Kirkus Review

12/14/2016

Debut author Bollinger, a longtime Chicago health care executive with a husband and two children, elaborates on her personal blueprint for Christian women in the modern workplace. She knows that she’s pushing against “good old-fashioned guilt that perhaps Christian women are supposed to be at home tending to family.” But she counters this with a simple contention that it’s “okay for a woman to command a boardroom, be the primary breadwinner for a family, and love the Lord, all while honoring a husband who takes a non-traditional role in the home.” In a series of short, concentrated sections, punctuated throughout with a very approachable tone and understated humor, she gives advice on how to strike the tricky balance between being a loving, supportive wife and mother in the home and an inspiring workplace leader. She assures her audience of Christian women that God has plans that involve them, whether they seek God out or never give him a second thought, and she also reassures them that God made each of them the way they are, faults and all. In these and many other ways, including its use of empowering buzz terms, such as “Warrior Purposes” or “Kingdom Purposes” (“You are a warrior headed into battle, with an important Kingdom purpose that will allow you to uniquely impact the Kingdom of God”), Bollinger’s book hews fairly close to the standard, 21st-century prosperity-gospel narrative; for example, she warns her readers that “God isn’t a lucky eight ball or a magic wand” while also characterizing God as an unpredictable, supernatural source of inspiration and insight. However, she leavens her version of this narrative with warmly told anecdotes and refreshingly blunt candor about how “squeaky” political issues “all the way to the right or to the left” can sometimes distract the faithful from their higher purposes. 

A clear-eyed, very readable manual for women living Christian lives in the modern world. 

Pub Date: April 15th, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-4602-8492-6
Page count: 186pp
Publisher: FriesenPress
Program: Kirkus Indie
Review Posted Online: Aug. 23rd, 2016

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