A Widow's book of Prayer and Life Journal will help you explore the new world of being a widow. Often anger at God is our only outlet and this book will help you regain your relationship with the Lord and give you strength, courage and most of all the will to continue living life to the fullest. Praying and releasing all of your deapest thoughts, worries and fears to the Lord is the best way to to regain your confidence in yourself and in the Lord. He has a plan and knows what he is doing. We may not understand it or like it, but we do not have to like it. We must honor the Lord with our correct and appropriate behavior in all things. In doing this we also honor our loved one who is gone. Our family and friends need us and we need them. Now is not the time to check out of life and give up. Open up and allow the emotions to be what they are. They are a reaction you have control over. Take a deep breath and dive in.
Luann Budd offers to help you get started journaling, and she introduces you to the power of writing as a spiritual discipline through helpful tips and examples from her own journals.
The loss of your husband creates an emotional tornado. This personal workbook will help you find your calm center in God. Author and speaker Angela Richardson Allen draws on her own experience to help other women walk through the intense, confusing stages of grief. Like a tender friend, this open-ended journal asks honest and thoughtful questions you can work through at your own pace. You'll find guidance on important issues, like: - How to make practical plans for self-care; - How to deal with "fixers" who try to rush your grief; - How to ask for the support you really need instead; - How to make time and space for healing amid the demands of your life; - How to talk to your children about their grief journey; and - How to turn to God for comfort when you can't bring yourself to pray. Grounded in Biblical truth and filled with comfort from God's Word, The Bitter Taste of Grief A Widows Prayer Journal prompts deep reflection without being clinical or preachy. Whether you follow the exercises straight through or follow your heart to choose the module you need, The Bitter Taste of Grief provides a well of peace to refresh you all along your grief journey.
"I would like to write a beautiful prayer," writes the young Flannery O'Connor in this deeply spiritual journal, recently discovered among her papers in Georgia. "There is a whole sensible world around me that I should be able to turn to Your praise." Written between 1946 and 1947 while O'Connor was a student far from home at the University of Iowa, A Prayer Journal is a rare portal into the interior life of the great writer. Not only does it map O'Connor's singular relationship with the divine, but it shows how entwined her literary desire was with her yearning for God. "I must write down that I am to be an artist. Not in the sense of aesthetic frippery but in the sense of aesthetic craftsmanship; otherwise I will feel my loneliness continually . . . I do not want to be lonely all my life but people only make us lonelier by reminding us of God. Dear God please help me to be an artist, please let it lead to You." O'Connor could not be more plain about her literary ambition: "Please help me dear God to be a good writer and to get something else accepted," she writes. Yet she struggles with any trace of self-regard: "Don't let me ever think, dear God, that I was anything but the instrument for Your story." As W. A. Sessions, who knew O'Connor, writes in his introduction, it was no coincidence that she began writing the stories that would become her first novel, Wise Blood, during the years when she wrote these singularly imaginative Christian meditations. Including a facsimile of the entire journal in O'Connor's own hand, A Prayer Journal is the record of a brilliant young woman's coming-of-age, a cry from the heart for love, grace, and art.
Have you recently lost your husband? Are there days when you feel so terribly alone—and that no one else could possibly understand? Author Gayle Roper understands. As a recent widow herself, Gayle writes: So who am I now that there's only one place at the table...one pillow with a head dent, one damp towel after a shower. There's only one toothbrush in the holder. The seat is never left up anymore. I can still write Mrs. in front of my name, but I'm no longer in a marriage relationship. You need two people for a marriage, and there's only me. Is there only you? Then join Gayle as she draws on her emotions during the loss of her beloved husband, Chuck, and offers you a compassionate devotional to encourage you through your darkest days. Gayle knows a widow's pain is deep. But she also knows God's love is deeper still. And it's in His love you'll find your deepest comfort.
Writing from a biblical perspective, Carol Cornish helps readers to discover how God is working in the midst of the deep distress of losing a spouse. She provides the reader with direction in finding true and lasting comfort in Christ. Cornish, who lost her husband of 38 years to lung cancer, encourages widows to use their widowhood for God's glory. Ministry to widows needs to be a priority for Christian communities, and Cornish equips churches, families, and friends to come alongside those mourning the loss of a spouse. The Undistracted Widow includes sections to help widows find renewed identity and purpose. Cornish helps readers trust in God, manage emotions, learn from both biblical and contemporary widows, rethink the past, present, and future, and prepare for what's next. Pastors, churches, and others will benefit from practical appendices. Any woman who is grieving the loss of her husband, or who knows of someone in mourning, will find this to be a valuable resource.
