Jani Ortlund - Fearlessly Feminine: Boldly Living Gods Plan for Womanhood

FEARLESSLY FEMININE
published by Multnomah Books
2000 Jani Ortlund

Scripture quotations are from:
The Holy Bible, New International Version ( NIV )
1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society, used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

M ULTNOMAH and its mountain colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout prior written permission.

For information:
MULTNOMAH BOOKS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, CO 80921

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ortlund, Jani.
Fearlessly feminine: boldly living Gods plan for womanhood/by Jani
Ortlund. p.cm. eISBN: 978-0-307-78118-5
1. Christian womenReligious life. I. Title.
BV4527.O79 2000 248.843dc21 99-050998

v3.1

tender caregiver, patient teacher, beloved mother
Thank you

Like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.
I P ETER 3:6

T he purpose of this book is to draw women to God. It is about God and you. It is a book that is meant to help you enjoy being a woman. Its message will enhance your femininity. It will show you how God can help you to be fearlessly feminine in all areas of your life. It will encourage you so to trust God that you will do anything for His blessing and glory.

It is also about me. I could not write about being a woman without opening my heart and life to you. This book has emerged out of counseling and speaking experiences with women through years of ministry with my husband. As those experiences grew, I grew with them. I hope that what God has done to encourage me in fearless femininity will also encourage you.

This book is about you and me and what God has given us in commonour feminine souls. What does it mean to be a woman? Why is it so important that we be fearless? I want to talk about that with you as we couple fearlessness with femininity. I want to call Christian women to be joyfully confident in who we are before God. I want us to fearlessly embrace the privilege of womanhood and show the world the beauty of Christian femininity for Gods glory.

And so this book. My prayer is that God will use it to nurture and beautify His daughters as we seek to further His kingdom here on earth.

Jani Ortlund
Augusta, Georgia

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the L ORD is to be praised.
P ROVERBS 31:30

A s a young girl in India, Ramabai was instructed in Sanskrit and the sacred Puranas by her mother and father. She spent her childhood wandering from village to village with her Hindu parents. At the age of eighteen she watched her father, mother, and sister starve to death. She then moved to Calcutta and began teaching Sanskrit among reform-minded Hindus, but was accused by the orthodox religious establishment of destroying Hinduism and the Indian family, because they opposed women who knew and taught their sacred writings.

When her husband of nineteen months died of cholera, she was left totally alone to care for their infant daughter. In 1882 she began her great work for Indias ostracized and abused widows, battling for their care and for the prohibition of child marriages. While studying in England the following year, she observed the difference between Christians and Hindus.

After my visit to the Homes at Fulham, I began to think there was a real difference between Hinduism and Christianity. I realized, after reading the 4th Chapter of St. Johns Gospel, that Christ was truly the Divine Saviour He claimed to be, and no one but He could transform and uplift the downtrodden womanhood of India and of every land. She was baptized and then came to the U.S. to study, write, and raise funds to establish homes for young Hindu widows.

Returning to India in 1889, she became one of her countrys great liberators, freeing thousands of widows and orphans great political opposition and physical deprivation she from the curse they were suffering under Hinduism. Amidst began meeting the needs of hundreds of young women and girls. By 1900 she had over nineteen hundred people under her care. She had to feed and house them, educate them, teach them trades, find them jobs, and arrange their marriages. Her days began at 4:00 A.M. and often lasted late into the night.

She learned Greek and Hebrew and worked hard on a vernacular Bible translation. Through it all, God was her joy and her strength. I feel very happy, she wrote, since the Lord called me to step out in faith, and I obeyed. We are not rich, nor great, but we are happy, getting our daily bread from the loving hands of our Heavenly Father, having not a pice (Indian coin) over and above our daily necessities, having no banking account anywhere, no endowment or income from any earthly source, but depending altogether on our Father God; we have nothing to fear from anybody, nothing to lose, and nothing to regret. The Lord is our Inexhaustible Treasure.

O ur premarital counseling session with the earnest young seminary couple was coming to a close. Although he had been raised in a loving Christian environment from birth, her story was different. She described to us what it was like to be raised by a mother who had divorced twice and then moved in with a female lover. No wonder this new believer asked me as we finished up our time together, What does it mean to be a truly Christian woman? Ive never seen it up close, and frankly, it scares me.