Woman of Valor, Mother’s Heart

Dannah Gresh: A woman used mightily by God doesn’t usually set out to accomplish great feats for Him. Here’s Laura Gonzalez.

Laura Gonzalez: We just respond to the Lord, and we’re just available; that’s it. He does the rest.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Surrender: The Heart God Controls, for August 9, 2021. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Do you ever want to achieve great things for the Lord but you don’t know where to start? Stay tuned, because we’re about to be encouraged along those lines.

Last week, we heard one of the messages Nancy originally delivered  at a True Woman conference. She showed us from the life of Deborah, in the Old Testament, how “A True Woman Joins the Battle.” if you missed that, be sure to go to ReviveOurHearts.com (or scroll down on your Revive Our Hearts app) and listen to Nancy’s powerful message.

Nancy, it was so encouraging to relive those moments and be challenged all over again, challenged to follow God’s lead, even when it means going into the fight. 

Nancy: I think that message is even more timely for our day as we find ourselves facing so many battles that are a bit different than they were when I first gave that message. It was a good reminder for me, too, in this season of my life. You know, the details of the battle scan change from season to season, but the truths of God’s word always stay rock solid. How we apply it to our lives can vary, but the foundational biblical principles never change. 

I think as never before, we as women, need to be challenged from God's Word to be women like Deborah—to be courageous, to believe God, to be grounded in His Word, and to be women who encourage the men around us to be brave and bold men of God. 

Dannah: I could not agree more. When you talk about applying God's Word to our lives, that's such an important part of the process that we want to see women do as they listen to and use the truth that they hear on Revive Our Hearts.

Nancy: Yes. One of the things I often say for myself and for other women is when they open God's Word we want to look first at: What does it say? We make observations. We don't jump right out of the passage into application. First we want to see, What does the passage say. What did it mean to the people for whom it was first written? What is the context? Who wrote it? Why did they write it? What was intended by it?

Then we want to look at not just, What does it say? But secondly, What does it mean?  So we are making interpretation. That's what we wrestle with, as I'm doing right now in a new study I'm preparing for Revive Our Hearts. I'm in a tough passage of Scripture. I'm looking at, What does it say? And then I'm grappling with, What does it mean? What are the principles that the Lord intended to communicate through this passage.

Then we say, "What should we do about it?" Application. So we have: observation, interpretation, application. Some of us love to open the Word and focus on the observations, but we never get to the application, which is what we are going to do today. But then there are others who take the Word, and they just jump right to application. We can be misled if our application isn't drawn out of hte passage itself.

Last week we shared a message where I was talking about, What does this passage say? Today we are going to listen to a discussion that is jumping off of that teaching and talking about what does it mean for us.

Dannah: I think for us, it's going to feel like a few friends sitting around a table, maybe sharing coffee together, and discussing some of the things they’re learning as they study the life of Deborah together. 

Nancy: I love that. Dannah, you and I have been part of a group many times over the years where we get together. We'll study a book of the Bible or passage. We'll talk about, What does it say? What does it mean? Then we talk about, How do we apply this to our lives? It's table talks, it's discussions.

Sometimes with these kinds of records I say, "If we could just pretend we are sitting around a table with a basket with chips in the middle of the table. That wouldn't make for very good audio. So we are going to skip the chips, but we'll have a group of friends talking around the Scripture.

What we’re going to be hearing is from the current episode of the Women of the Bible podcast on the life of Deborah.

Dannah: You’ll hear from Erin Davis and two of her friends, Laura Gonzalez and Laura Booz, talking about how Deborah became a woman of influence. And I’ll give you a hint: it wasn't by setting her sights on the goal of greatness and aggressively pursuing her ambition at any cost. 

Nancy: Ready? If you can get your Bible open, we're in Judges chapter 4. To set the stage for us, here’s Laura Booz, reading Judges chapter 4, verses 4–6.

Laura Booz:

Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time. She used to sit under the palm of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and the people of Israel came up to her for judgment. She sent and summoned Barak the son of Abinoam from Kedesh-naphtali and said to him, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you, ‘Go, gather your men at Mount Tabor, taking 10,000 from the people of Naphtali and the people of Zebulun.'"

