Book Review:

Fully Alive - A Biblical View of Gender that frees men and women to live beyond steroestypes

by: Dr. Larry Crabb

Female Front and Centre

Being female has always felt like a gift to me. I am really okay to put on high heels, fiddle around with complicated layers of clothing and carry a few shades of lipstick in my purse. If you asked me a few weeks ago if I was fully female I would have replied quickly and decisively that indeed I am truly feminine from my blonde high lights to my manicured red toenails!

Discovering that my identity as a fully female human has nothing to do with my external persona and everything to do with my internal reflection of God’s image blew my mind and I have not stopped talking about it to anyone who will listen.

Dr. Larry Crabb nails my issues with precision and clarity! I am only fully present in my femininity to the extent that I receive and give in the relationships God places in my path.

As I read through the compelling case that Larry makes for my gender identity, I thought about all the times that I have wanted to shut others out, turn away in retreat and wallow in insult and hurt. The challenge to live fully female is the challenge to take relationship risks.

The bottom line of this challenge is to give without expecting to get and then give some more.

I am determined to allow this truth to challenge how I engage with people.  I want to be fully female in my relationships BECAUSE I do want others to see God when they see me. The depth of my existence as a reflection of the triune God flattens me and simultaneously frees me.

I have permission from my Creator to just be me. I don’t need to pose or pretend or hold back or try to fit in. I am free to open up and let others see me. This truth makes me weep. When I get criticized or rejected in my vulnerability I need to hang onto the truth that I am being fully female in that moment and somehow and in someway somebody will see Jesus in me.

I want to truly know and be known in the lives of others because my womanhood is complete in this truth.

I just wish I knew then what I know now.

This is a book everyone should read.  As our culture dances around the gender identity issue and blurs the lines, it is refreshing to grapple with the biblical view of who I am. This book presents a compelling case for the “Who What When and How” of my femininity.