40 Days with the Daughters of the Story

There are women in Scripture whose names almost everyone knows.

Sarah. Ruth. Esther. Mary.

And then there are women whose stories take up only a few verses. Women we may have read past many times without stopping to wonder who they were, what they carried, or why God made certain their stories remained in Scripture.

That is really where 40 Days with the Daughters of the Story began for me.

I wanted to stop.

Not just long enough to read what happened to these women, but long enough to sit with their stories and ask what I could learn from them about God.

Because these women were real women.

They waited.

They grieved.

They were frightened.

They made good choices and terrible ones.

Some were brave when bravery was costly. Some were faithful when no one seemed to notice. Some found themselves in circumstances they never would have chosen.

And God saw them.

They Were Never Just Background Characters

Sometimes when we read Scripture, especially stories we have known for years, it is easy to concentrate on the person we think the story is about.

We know Abraham's story, but Sarah was there.

We know the story of David, but Abigail had a story of her own.

We know about the resurrection of Jesus, but there were women who came to the tomb while it was still early and became witnesses to what had happened.

Once I began deliberately looking at the women, I realized how often I had read right past them.

And I wondered what else I had missed.

That question eventually became forty days.

Forty women.

Not because these are the only forty women worth studying. They certainly aren't. In fact, after the journal was finished, I already had more women waiting. Hagar, Lot's wife, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel became additional studies that I made available as free companion downloads.

There will always be another woman whose story deserves a closer look.

This Isn't About Making the Women the Heroes

This matters to me.

Daughters of the Story isn't about turning biblical women into perfect examples for us to imitate.

They weren't perfect.

Neither are we.

Some of their stories are beautiful. Some are painful. Some are complicated enough that I still find myself sitting with them.

The point isn't to finish a day's reading thinking, I need to be more like her.

The question I keep coming back to is:

What does her story teach me about God?

What was God doing?

Where was He when she couldn't see Him?

What did He ask of her?

What did He provide?

What can I learn about His character because Scripture allowed me to see this woman's life?

That changes the way I read these stories.

You Don't Need to Know Where to Begin

One of the reasons I created the journal was for the woman who wants to spend more time in Scripture but isn't quite sure how.

Maybe you've never been comfortable opening the Bible and simply beginning.

Maybe you've studied Scripture for years, but lately your Bible reading has become something you feel you should do rather than something you look forward to.

Maybe life is simply loud right now.

You don't need a perfect morning routine.

You don't need an hour of uninterrupted quiet.

And you certainly don't need the right pens and a beautifully organized desk.

You need your Scriptures, a little time, and a willingness to look.

Read the passage.

Read it again if you need to.

Ask questions.

Notice the things that bother you as well as the things that comfort you.

Write down what you're thinking.

Pray about it.

And if today's page takes five minutes, it takes five minutes.

This isn't a race.

Sometimes Scripture Is Uncomfortable

I don't want to make these women prettier than Scripture makes them.

There are difficult stories here.

There are women who were hurt. Women who experienced terrible loss. Women who made decisions we may struggle to understand. Women whose lives unfolded in cultures and circumstances very different from our own.

There are also stories that may touch something unexpectedly familiar in us.

That is one of the reasons I think we need to be careful about rushing toward a tidy lesson.

Not every difficult story ends the way we wish it did.

Not every prayer is answered in the way we hoped.

And someone else's blessing is not a formula we can follow to guarantee the same result.

Sarah's story doesn't promise that every long wait will end as hers did.

Ruth's story isn't a formula for finding a husband.

Esther's courage doesn't mean courage always produces the outcome we want.

But their stories can still teach us something about the God who was present in the middle of all of it.

That is what I want to find.

There Are More Daughters Waiting

The original journal contains forty women, but finishing those forty didn't make me feel finished.

It did exactly the opposite.

There were more women I wanted to know.

That's why Hagar, Lot's wife, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel became additional downloadable studies. It is also why I don't think of Daughters as a list of forty women that I completed.

It changed the way I read Scripture.

Now I notice the woman standing at the edge of the story.

I notice the unnamed woman.

I notice the woman whose entire life seems to have been reduced to a sentence or two.

And I find myself wondering:

Who was she?

Why did God preserve this part of her story?

What have I been reading past?

Her Story Matters. And So Does Yours.

That sentence has become an important part of Daughters of the Story.

Not because our stories are Scripture. They aren't.

But because the God we meet in Scripture is still God.

The God who saw Hagar in the wilderness is still a God who sees.

The God who heard Hannah pray is still a God who hears.

The Savior who stopped for women other people overlooked is still the same Savior.

So when you open Scripture, you don't have to leave your own life somewhere outside the room.

Bring the questions.

Bring the grief.

Bring the parts you don't understand.

Bring the things you're grateful for.

Bring the prayer you've prayed so many times you're tired of hearing yourself say it.

And then sit with one of these women for a while.

Not because she has all the answers.

But because somewhere in her story, we may see a little more clearly the One who does.

Her story matters. And so does yours.

— Eden Hartwell