Erin Davis: Yes, so just a couple of verses here, but I feel like we’ve learned a lot about Deborah. If this was like her introduction to you at a party or your first glance into the life of Deborah, what are your first impressions of her as you read that?

Laura G: I think she’s wise. I mean, she was speaking for God and people were coming to see her and talk to her and ask her things for judgment.

Laura B.: Honestly, when I picture Deborah sitting under the palm tree, I just think it’s an atmosphere of peace and faithfulness. She’s at peace with God, and she was reliable. Yes, just that picture of her, sitting under this palm and serving the Lord, serving the people of God.

Erin: Yes, that palm strikes me, too. The passage tells us that she would sit at the palm, and that the tree was named after her, so she left her mark on the geography of her land. 

Laura B.: She was reliable.

Erin: She must have been a good judge, because the people keep coming.

You girls know I have four sons, and I feel like this is what I do all day, every day! I don’t sit under the palm, but I’m constantly judging disputes of some sort, and part of that really resonates with me about her.

We don’t know who wrote the book of Judges (most scholars think it was likely the prophet, Samuel), but the writer’s description of Deborah here is from the outside looking in, and he describes her in two ways. What are they?

Laura G: Prophetess and wife and judge.

Erin: Okay, maybe there’s three! Prophetess and wife and judge. If we’ve been reading our Bibles very long at all, we’ve heard that term “prophet.” We have an idea of what a judge is; we know what a wife is. But I want to let Scripture give us the definition for those roles, so we really know what the text is saying when it tells us that Deborah was a prophet.

So Laura Gonzalez, will you read us Deuteronomy 18:18–19. This is how the Bible defines the role of prophet.

Laura G:

I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him. And whoever will not listen to my words that he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.

Erin: Okay, so if that’s the job description for a prophet, what does a prophet do?

Laura G: Speak for God.

Erin: That’s right. So that is what Deborah was doing as a prophetess. Okay, when you think of “judge,” Laura B., what do you think of? What’s your image of a judge?

Laura B.: I guess I picture them behind the bench in a courtroom scene, gavel . . . 

Erin: Me, too . . . black robe, gavel. That’s kind of our modern version of a judge. Let’s see how the Bible defines the role of judge. It’s in Deuteronomy 16:18–19.

Laura B.: Okay. 

You shall appoint judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. You shall not pervert justice. You shall not show partiality, and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous.

Erin: You know the statue of Lady Justice. She’s got that band around her eyes; that comes straight from Scripture. So if you were to give “judge” a succinct job description, what did God say judges were supposed to do?

Laura B.: Uphold justice.

Erin: And how did they know what was just?

Laura B.: According to His Word.

Erin: According to God’s law. So, these are not just arbitrary terms; God is infused in both of these roles. So what are Deborah’s God-given responsibilities to the people of God according to these two titles? She has a couple of jobs. She’s supposed to . . .

Laura G: Speak for God. 

Laura B.: And she’s supposed to judge amongst the people without partiality and according to God’s law.

Erin: That’s right! So, I could decide right now, “I am Erin, prophetess and judge of Missouri” I could sit under my oak tree. But that’s not what happened here. Deborah did not decide that she was going to be a prophetess in the nation of Israel. She did not decide that she was going to be a judge to the nation of Israel. 

How do I know that? Well, we’ve got to go back a little bit to Judges chapter 2. Let me read to us Judges 2:16 and 18. And if you’re a write-in-the-Bible kind of girl (which I hope you are; I certainly am), a good thing to do here is to circle the word “Lord” every time it appears, because it happens pretty often.

Then the Lord raised up judges, who saved them out of the hand of those who plundered them. . . . Whenever the Lord raised up judges for them, the Lord was with the judge, and he saved them from the hand of their enemies all the days of the judge. For the Lord was moved to pity by their groaning because of those who afflicted and oppressed them.

This is an important point: Deborah was not self-appointed. Who decided Deborah was going to be a prophetess and judge?

Laura B.: The Lord.

Erin: The Lord. It tells us that over and over. I want to know (the Lord has not appointed me prophetess and judge) has there ever been a time when the Lord asked you to fill a specific role for a specific season, in the way we see Him doing with Deborah here?

