A Conversation With God For Women: Book Review

Book Review:

A Conversation With God for Women, by Marcia Ford

Years ago, I read another book with a similar title in which the author claimed to personally hear from God.  He wrote his alleged conversations with God in that book, conversations that attempted to address some of the big, common questions humans have asked for centuries.  I became more and more disturbed as I read that book.  It just felt “off.”  I just went with my gut and got rid of the book. 

So I was a bit hesitant to request this book to review.  I was afraid it would be more of the same, but at the same time, I just wanted to read it and find out for myself if that was the case.

I was quite relieved, however, to find that the author made absolutely no claims to be speaking for God (or Jesus), and she makes no claims that God Himself told her what to write.  The answers that Ford gives to the big questions in life (pain, suffering, tragedy, etc) are merely written “as if” God were giving you the answers in conversational style, based on scripture.  Ford paraphrases those scriptures in a way that people of today can understand, and references the original scriptures (in various translations), which are all included in their entirety in the back of the book . The rest is what I assume to be her interpretation of those scriptures, some of which I felt were accurate, and some I wasn’t so sure (but then again, that’s nothing new!).

Some of the answers in the book offered a different way of looking at things, others brought more questions to my mind, still others seemed to side-step the questions, and a few were even a bit confusing.  It strikes me as a book that would be daunting, at best, to even attempt to write. In our finite human minds, we are, after all, limited in our understanding of God.

I was surprised by how physically heavy this book is.  The pages are thick, high-quality paper that I am assuming was done intentionally in expectation of it being used again and again as a reference book.  In that regard, it does have some value since you have scripture references in one handy place that relate to the questions answered in each chapter.

But if you are searching for the answers to your biggest questions about life, death, suffering, etc., this book should only be used as a guide, and not the final authority.  In fact, no book should ever be read naively.  Test everything against the scriptures, look the verses up yourself, read them in context, and ask God to help you discern their meaning. 

Since the beginning of time, man has asked the same questions, and many have attempted to answer those questions in various ways.  This book is really no different. 

  While many of the answers to the questions did not wholly satisfy me, it at least led me to want to do further searching on my own, which is a very good thing!

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks for reading!