara Barthel and Judy Dabler use the wisdom of their own experience to apply Gods truth to the deep wounds of our lives, showing the path to intimacy with God, reconciliation with others, and shalom in our hearts. This biblical, insightful, sensitive, and practical book will open the door of hope for many women.

Colin S. Smith, pastor, Arlington Heights Evangelical Free Church

2005 by Tara Klena Barthel and Judy Dabler

Published by Baker Books
a division of Baker Publishing Group
P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.bakerbooks.com

Ebook edition created 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meansfor example, electronic, photocopy, recordingwithout the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

ISBN 978-1-4412-0032-7

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version. NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com

Scripture marked NASB is taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.lockman.org

Scripture marked NKJV is taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

The Slippery Slope illustration is used by permission of Peacemaker Ministries, Billings, MT.

The internet addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers in this book are accurate at the time of publication. They are provided as a resource. Baker Publishing Group does not endorse them or vouch for their content or permanence.

From Judy
To the great love of my life, Jim To Ryan and Robyn. Thank you, God, for the sweet delight and great reward you have given me in my precious children. To my mother, my tutor in loyalty and faithfulness

From Tara
For my darling husband, Frederick, who shows me Gods grace and love every day And for my beloved daughter Sophia Grace may you grow to be a peacemaking woman

CONTENTS

by Ken Sande

P eacemaking Women is a life-changing book. It contains a wealth of wisdom and encouragement for women who want to learn how to turn any conflict into an opportunity to build deeper and closer relationships.

My friends Tara and Judy write out of rich personal experience. God has refined them in the furnace of their own personal, family, and professional conflicts. As a result, they write with a winsome authenticity and vulnerability, and their teaching is laced with captivating personal examples to which every woman can relate.

Tara and Judy have been further refined by successfully guiding hundreds of other people through many kinds of conflict. Thus readers can readily apply Tara and Judys insights and counsel to the conflicts of daily life, whether at home, in church, in the workplace, or at that dreaded family gathering.

The greatest strength of this book is that it is consistently Christ-centered. Instead of calling women to work harder in their own strength, the authors urge women to rest more fully and confidently in the redeeming work of Christ. The gospelthe good news that Jesus has saved us from all our sinsis woven into every aspect of this peacemaking model. The more that Christians embrace this model, the more we will understand what Jesus meant when he told us, My yoke is easy and my burden is light.