Bonnie St. James is a strong woman if there ever was one. After her right leg was amputated as a child, she not only won a silver Paralympic medal in downhill skiing (1984), but she earned degrees at Harvard and Oxford, worked in the White House as a director, and has since established herself as a writer and motivational speaker. But she would be the first to tell you she could never have done it without prayer and God’s help.

In the book How Strong Women Pray, Bonnie tells her story in twenty-five chapters that are woven between the stories of twenty-seven other strong women as diverse as Afghanistan soldier Karen Kim, former First Lady Barbara Bush, and poet Maya Angelou.

The book is divided into six sections that follow the path of Bonnie’s life starting with childhood (“Facing Life’s Storms with Childlike Faith”), youth (“Climbing the World’s Highest Mountain”), marriage (“From Marriage to Politics: Powerful Relationships”), motherhood (“Motherhood and Working with the Spirit”), overcoming the demons of the past (“In the Valley We Grow” – where she tells of her wrestle with the buried memories of early childhood sexual abuse), and, finally, moving on with hope (“And Still I Rise”).

All the stories are powerful in their own way. In the chapters where the various women give their perspectives on prayer, each woman is introduced briefly in a vignette from her life. The voice then changes to the woman telling her own story and giving her thoughts on prayer (signified in the text by a font change). Thus the writing voices and the insights are as varied and interesting as talking with twenty-seven different women.

For example, Martha Williamson tells the story of how she came to produce the TV series “Touched by an Angel.” Colette Branch tells of how she evacuated 100 clients plus about 200 employees from New Orleans just before Hurricane Katrina hit. Kathy and Barbara Ireland (daughter and mother) talk about 18-year-old Kathy’s foray into the international professional modeling scene while at home Barbara prayed.

Here are examples of some of the book’s prayer insights:

“I never feel closer to God than when I’m dancing. I dance all over the house like other people sing in the shower. I choreograph movements for the Lord’s Prayer.” – Dr. Suzanne Karefe-Johnson, hospice physician.

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