Laura B.: What comes to mind first of all is being a wife to my husband, being a mother to my children; those are long-term appointments. Recently I helped to restart a women’s ministry at our church, and I really could feel that energy of the Holy Spirit. (I think Paul writes about that, we work with the energy of the Holy Spirit).

I could feel His anointing and grace and help in doing that work. It was a span of three years and then, when my work there was done I really—I don’t know, I don’t want to base it all on how I felt, but—I felt Him say like, “Okay, that’s good, and it’s time to move on to the next thing.”

Erin: Well, Esther, she was appointed “for such a time as this,” that idea of it being for a season. I love that example. I have something similar in my own church. I knew, in my own church, that I was to be the architect of our women’s ministry. And I knew the whole time that I was just the architect. I knew I wasn’t the maintainer, and that is exactly how it unfolded. It was me a season, and then the season was over.

Okay, Laura G, you lead Aviva Nuestros Corazones, which means what in English? 

Laura G: Revive Our Hearts.

Erin: You and I both work for Revive Our Hearts, and Revive Our Hearts is a ministry to women. We call women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. But we did it in English for a long time, and then you and a group of women attended a Revive Our Hearts conference. Tell us how you go from attending a conference for a ministry to women. . .

Laura G: . . . in English!

Erin: It’s a daily audio teaching in English . . . to leading the Spanish arm of that ministry!

Laura G: Well, it’s a long story, but to make it short . . . We knew about Revive Our Hearts where we lived in the Dominican Republic. We heard about this conference in 2008. We went to the conference; we attended the conference. 

Erin: You brought a large group of women, if I remember right. 

Laura G: Yes, a hundred women came. 

Erin: A hundred women from Latin America!

Laura G: From the Dominican Republic. 

Erin: Oh, all from the Dominican Republic, okay.

Laura G: Yes, from two churches. So we came, and we just felt, “This is something we want to take back home.” We thought for our church. We were faithful and available. And so the Lord just told us, “Translate this for the church,” and we did.

And then, “Oh, there’s a little radio ministry in this church; let's do it for the Dominican Republic,” and we did that. And so, little by little, we ended up having an outreach in Spanish. I was chosen to lead it, but it was not something I appointed myself for. It was the Lord’s appointment.

Erin: I want to write down those two words: “faithful” and “available.” It started out so seemingly small, but it’s not small anymore. Give us an idea of the scope of the ministry.

Laura G: Well, now it’s all over Latin America. We have millions and millions of downloads of the radio podcast. We have had conferences in Latin America where 6,000 women come. We cannot believe it! We can see it was the Lord—from the beginning to end!

Erin: Yes. I think if we were telling your story, if we said, “Laura Gonzalez, Director of Aviva Nuestros Corazones” like Deborah, “I didn’t pick myself as the Director of Aviva Nuestros Corazones.” The Lord appointed you.

Laura G: That’s right. I think we just respond to the Lord, and we are just available, that’s it. He does the rest. 

Erin: He does. There’s so much we don’t know about Deborah. I want to ask her questions; I want to know: “What did you think?” and “How did you feel?” and “How did that go?” and “How did you know the Lord appointed you as a judge and a prophetess?” 

Is there anything in the text, Laura, that gives you clues about how you think Deborah responded when she sensed the Lord was appointing her for these big jobs?

Laura B.: Yes, I think that she knew what it was like for the Lord to command her, and for her to awake and obey. Because when she talks to Barak, she says, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you . . .” so on and so forth. (see Judges 4:6)

You can’t speak that into somebody else’s life unless you’ve walked that road yourself, and you know the wrestling, and you know the listening, and you know the discerning and time with the Lord. So, yes, I think she knew it, and I think she was obeying.

Erin: Yes, I think so, too. I always like to try and picture the story, as much as I can. You know: What were the smells? What were the sights? What was it like? What were the other people like? So as we picture under the palm tree as a judge in Israel, what kinds of things do you think people brought to her, seeking her wisdom, seeking her judgment? What kinds of disputes?

Laura G: Well, for one thing, they had been oppressed for twenty years. So I can imagine all the things that were going on in those lives, conflicts, just oppression of all types. She had to give some wisdom and encouragement.

Erin: Don’t you know the stress of that was coming out in their relationships with each other? That’s a long time to be under oppression. And when we are feeling that level of stress, it comes out in our disputes with our neighbor, with our spouse, with our children. She probably heard a lot of interpersonal disputes.

