Beloved:365 Devotions for Young Women {Review}

I am a mother to five beloved daughters of God.  More than anything I want my daughters to know, truly and deeply, that they are loved of God and have divine worth.  I want for them to become familiar with women in the scriptures and to see how they can apply their stories and qualities to their own life.  To receive from them strength, wisdom, purpose, and identity.

Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women from Zondervan is a beautiful daily devotional book to help inspire our young women by pairing verses from the New International Version about women in the Bible with a short passage relating it to issues surrounding today’s youth.

When I first saw this book I was struck by the simple beauty of the cover.  The soft, feminine design is carried onto the pages of the book.  The pages are slightly thicker allowing one to take advantage of the journaling lines at the bottom of every page.  There is a ribbon bookmark to allow for easy place keeping and even a few black pages in the very back you could use for recording your testimony once you have completed the book.  If you are gifting the book, there is also a page at the very beginning that allows for inscription.

I choose to read through this with my fourteen year old daughter.  We alternated between her reading the passage on her own and us reading it together, depending on availability.  Then we would get together and discuss the devotions.  I loved that the devotions gave us a platform to discuss issues of faith.  Many of the passages ended by asking questions or encouraging you to ponder how it related to your life or how you could apply it.  I loved this because it encouraged active participation.  It allowed me to ask and listen to my daughters answers.

In the first week, you read about the famous Proverbs 31 woman.  The woman we all aspire to be.  I tasked my daughter with going to her scriptures, reading Proverbs 31 and then creating a word cloud with the attributes that describe a virtuous woman.

She was very proud of it and shared it with her father, who then also had the opportunity to talk with her about those characteristics and what she can do in her own life to be that kind of woman.

As the book set on our end table, I couldn’t help but pick it up throughout my day and flip through reading other passages.  I did like that it focuses on the same woman for days at a time, each day teaching something new to be learned from her story, so that you get a more rounded view of the woman you are reading about.

The devotions do not shy away from hard topics either.  Through Bathsheba, it brings up the difference between pre-marital and marital sex.  Telling the story of Tamar, it addresses sexual abuse and how the Lord can help you heal or how you can support a friend who may have experienced abuse.  These topics are addressed in a positive and faith filled manner than inspires hope and reinforces that young women are beloved of the Lord, regardless of their circumstances.

The message that our young women are beloved of the Lord is found on each page.  The feelings of love, hope and faith that it inspires are why I love this book.  I want my daughters reading something that reminds them they are daughters of God, they are beloved of Him, and are of divine worth.

For more ideas on how you can use this book with the young women in your life, check out the Crew reviews.