Book review: "Whispers of Hope"

     A couple months ago, I was graciously gifted a copy of Christian author Beth Moore's new book called Whispers of Hope. It was given to me to review on my blog by Icon Media Group. I am so glad that they picked my blog as one of the ones to review the book, because this book seems perfect for me!

     A couple months after I started college in 2012, I realized that my faith needed a lot of work. I feared that I was turning into a person who was only a Christian in name and not in actual faith or actions. I decided that the first thing that I needed to do was to find a church and become involved in a bible study or other ministry. I had thought that just by going to a "Christian college" that was enough, but it definitely wasn't! God blessed me with allowing me to find a great church to attend last year, and I also joined a women's bible study at school. This year after transferring colleges, I right away began visiting churches and after a few weeks of that I found the perfect church in Charlotte! At the end of this month I will become the chaplain for my chapter of Alpha Delta Pi, and I'm also hoping to join a bible study at my new church if my schedule allows. And lastly, my church at home in Maine has finally started a college student small group that I'm hoping to get more involved with this summer!

      So while 2013 was the year that I got the whole Christian fellowship thing down, but I want 2014 to be the year that I grow my prayer life. I have been praying since I was a little girl, but my praying style is to do short, silent prayers throughout the day. There's nothing wrong with this, but I don't want that to be the only way that I pray. I want to start getting more comfortable spending several minutes in deep focus and talking to the Lord verbally. And Whispers of Hope is exactly the type of book that I needed to start doing this!

      The intro of the book has Beth explaining her method for praying, which is called P.R.A.I.S.E. It stands for: praise, repentence, acknowledgement, intercession, supplication for self and equipping.  Other then this, the introduction to the book is quite short, and Beth jumps right into the daily devotionals. This book is meant to be read and used over 10 weeks, or 70 days. Each daily reading begins with a few scripture verses and a traditional devotion, and then the next page has journaling space to right out different prayers for each of the P.RA.I.S.E. categories. You are then encouraged to verbally pray everything that you wrote down.

     Most of these devotions take me about 10-15 minutes between the reading, journaling and praying. It isn't very much time at all, but yet it has been so hard for me to make time for this in my day-to-day life! I feel so guilty about that when I think about all of the hours each day that I spend on social media or other online things... can't I give God a little more of my time? I have been loving this book so far, so there's really no excuse for me! Right now I'm on day six and I'm trying to find the time of day that works best for me to do these devotions. I tried mornings for the first few days, but I'm thinking that at night before bed might be working the best.

      So far I haven't found a specific theme with all of the devotional readings, but all of them have encouraged me greatly! Last night's, which was day five, was all about God's forgiveness. I am excited to see what other topics will be coming up!


      I would reccomend this book to any Christian who is looking to grow their prayer life! This book definitely takes commitment to get through it. (Something that I have been struggling with but am willing and eager to worth through!) Thank-you again to Icon Media Group for gifting me with this copy of Whispers of Hope!


     xoxo Miss ALK