What do you think? You’ve got a great imagination, Laura B. What do you imagine she heard from under that palm tree? 

Laura B.: Hmm, I imagine she heard a lot of complaining! I almost picture that transition between verse 5 and verse 6, where Scripture talks about her sitting under there judging the people of Israel “coming to her.” She’s not seeking them out and saying, “Tell me your problems.”

They’re coming to her needing resolution, needing some kind of guidance. Then I almost hear the desperation in her (Judges 4:6): “She sent and summoned Barak.” I mean, like, “C’mon, let’s get this thing going!”

Erin: “Let’s do something about this!” Yes. We all bear the image of Christ and that is one way that I see Jesus in Deborah, long before Him. Jesus had people coming to Him day in, day out, seeking resolution for their disputes, seeking to be justified, seeking all manner of things. And that was literally Deborah’s day in and day out, too. So she’s a lot like her Savior in that way.

Laura G: I’m also thinking that it was the days where everybody was doing whatever they thought was right in their own eyes (see Judges 21:25). So now she has to say, “What does the Lord say about this?” Then she has to bring up the justice.

Laura B.: Yes, thank you for saying that! That’s right! 

Erin: So the writer of Judges defines her as a wife and a prophetess and a judge. How did Deborah define herself? I think it’s really telling! Let’s look at Judges 5:7. She’s describing herself here. Now, we’re fast forwarding a little bit in the story, so if you don’t like spoilers, sorry, you’re going to get a little one.

But this is important to know, how Deborah sees herself. Laura B., can you read us Deborah’s description of herself from Judges 5:7?

Laura B.:

The villagers ceased in Israel; they ceased to be until I arose; I, Deborah, arose as a mother in Israel.

Erin: So how does Deborah define herself?

Laura B.: As a mother.

Erin: And I read that, and I think, That’s such a female thing to do! We define ourselves by our relationships, and that’s how Deborah does it here. We don’t know if she has physical children; Scripture doesn’t tell us. I’m going to make the assumption that she does, but it could be a bad assumption. Other than having children, what defines mothers?

Laura G: Nurturers.

Laura B.: Life givers. I think about Deuteronomy 6, where God instructs parents for His Word to be on their hearts, and then for them to be nurturing their children with the Word of God all the time, day and night, no matter what they’re doing, wherever they go.

Laura G: Disciplers.

Erin: All moms are teachers, all moms are disciplers, yes. Moms are compassionate; we move towards our children with compassion. I see in Deborah, as we’re going to jump into the story, mama bear instincts for the people of God.

I’ve got some mama bear stories, where I jumped into action to protect my cubs. I’m curious, can you think of a mama bear story, where those instincts as a mother to protect kicked in, in force?

Laura G: I can think of one. When my daughter was like seven, she went to the neighbor’s pool to swim. I went with her, and I thought she was drowning! I literally just jumped into the pool with clothes on and saved her! She says she was fine, but I thought she was drowning! 

Erin: That’s mama bear! That’s what mama bears do; we jump in the fray. As I read this story and Deborah describes herself as a mother, I see Mama Bear. I see her jumping in, clothes on, to rescue. What did she need to rescue? 

Well, let me read us Judges 5:6–7, and we’ll get a little bit of a picture of what the culture is like. We just read 7, but I’m going to widen the lens a little bit. 

In the days of Shamgar, son of Anath, in the days of Jael, the highways were abandoned, and travelers kept to the byways. The villagers ceased in Israel; they ceased to be until I arose. I, Deborah, arose as a mother in Israel.

Some of that feels like strange cultural language, but do you get any sense for what the culture was like in Deborah’s day?

Laura G: They were fearful. 

Erin: They were isolated. They were not going about their normal rhythms, because, of course, they were under oppressive rule. Deborah steps in to protect, she steps in to nurture, she steps in to guide, “as a mother in Israel.”

I want to be a “mother in Missouri,” a mother in America who is attentive, compassionate, jumps in to help God’s people as we need it. I want to know, who do you know who is a mother in her sphere right now?

She doesn’t have to be a physical mother, but you think, “Man, she is a mother in her church,” or “She is a mother in her community,” or “She is a mother in her country.” As you think of Deborah’s description of herself, does anybody come to mind?

