sisters are doin' it for themselves

It's a pretty reasonable human thing to try to ascribe meaning to traumatic things that happen, particularly, things that happen to us.  Phoebe Palmer experienced a significant amount of trauma in her life, losing all of her children.  So given that, it makes much sense that she would seek understanding of that by studying scripture, by trying to create a structure around something like living holy.  She makes a point of separating out tradition from scripture, indicating that scripture has more authority than whatever traditions came from it, all of which, could be a response to the trauma she's experienced.

I wonder what impact her trauma had on the women who heard her exhortation in terms of offering strength or comfort to those with similar experiences, one that wasn't uncommon at that time.  It seems that her contribution might have been to make scripture more accessible to women at that time, particularly given that women didn't have formal roles in other denominations, really.  I wonder what it would have meant to a woman struggling with her own trauma to hear Phoebe Palmer speak or read her words.  

Initially, I struggle to understand what made her different, worthy of study, other than the fact that she was a female, but I think it's that she reached, or had the potential to reach, far more hearts than did her male counterparts.  And if the mission was to save souls and bring people to Christ, it seems possible that she did that as effectively, if not more so, than others.