The Wonder Years




As a man, I'm not sure whether I should feel guilty or grateful for having read—with undeniable enjoyment—a new book from Kregel Publications. I say "guilty" only because the title and subtitle so explicitly explain what the book is about: The Wonder Years: 40 Women over 40: on Aging, Faith, Beauty, and Strength.
It's a collection of essays by 40-plus (and way beyond) women who have a rare combination of experience, research skills, and humility, and who are still writing better sentences than almost anyone else in the field.
They include Lauren Winner (Girl Meets God), Madeleine L’Engle (A Wrinkle in Time), Kay Warren (Choose Joy: Because Happiness Isn't Enough), missionary Elisabeth Elliot, Ann Voskamp (OneThousand Gifts), and poet Jeanne Murray Walker.
The essays have been assembled by Leslie Leyland Fields, herself an author and editor of eleven books, and a member of the editorial board of Christianity Today magazine.
Her introduction is as good as anyone else's contribution, covering the field with extraordinary succinctness. She promises—and delivers—“breakout joy, indulgent abundance, heart-stopping wisdom, and never-let-go faith.” 
Inadvertently, though, I feel she sometimes steals a little of others' thunder, even in her epilogue where she summarizes her work as a collection of lives, words, and stories, all true, from women who have lived awhile and explored the deepest questions, and who … have been guided on this wondrous looping path by the one Shepherd who goes before us all."
Coming back to the male perspective, I hasten to add that there's scarcely a lesson—apart from some gynecological issues—that doesn’t apply to men's daily lives, too.
Honesty is another ingredient of this exploration of many aspects of aging, including palliative care, terminal illnesses, tempestuous divorces, and soul-destroying depression. But Bible-based healing solutions are plentiful, and caring readers of all ages and gender are advised to have pen and paper within reach.
Helpful quotations from famous writers are sprinkled across chapter headings and embraced within many essays. Among them: "It is never too late to be what you might have been" (George Eliot). And, "You don't think your way into a new kind of living. You live your way into a new kind of thinking" (Henri Nouwen).
And the new living called for throughout The Wonder Years is captured in a daunting but shining challenge tucked into the acknowledgments on the very last page.
"Would you help us move the years of wonder beyond the covers of this book? Let's make this a movement of Holy Spirit-filled women rising up to bless the world with their hard–won wisdom, their contagious joy, their beautiful verve."
And that movement, I would say, includes men!

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