Laura B.: My oldest daughter does; she’s just going to be sixteen in May. I have six children, and the way she loves and nurtures all of her younger siblings inspires me! At the end of each day when she’s saying goodnight to them, she’ll bring out something from their day where she saw the Lord at work, or she saw something in their character that she wants to cheer on.

To the little ones, she always says like, “And remember, you’re God’s little treasure!” So I see, already in her, a mother’s heart, and it’s a great blessing!

Erin: Now, I’m all choked up! Laura, does anybody come to mind, especially as you think about what God is doing in Latin America? Is there anybody you think, “Man, this woman is a mother in her nation!”

Laura G: Yes, I remember there was one older lady in the congregation we used to be in, in the Dominican Republic. She was the sweetest lady that would come behind you and hug you and pray for you. She would just know if you were going through something, she could just tell.

And she would bring a word in due season (see Prov. 15:23), or she would have people in her home. If she saw you were struggling, she would invite you over and just sit with you and pray with you and encourage you. So every time I think about a motherly figure, I think about her.

Erin: I have one of those; her name is Kathy. It’s fascinating, because her physical children are prodigal right now, walking away from the Lord. But man, she is a mother in our church! It has happened to me many times, that I will be in the grocery store, and I will encounter Kathy. Kathy will say, “Erin! I’ve a word from the Lord for you!” 

It’s always straight Scripture. She’s just praying for me; she’s just edifying me; she’s speaking the truth to me. But it’s not just a Kathy/Erin thing. She’s doing that over and over and over in grocery stores and at the bank and wherever she encounters us. She really is a mother to the people of Greentree.

When we read Deborah’s description, “I Deborah arose as a mother in Israel,” she’s not saying, “I was just a mom.” What she was saying was, “I’m just a judge; I’m just a prophet; I’m just a wife, but I’m a mother in Israel!”

And there are probably women listening who don’t have children—they might want children and they can’t have them or they’re not in that season yet—and they’re just going, “Oh, great! Now this is the motherhood episode of the Women of the Bible podcast.” 

But what can the woman listening who has no children—who may never have any children—learn about Deborah, about what motherhood means beyond bearing children? Do you have any thoughts, Laura?

Laura G: I like what Laura said about life givers. We can always be life givers. Like your daughter, if you’re encouraging others, if you’re praying for others, if you’re serving others, nurturing others, discipling others, you’re doing that role. You don’t have to be a physical mother.

Erin: Right, I love that.

Laura B.: Maybe we’ll get into this a little bit further along in the lessons, but I was taking notes from Deborah about how to be a mother to my children and to others. I notice that she appeals to Barak to obey God’s Word. She doesn't manipulate him or guilt him into it. It’s not that he needs to please her.

I think that’s such a good quality of a mother! Any woman who is nurturing others, to always be pointing them to please God and not themselves, pointing them to Him.

Erin: Yes, we will get into it, but I don’t know that we can talk about it too often. You know, a mother whose primary role is to convince her children to please her is an oppressive kind of motherhood.

You could take that in any sphere of womanhood: a boss, an employee, a friend who is demanding that you “please me.” That’s not life giving; that’s life draining. And so, you’re right. We can learn a lot about Deborah from that.

Alright, I want to head back to Judges chapter 4. Good news, we were just in Judges chapter 5, so it’s just a page turn. Laura B., would you read us Judges 4:7?

Laura B.:

And I will draw out Sisera, the general of Jabin's army, to meet you by the river Kishon with his chariots and his troops, and I will give him into your hand.

Erin: Okay, here’s an interesting question, and this is why context is important. If we just extracted that verse, we might have a different answer. But, is the “I” . . . (“I” is in there twice.) Is the “I” in this verse referring to Deborah? It’s Deborah talking.

Laura G: No. It’s God. 

Erin: It’s God! How do you know that Laura? 

Laura G: Because she’s says in Judges 4:6, “Has not the Lord, the God of Israel, commanded you?” She’s says what He was saying, “Go gather your men,” the instructions the Lord was giving Barak.

Erin: Right, she’s passing on the Lord’s words, to your point, Laura. And we know that because we know what a prophetess is, you already told us. A prophet’s job is to speak God’s Word. 

