Zondervan's "Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women" Review
I’m a big fan of devotionals and while I don’t have a daughter yet old enough to take part in one I was happy to be able to review Zondervan and their “Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women”.
First off, I will say, this book is beautiful! It is hardback and lovely to just look at. I can imagine that most young ladies 13-18 (the target age group) would enjoy just having it! It also seems like it is very good quality and will stand up to repeated readings and use. It also comes with a marker ribbon.
Enough about the appearance, lets get to the meat! I was actually quite pleased with this devotion. It wasn’t full of fluff, but real life applicable devotions for young women. In fact, though I’m definitely out of the target age (just by a few years, lol) I found myself nodding yes to the life application of the daily devotions.
Like the title says there are 365 days of devotions and the topics they cover are broad. I started somewhere around day 30 and read a huge portion of the book. It addresses things like jealousy, self-image and trying to work things out in our own strength. It also touches on sexual purity and the consequences when we take things out of God’s intended order (think Bathsheba & King David). Its frank but discreet in all of this and could really open up pathways for deeper discussion with your daughters. In fact, it would be a really neat thing to do together. It does have a spot for writing your thoughts each day so this might be something your daughter wishes to keep in a more private place.
A concern you might have in using this is it does use the NIV as the Bible version. However, honestly, its super easy to just read the verse from your preferred version so to me this wasn’t an issue. The application part would still be just as good no matter what version you used. It would be nice if they offered it in different versions.
I will have to say, I was favorably impressed with this book. If I had a teenage daughter I would definitely love for her to have one! In fact, I enjoyed it so much I’m giving it to a close friend who has daughters in this age range.
Our daughters will face so much adversity in this world that will attack their self-image, faith and view of self-worth. Its imperative that we give them many tools to fight back against this! We need to strengthen their view of Biblical womanhood and what it truly means to be a success in God’s eyes (after all, whose opinion matters the most?). I believe this book is just one more tool to help you to that with your precious daughter. I know, for myself I want my daughters to see themselves as truly Beloved by God and so infinitely special in his eyes!
Don’t forget to read the other reviews at the link below & have a very Blessed Christmas!