"When something is centered, it cannot be reduced to a task." (Chole, pg. 37)
Wow! What a haunting statement. I, queen of task lists, have been put in my place. God often is not centered in my life. I have gone about with my attempt at daily Christian and Bible readings and once completed moved on to my next task. I have prioritized God, and yet not centered him. It is time to make some changes. Thank you Alicia Britt Chole for pointing this out to me in your book Intimate Conversations: Devotions to Nurture a Woman’s Soul.
I love how God uses other people and their experiences to speak to me and help me to grow. I have gleaned so much from Chole’s devotional. The author took such real moments of parenting and just general living and turned them into reflections on what our relationship with God should be. She asks thought provoking questions and sheds new light on verses I have often read over, but not delved into. Here are a couple of Chole's eye-opening quotes from a few of my favorite devotionals.
“From their (great prophets such as Jeremiah, Moses, Elijah, Paul) perspective, suffering did not invalidate God’s faithfulness; suffering is where they experienced God’s faithfulness.” (pg. 134) I never thought of it that way. Sure enough, now that I reflect on my past I have ALWAYS seen God’s faithfulness when I have been suffering! He has never let me down and has always revealed himself.
“Our motivations can make the simplest task holy or the most impressive deed dead. Our attitudes can make the smallest act worship or the grandest offering bankrupt.” (pg. 74) I need to be reminded of this every day. No matter the task, as long as I have the right attitude, I am worshipping God. Suddenly, those daily monotonous tasks I do every day, have now become important again. Thank you Alicia for reminding me!
In Intimate Conversations, there are 52 devotionals that are easy reads (about two pages.) Chole follows up by asking some journaling questions, which help you better think about how the devotion affects your personal life and what you can do to become closer to God.
Being on a short time frame to read and review this book I had to quickly read through it, but now I am already working back through the book from the beginning with my husband at my side. We have been reading a devotional each day and discussing the journaling questions together. This not only has given us time to really dwell on the devotion, but also to grow in our relationship with God and each other. It also has given us accountability as we discuss things we need to work on in our lives.
While this is a wonderful book, I do not believe that this book should be solely for women. There are some mothering moments but, fathers can also easily relate. Rob was actually a little worried when I showed him the book and told him that I wanted to start using it as our night devotional (perhaps it was the purple cover :) ). We are now on our 12th devotional together, and he enjoys it as much as I do. I highly recommend this book to any parent who wants to have a closer relationship with God.
Available September 2009 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.
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