Laura G: Right, yes.

Erin: So there’s a softness here in Deborah’s words. Those don’t sound like really soft words initially. They sound like, “Go! Take care of business!” Right? But there’s a softness that we might miss upon first glance, because Deborah, to your point again, is not telling Barak what to do; she’s not giving him an ultimatum.

She’s relaying God’s words, and then she’s leaving it to Him to respond. I’m thinking about my own pattern with other people, with men in particular, and wondering what I can glean from the way that Deborah communicated here.

So what did Deborah not do that maybe you tend to do? I’ll go first. She did not repeat herself. Man, can I be verbose! I can watch it on my sons’ faces! “That’s the thirty-seventh time she’s said that exact same thing! So I could just repeat, repeat, repeat.

She didn’t do that. What are some other things that maybe you see in your own patterns that you don’t see in her pattern? 

Laura B.: She did not end her sentence with an exclamation mark or a period but with a question mark. She just presented it respectfully: “Didn’t God command you to do this?”

Laura G: She didn’t give him an order, or she didn’t say, “How come you haven’t done this!?” You know, like, “You’re a coward!” or something like that. 

Erin: Right, no name calling. Here’s another thing I tend to do: she didn’t manipulate. There’s a way she could have worded this that would have been much more manipulative. I don’t know what it is off the top of my head, although I could probably come up with something if I had the time.

But she’s not trying to manipulate him into doing it. She’s not promising to send something if he does or if he doesn’t. But man, I can be a master manipulator! Anything else she doesn’t do, that jumps out at you?

Laura B.: I think she did not see him with contempt. She just encouraged him: “Hasn’t the Lord told you?” She confirmed the Lord’s instructions to him.

Erin: She doesn’t treat him as weak or worthless. If you watch the messages about men in our culture . . . Just watch ten commercials. Don’t you feel like we position them as weak and worthless a lot of the time?

Laura G: As silly and . . .

Erin: . . . to be disregarded. There’s none of that here. There’s a softness here. Laura G., would you read us 1 Peter 3:7? I think it’s going to give us a frame of reference for this softness that we’re seeing in Deborah.

Laura G: It says, 

Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honor to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.

Erin: How do you feel about that phrase, “weaker vessel”?

Laura G: I know that I am weaker. It’s obvious, physically. So to me it’s not a problem to know that men are stronger physically, but I know for some women it is a problem to be called “weaker.”

Erin: I’m not swapping out words; the Bible is not a thesaurus. I can’t just swap in whatever alternate word I want to put in here, but I do think there is a connection here between this verse which is telling us that we’re weaker and this softness that we see in Deborah.

Let me tell you about my brother. I am the proud big sister of Jacob, and you need to know a little bit about what Jacob is like to hear this story: hHe is a big guy, he rocks a big beard, he loves to hunt, he loves to fish, he loves to be outdoors.

And when his wife had their first baby girl, Ava, he calls me. He’s telling me about her, and he said, “She’s so sweet! And she’s so little. And she’s so soft!” Those were the words of my camouflaged, bearded brother: “She’s so soft!” And that, I think, is the heartbeat of how Scripture describes women.

Laura B.: I have a lot more studying to do on the topic of women as the weaker vessel; it’s certainly an area that I have studied a lot through the years, and it’s been important to me over the years. I’ve wrestled with it. I still need to learn more.

But I think it goes beyond our comparison of our physical structure, because that can be all across the board. Many women are stronger than many men, so on and so forth. So I guess what I’m picturing in that area is, if I’m thinking of vessels, maybe I picture like a glass bowl as opposed to an iron bowl. 

The Lord Himself makes them that way for purposes all His own, and they are beautiful and lovely each. I think what Peter is writing about is that the man is to regard the woman as being made differently and for a different purpose. In that purpose, there is a fragility—in the best sense of the word.

Erin: Yes, like fine china. 

Laura B.: Like fine china that must be respected and honored and held well with strong hands.

Erin: Yes, I love that! There is one word I want us to end this episode on—let it be our punctuation mark here—and that is “valor.”

Let me give us the dictionary definition: “Valor is strength of mind or spirit that enables a person to encounter danger with firmness or personal bravery.” Strength is not in opposition to softness; strength is not synonymous with toughness.

