Blond and vivacious, New York Times best-selling author Liz Curtis Higgs who has authored 30 books, was uncomfortable in a lavender scarf draped around her neck after a television interview. Removing the floral accessory, she asked to get to know me better.

Wait a second; is this the same sassy lady who wrote the Bad Girls of the Bible series and she wants my story? Higgs is warm and not condescending, if she was, this would be a short introduction. In her newest release, The Girl’s Still Got It. Higgs attacks the story of Ruth and Naomi weaving plenty of color, flare and intensity. It’s alright to relate to the “bad girl” says Higgs, who came to body of Christ at 27. She was one herself.

Tell us why you wrote about Ruth?

The Girl’s Still Got It is a word for all of my sisters, whether they’re 40, 50, 60, 70, or 80 years old, they still got it. Ruth’s story is 3200 years old and her story still speaks to us. There is a universal and timelessness to this story. It speaks to everybody on one level or another. When we meet Ruth she’s a young widow. She’s married to Mahlon which name means weakness or infertility. So he never fathers a child, and Ruth would have thought it was her fault because back in the day it was always the woman’s fault. She was the barren one. The one God shut her womb. That’s why it’s so delicious that she marries an older man, Boaz, and he fathers a child instantly. You have Ruth the Moabite (descendants of Lot), and Israel hated the Moabites because they came out of Lot and his two daughters. So God to have chosen this woman, Ruth, to be in the linage of David and the linage of Christ is breathtaking. And to put Ruth with a man whose mother was a prostitute (Rahab) and also originally a gentile. Wow, only God. It shows that he’s still at work.

Why did you decide to write this book?

I love the women of the Bible, period. I wrote about the bad girls of the Bible for years and I love the bad girls. I love the bad girls because they show us what not to do. Many of them show us what God can do with a bad girl. Like Rahab’s incredible story. Like the woman at the well. Like the woman with issue of blood. All these incredible women of the Bible that were seen as bad now we see as redeemed women. In the process you hit other women while studying the Bible. Growing up my first name was Ruth, Ruth Elizabeth. Why Ruth? Again it’s the business of her being an outsider to religion, and choosing to come in from her standpoint. We know that God choose her from the beginning of time Ruth was always in the plan. I am not attracted to mild mannered women in the Bible.

Really?

I didn’t come to know Christ until I was 27. I came roaring into the kingdom as this former bad girl. I’m kind of edgy and out there. That hasn’t changed. When you’re that way and you read about these women in the Bible that are meek, mild, gentle and soft spoken—always do the right thing girl, I have no door to enter that women’s heart. Ruth isn’t that woman. She’s often portrayed that way. Not only is she a Moabite, who has this past, but when Naomi Ruth’s (mother-in-law) says to her to return roughly 12 times—Ruth says “No. Your people will be my people.” She bucks the system and goes against the flow. I love her.

You best indentify with Ruth, then.

Yes. This is a real person. This is not a parable story. The beautiful thing of it is that we all bring who we are to the Word of God and he allows us to do that. He trusts us to handle His Word. It takes my breath away as a Bible teacher. I am glad the story telling comes through-because it is a story. If you turn it into a dry book, you missed the Book of Ruth.

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