Encouraging Words for Mothers - Review

Encouraging Words for Mothers: Morning Evening: Daily Devotions for a Mother's Soul

By: Michelle Medlock Adams

Publication: August 1st 2019 by Barbour Books

384 pages

Genre: Non-fiction, Christian, Parenting, Devotional

Source: Publisher via NetGalley (Thank you!!)

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Goodreads description--Moms, find wisdom and support when you really need it!

This 365-day morning and evening devotional book is by a mom—award-winning writer Michelle Medlock Adams—for moms. Especially for women with children still at home, Encouraging Words for Mothers offers brief, relevant, and biblical reflections with monthly themes such as worry, unconditional love, discipline, and praying. Each will show you how scripture applies to your everyday life—and equip you to be the best mom you can be.

Encouraging Words for Mothers is a 365 day devotional. I've learned that devotional intended to cover an entire year aren't my favorite. Even if each day's devotional is short, I often lose interest before the year is complete. And that was sort of the case for me with Encouraging Words for Mothers.

This devotional does have short devotions. It is designed for one a day and is split into a section to be read in the morning and one in the evening. Both are short enough that reading them at the same time made the most sense to me. There is a verse for the day/topic and a short prayer. Normally, I prefer a little more meat to my devotions. I prefer deep topics that make me think, but in this season of life with 3 kids 5 and under, short and sweet hits the spot. I feel like this devotional is especially geared towards mothers with very young children. Life is just so busy with taking care of the needs of others that even this short devotional should be fine to work into a daily schedule.

For me though, I knew I was reviewing this book and I really didn't need to take a year to do so. Thus I would read as large of a section of devotionals at a time that I felt I could before putting it down for the day. Doing this, however, led me to fatigue and I ended up putting the entire devotional down for an extended period.

I always take issue with books that use paraphrase translations of the Bible. Particularly, The Message translation is a pet peeve of mine. I personally use literal translations. I've talked about this on my blog enough that I won't get into much detail about it here in this review. Even if the intent of the author was only to use this translation as a supplement to their own study, it can give the unknowing reader the idea that the translation is a great option for their personal study Bible if they're looking for one.

The author discusses a few things that I didn't 100% agree with. I never expect to agree with anyone else 100% of the time though. I do know the topic of spanking will be an issue for some readers. Just be aware of that going into the book and you won't be surprised.

Encouraging Words for Mothers is a great devotional for the busy Mom. I especially think this one is good and applicable for the Mother of very young children, like myself. It isn't too deep in terms of content, but sometimes that isn't the season of life that you're in. Paraphrased translations of the Bible were often used which is a pet peeve of mine. Encouraging Words for Mothers gets 3.5 Stars. Have you read Encouraging Words for Mothers ? What did you think? Let me know!