Читать книгу Jesus and Those Bodacious Women - Linda H. Hollies - Страница 7

PREFACE

The word “bodacious” means unmistakable, remarkable, and noteworthy. When Jesus Christ comes into the life of a woman, she becomes bodacious. I learned this from my own life experience.

If you have read the story of my life, recorded in my book Inner Healing for Broken Vessels, you already know that I was the victim of my own father’s incest and that my mother “overlooked” his sin. Childhood traumas of this nature do not tend to make individuals bold, outstanding, and outgoing. They tend to produce shy, retiring, and withdrawn people who want to hide their shameful past. They wear masks and use a disguise to pretend that all is well while dying slowly on the inside. This was the life I lived until the age of twenty-seven. Then, I met Jesus Christ. I had a personal, born-again experience that changed my life forever. I discovered love. I found freedom. I was given power. I became a bodacious woman. My life has not been the same since.

As I have read and studied Scripture, I have found that God has always had bodacious women tucked away for us to find. The male compilers of the canon could not erase their remarkable feats. When I went away to seminary, I was taught the principles for “digging” beneath the words on the page to track down what was going on and who was being talked to and about when a given passage was written. I learned much about the work of bodacious women.

These events—the touch of Christ in my life and my educational pursuits—have combined to make me a student-learner-teacher-preacher, for the liberation of the Christ must be shared with women who have been hurt and feel small, insignificant, and alone. So, inspired by the Holy Spirit, I have compiled some lessons for you about bodacious women in Scripture. May another view of their lives bless you. May a different slant on their witness inform you. May new lessons from their journey make yours more smooth. Read these stories for information. Digest them for inspiration. Use them for motivation. Then, tell them to your sisters, for I am persuaded that Jesus Christ wants each one of us who is called a Christian woman to be a bodacious woman.

Author’s Note about Scriptures

I take great personal liberty with Scripture! I believe it was written for me. And I know it needs to have inclusive language to include all of us. So I have attempted to be true to documenting the sources of every scriptural reference, using the New International Version translation for most of my references. However, this version is not wholly inclusive in its language. Therefore, I pray you will be indulgent as you read your select version and find it does not say “exactly” what I have stated. It’s what I saw and felt was intended!