So Deborah is this woman of valor who is able to face what we’re going to see is grave danger and do it in a uniquely feminine way. So, I thought to end this episode, we might think of our sisters—and names are going to come to mind quickly, I don’t want to hear their names, but sisters—who are facing something right now that requires valor.

We’re going to define valor as God-given bravery in the face of danger. And just as a tribute to those sisters (I’m choking up, thinking about them), let’s just name the battles they’re in as a way of saying, “Let God give you valor! Do it in a uniquely feminine way!”

I’m thinking of a friend who, just this week, her husband is facing a life-saving surgery that he had two years ago, and she’s going back into a valley that is so dark. And she keeps saying, “It’s so hard, because I know how dark the valley is!” And so she needs to be a woman of God-given valor.

Let’s name some other women of valor. What are some of the battles they’re running into?

Laura B.: I have a friend who is facing a long-time addiction to pornography. She is walking with the Lord, and He is surrounding her with all she needs to take one victorious step after another. But it takes so much courage to walk out of an addiction like that.

Laura G: I have many mentorees that are moms, young moms, with a lot in their hands—many little ones—and it’s tough, it’s draining. They need valor, they need courage to run that race and believe the promises and just keep going, putting one foot in front of the other.

Laura B.: I’m thinking about a friend who has struggled with a debilitating illness for many, many years. Now she’s in old age and she rarely ever gets out of bed. Simply to put her legs over the side of the bed and to hold on to her walker takes courage and valor to keep going for every day the Lord gives her.

Erin: I think most of us know a woman who is married to a man who doesn’t know the Lord, doesn’t have the Holy Spirit and therefore cannot love that woman with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (see Gal. 5:22–23) She needs valor!

I am picturing women all around the world rising up as Deborahs—women of valor in a dangerous world! And I’ll just end this episode by saying, “Make it so, Lord!” 

Dannah: We’ve been listening to Erin Davis, Laura Booz, and Laura Gonzales, showing us how, just like prophetess judge Deborah in the book of Judges, we need to have mothers’ hearts and be women of valor. 

Nancy: That's been a goal and a burden of mine ever since Revive Our Hearts started twenty years ago—asking the Lord to raise up women of faith, women of courage, women of God, to represent Him and reflect His heart in this generation that needs Him so desperately.

Dannah, it is so sweet to hear a group of women sitting and talking together as we just heard these friends of our just doing. Talking about how to apply God’s Word to their individual circumstances and lives!

Dannah: I hope you have a group of women just like that—maybe a Bible study at your church, maybe your small group in your neighborhood—where you can go deeper as you explore the Scriptures together.

Nancy: One way to do that is to get a copy of our newest release from our series of Bible studies on Women of the Bible.

Dannah: Nancy, if they are doing what we just heard, they are going to need lots of copies!

Nancy: Yes! You may want to order several for you and a group of friends. This one is titled Deborah: Becoming a Woman of Influence. This study is designed to be done over the course of six weeks. You’ll discover how to become a woman of greater influence as you explore the life of Deborah. There’s Scripture memory, there are ways you can study daily, there are group discussion questions. So this resource is ideal for both individual and group study. 

Dannah: This month, we’ll send you a copy of the Women of the Bible study on Deborah as our way of saying "thank you" for your donation to support the ministry of Revive Our Hearts. And if you want additional copies, as I mentioned, you can purchase those.

Contact us at our website, ReviveOurHearts.com, or by phone. Our number is 1–800–569–5959. 

And remember, there’s also the Women of the Bible podcast to go along with the study, too. The discussion you heard was a sample from this season. In fact, that episode releases today. 

Nancy: Last week and today we talked about the courage we see in the life of Deborah. Tomorrow, we’ll look into the lives of two brave women from the book of Exodus. These women were willing to disobey government mandates when they were order to commit infanticide. You may be thinking that that's not something we would ever have to face. Well, actually, we are facing some similar and really difficult challenges in our day. We are going to have to know how to discern the will of God and be women of courage in our day. 

Dannah: Nancy, you don't know this, but this is one of my favorite messages that you've ever taught. I probably listened to it ten times or read the transcript. I feel like it is so relevant to the times we are living in today. I hope you'll join us tomorrow, on Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth wants to help you develop a mother’s heart as we call you to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ. 

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