Embraced - Devotional Review

I was looking for a new devotional ... and This one popped up on my feed to get to review.  I always enjoy hearing Lysa speak and have enjoyed her other books so this one was a no brainer.

On the back of the book this line really caught my attention ... "God doesnt pull back from your sharp edges. He pulls you close. The best kind of embrace is when someone who deeply loves us flings their arms wide open and pulls us close. Our hearts were made for this kind of love and security but many of us know more about the pain of heartbreak and fear."

Most people and churches will push away when life gets hard. They cant handle the hardness that some people will go through. Maybe it is due to their own stupidity or maybe life just dealt a hard blow. Some people may get an embrace for a moment but later get shunned or pushed away .... so the thought of being embraced was intriguing to me.

This book is filled with 100 devotions, daily scriptures and prayer prompts for each day. Each day is a quick read but will get you to thinking about struggles that may be holding on to you or the tension of wondering where God is. Lysa's goal is to help you surrender your hurts by processing them in a healthy way and to hear the Lord speak to your heart by learning to seek him.

This is a great guide to help you if you need structure or a devotional for your daily times with God.

Book Description

Embraced is the beautiful new devotional from Lysa TerKeurst, the president of Proverbs 31 Ministries and the New York Times bestselling author of Uninvited, The Best Yes, Unglued, and Made to Crave. Embraced features 100 devotions that will resonate with women in all stages of life by giving them a godly perspective on the issues they face each day.

A real embrace indicates an intimate level of closeness. It’s not a high five or a casual handshake. The best kind of embrace is when someone we know deeply loves us flings their arms wide open and pulls us in close.

Our hearts were made for this kind of love and security but for many of us, we know more about the pain of heartbreak and fear than the unconditional love for which we were created.In Embraced, Lysa shares her own struggles, doubts, and heartbreaks while pointing to the Ultimate Embrace: God opening His arms wide on Calvary through Jesus so that He could pull us close for all of eternity. Welcoming us into the safety and hope of His grace and His love.

And because we have been fully embraced by Him, we can spend our lives held securely by Him and trust all of His ways

With an exquisite cloth cover, highly designed interior, ribbon marker, and stained page edges, Embraced will be a treasured keepsake for you as well as a meaningful gift for those you love.

The Way Of Abundance - A Review

I have enjoyed Ann's books so when this option came out, I of course jumped on the train to get this devotional. I needed a good one anyway.

This one does not disappoint. Ann writes in such a real way. Obviously all writers are real people but sometimes they can seem like they live life on a different planet from you and they just couldn't understand you if they tried. However, Ann comes across as real. Down to earth. Like you could have coffee with her and maybe you would find out you had some similarities. She's on the same planet. She gets it. She understands that life is difficult and hard and she doesn't appear to be holier than thou :)

Totally not joking. I love her writing and feel like I can get what she is saying without feeling less than when I read it. Each devotional is a couple pages with a few things to reflect on at the end of each. This would be a great devotional to do with a group or with a friend.

Book Description

What do you do when you wake up and feel like you're not enough for your life? Or when you look out the kitchen window as dusk falls and wonder how do you live when life keeps breaking your heart?

As Ann Voskamp writes, “great grief isn't meant to fit inside your body. It's why your heart breaks.” And each of us holds enough brokenness to overflow—to be given as the greatest story of our lives.

In sixty vulnerably soulful stories, The Way of Abundance moves from self-weary brokenness to Christ-focused givenness. Drawing from the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestseller The Broken Way and Ann's online essays, this devotional dares us to embrace brokenness as a gift that moves us to givenness as a way to draw closer to the heart of God. Christ Himself broke like bread, giving Himself to us so we might have a lifelong communion with Him. Could it be that our brokenness is also a gift to the world?

This gentle but exquisitely profound book does nothing less than take you on an intimate journey of the soul.

As Ann writes, "The wound in His side proves that Jesus is always on the side of the suffering, the wounded, the busted, the broken." Discover how surrendering in unexpected ways is the first step toward receiving what you long for. Discover the good news that your beauty is not in your strength but in your fragility. Discover why your healing shines radiant through your wounds—and how only in brokenness will you ever be whole—and find the way to the abundance you were meant for.