She Prays Like a Girl: Read an Excerpt Today!

She Prays Like a Girl: Discover the Joy and Power of Praying Like You (and No One Else)

She hits like a girl ...

She runs like a girl. She throws like a girl.

What mental pictures come to mind as you read these statements? Unfortunately, most of us do not associate doing something “like a girl” as a positive. As a woman and the mother of a pre-teen daughter, this doesn’t sit well with me. So you might be curious about our book title, “She Prays Like a Girl,” and why we would choose to yoke a book about prayer with these seemingly negative connotations.

There’s a powerful commercial from years ago that shows the effects of negative gender stereotypes on girls during puberty. In the commercial, teen girls and women were told to do different things “like a girl,” such as running and punching. These girls and women would act out the instructions in a silly, self-deprecating way that reinforced the negative stereotype. In their minds, doing something “like a girl” meant doing it poorly and weakly.

But guess what? When little girls were asked to do the same thing, they would run and punch with everything they had in them. They ran with all their might and punched with fierce force, acting with determination and absolute confidence.

They had yet to be tarnished by the negative messages about what it means to be a girl.

It breaks my heart that some of these negative messages about womanhood have wedged their way into the most sacred relationship we have: our prayer life. This book is meant to help you recognize and shed the baggage you’ve been knowingly or unknowingly carrying around regarding what it means to be a praying Christian woman.

Whether you’ve been a victim of misogyny, fallen into the traps of comparison or perfectionism, or simply never had examples of strong, godly women in your life, we want this book to shine a spotlight on lies you’ve been believing about yourself and your womanhood. More than this, we want to equip you with practical tools to process and cut loose those false beliefs so you can move forward in an unencumbered relationship with God, embracing who you are as a beautiful, unique Daughter of the King.

We hope you’ll find clarity and freedom inside these pages as you reflect and grow. Our prayer is that you’ll return to the innocence, wonder, determination and confidence of the little girl you used to be, before the negative messages about womanhood made their way into your belief system...and pray like a girl!

♥️🙏  Jaime (and Alana!)

Prayers that Give Birth

There’s something deep and powerful in the soul of a woman, something that male poets and singers and writers have tried to explain for millennia.

I don’t know that there’s a word in the English language to convey its miracle-making intensity, but it’s the same force that allows women to conceive, grow, and birth human life that allows us to be a praying force to be reckoned with.

You don’t have to experience pregnancy, labor, or delivery firsthand to understand what I mean. I’m talking about the woman who prays so intently that her prayers actually give birth to something that would have never been ushered into existence otherwise.

I think about this when I remember my dream to become a full-time writer. It was a longing I’d held on to since my early childhood, and by the time I was in my twenties, I experienced actual physical pain from how much I yearned to get published. I’d stay up late at night, unable to sleep, feeling like I’d never be content until I was able to write books and touch readers’ lives, to spin words into stories and inspiring messages that would change the world for the better.

But how, God? When? Who was going to publish what I was going to write, and how would I even know where to start?

These sleepless nights were like the pains of childbirth, as I needed to wait for the right time for that dream to be born. It was painful. It was grueling. But like the woman in the throes of transition labor, I persisted because I had no other choice.

A woman doesn’t ask for the birthing pains. They simply come. Similarly, there are times when God asks us to create life with our prayers.

I’m not talking about the blanket “God, please protect my family” prayers or the blessings you say before you eat a meal. I’m talking about the prayers that are accompanied by pain, anguish, and turmoil that can only be compared to labor, and these prayers can give birth to what otherwise would have never existed.

Hannah is one of my favorite women in the Old Testament, and she’s the perfect example of a woman whose fervent prayers quite literally brought life into existence. Hannah was loved by her husband, but she was desperate and in deep emotional and spiritual turmoil because she was barren.

Most of us either have struggled or known women who have struggled with infertility or miscarriage, or carried that longing to be used by God to create life and raise a family. The emptiness of Hannah’s barren womb was a physical pain she could feel and experience day in and day out. The soul-crushing disappointment she faced each month when her period started must have been a burden that felt impossible for her to bear.

She had to take her pain and yearning to God. Her despair was so great that her praying appeared like gibberish to the priest, to the point that he assumed she was drunk. When he admonished her to go and sober up, Hannah answered, “I have not been drinking wine or beer; I was pouring out my soul to the Lord … I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief” (1 Samuel 1:15-16).

After she returned home, God enabled Hannah to conceive. She gave birth to a son, Samuel, who was dedicated to the Lord and became a great prophet. That’s the part of the story most of us remember, but let’s not forget those prayers of anguish and despair, when Hannah was pouring her heart out to God so fervently that even the priest mistook her for a drunk woman.

Similarly, there will be seasons when God places a longing in your soul that you can’t ignore or turn away.

There is a destiny God is planning to birth within you, and the process of delivering that longing into the world can be excruciatingly difficult and spiritually draining. A woman doesn’t simply snap her fingers and decide to give birth. Whether she’s delivering vaginally or via C-section, whether she’s calmly focusing on her breathing or screaming out of fear and pain, the delivery takes intense stamina and energy and it simply can’t be rushed.

The child will be born, but not before a season of profound concentration and effort where the mother serves as a literal conduit of life. In the same way, sometimes God will place a longing in your soul that’s so intense you feel its agony in the depth of your being like Hannah did.

Maybe you’re desperate for God to save a prodigal child or you’re devastated to see addiction destroying your marriage. When these labor pains come upon you, remember that you were divinely created as a woman to give physical and metaphorical life, and that your prayers are the birthing canal for your dreams and your destiny.

As a woman, your prayers have the spiritual power to give birth and create life, to conceive a safer world, and to deliver God’s grace and salvation to the lost. God designed us for this very purpose.