Women who are facing the reality of widowhood are often connected by a common thread of grief and uncertainty. Hope for an Aching Heart offers encouragement to help readers handle the challenges of each day with God’s grace. Sharing from a widow’s heart, the author weaves personal stories, Scripture, and prayers into 60 days of inspirational thoughts that motivate readers to draw closer to God. This heartfelt and engaging devotional helps to broaden women’s understanding of the depth of God’s love, His tender care, and His promise to always be with them.
Losing a spouse or romantic life partner causes a special kind of heartbreak, loneliness, and disappointment. Your plans for your life have irrevocably changed. Because everyone mourns differently, guided journal writing is a useful tool for navigating the phases of grief in a personalized, private way. The Widow's Journal is written in a frank yet hopeful style by lifelong journaler Carrie P. Freeman, PhD, a communication professor, who set out to write the kind of book she could have used when, just prior to her thirtieth birthday, she lost her own husband to cancer. Unlike other bereavement books, The Widow's Journal doesn't tell you what to do, it isn't a memoir or collection of other people's stories, and it isn't limited to any particular spiritual outlook. Instead it provides over one hundred guiding questions (from the practical to the profound) that you can use to progress through the grieving process, culminating in a collection of your most useful insights for reflection. Freeman's thoughtful questions prompt you to reflect on your feelings, but more importantly, provide a gentle path toward productively coping with intense grief while making plans to build a meaningful new life. This journal works like a guided diary or workbook, with beautifully decorated pages on which to write and/or color. It is designed to be a useful, caring gift for those whose husband, wife, or life partner has died within the last year. The author's book website is www.thewidowsjournal.com
Prayers to guide your journey of raising kids in a complicated world. In an age of distraction and overwhelm, finding the words to meaningfully pray for our children--and for our journey as parents--can feel impossible. Written with warmth and welcome, To Light Their Way gives voice to your prayers when words won't come. Filled with more than 100 modern liturgies, this book guides you into an intentional conversation with God for your children and the world they live in. From everyday struggles like helping your child find friends or thrive in school to larger issues like praying for a brighter world rooted in peace and truth, these pleas and petitions act as a gentle guide, reminding us that while our words may fail, God never does. At the core of To Light Their Way is the deepest of prayers: that our children will experience the love of God so deeply that their lives will be an outpouring of love that lights up the world.
"A book you will want to read and read again." -- Eugene Peterson Afterword by Bono. How can you find a more transparent, resilient, and fearless life of faith? Open and Unafraid by David Taylor takes readers on a profound journey through the book of Psalms, which has been a central pillar for God's people for millennia, across all walks of life and cultural contexts. In reading it, we discover that we are never alone in our joys, sorrows, angers, doubts, praises, or thanksgivings. In it, we learn about prayer and poetry, honesty and community, justice and enemies, life and death, nations and creation. As a professor, pastor, author, and producer of the short film Bono and Eugene Peterson: The Psalms, David Taylor has created an accessible guide to the psalms that resonates deeply with first-time and long-time Bible readers, poets and artists, devout believers and spiritual seekers alike. Open and Unafraid shows you how to read the psalms in a fresh, life-giving way, and so access the bottomless resources for life and experience the presence of God--in order to deepen discipleship and worship. Endorsements: "David Taylor’s take is 'open and unafraid' alright. He really goes there, exposing himself before God in the most beautiful way. He might have called the book Naked, because if you don’t find your own self feeling a little exposed here, it might be time to take some armor off." -- Bono, from the Afterword "A book that you will want to read and read again, and yet again, in order to discover the wisdom of the Psalms that shows us how to walk in the life-giving way of Jesus." -- Eugene Peterson, from the Foreword "A winsome, accessible entry into the Book of Psalms…Connects the poetry of the psalms to real-life wonders and struggles." -- Walter Brueggemann, Columbia Theological Seminary "Taylor reads these biblical prayers with Dr. Seuss, rappers, and other poets, along with theologians and the daily news....Guides readers in tracing out patterns of holy speech that have the potential for healing our hearts and our communities." -- Ellen F. Davis, Duke Divinity School "I have always loved the psalms--for their defiant devotion, their deep joy, and their brutal yet beautiful honesty. And after reading this fantastic book about them, I love them even more." -- Matt Redman, worship leader and song writer "In these fraught and fearsome days, we need the psalms more than ever. And we need more faithful artists and thinkers like David Taylor to mine the infinite gifts the psalms offer across the ages." -- Karen Swallow Prior, author of Fierce Convictions
