I did not really enjoy this book. The author uses a lot of different Bible translations, and makes assumptions about the characters and Word of God in her examples. In the story she shares about Anna, She quotes scripture from Genesis in which Abraham chose to have a child with another woman, and insinuates that the Bible says that was okay.

The first two women she chooses to use as examples also happen to be women who are childless, like the author herself. I do not get a sense that the author has really dealt with this issue in her own life, and been able to find the peace of God with her circumstances, and everything she says (thus far) goes back to the fact that she doesn't have children.

She begins each section by mentioning a woman of the Bible, but then she tells someone else's story. She goes on for so long about other things that I forgot who the section was supposed to be about. It just became confusing for me. I also didn't like to organization of the chapters themselves. I felt like she was trying too hard to make a proper devotional book, so included things that became rambling.

I would not recommend this book to friends, or purchase it for myself. And I won't be looking for more from this author either.

"The Women Who Met Jesus" is a study that looks at how meeting Jesus transformed 18 women mentioned in the New Testament. The author started by looking at why these women were so drawn to Jesus that they stayed with him even when he was on the cross. Then each chapter focused on individual women. The author would talk about a trial or challenge that she (or family or friend) faced that this woman also faced. She described the woman's story and how Jesus encountered her and met her need. The author provided verse references for where this event happened and quoted several verses that related to the topic. She drew out lessons to be learned from these women and their encounters with Jesus. She asked a series of questions about if you have experienced something similar and how does this woman's encounter change you, too? The last chapter focused on how Jesus can meet our needs and transform our lives. Overall, I'd recommend this interesting study.

The women were Mary (Jesus' mother), Anna, the woman at the well, Joanna, Peter's mother, the woman with the issue of blood, Jairus' daughter, the mothers who brought their children to be blessed by Jesus, the Canaanite woman, the woman who couldn't stand up straight, the widow from Nain, the woman caught in adultery, Martha, Mary, the mother of James and John, the widow who gave two small coins at the temple, Pilate's wife, and Mary Magdalene. The issues that they dealt with were feeling the pressure to be perfect, empty, rejected and unloved, lacking something fulfilling, fearful and off balance, isolated, hungry, worried about their children, like no one was listening to her concerns, hurt when called names, hopeless and grieving, shame and guilt, overwhelmed and overworked, misunderstood, misled by wrong priorities, trouble identifying what is truly valuable, like one must compromise and conform, and lonely.