Zondervan: Devotions for Young Women (A REVIEW)

I had the opportunity to read and share Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women from Zondervan with my daughter. This book, filled with daily devotions, is especially written with the young woman in mind. It's for a girl who is trying to figure out her place in the world, and this book does a great job in tying modern womanhood into biblical stories about women and how they found their way.

This book is beautiful on the front with a flowery hard cover. It's pretty thick with a devotion for each day of the year. The pages are thicker with a devotion on each side, and just one page long. There are just a few lines at the bottom of each devotion to record thoughts or answer any of the questions that might have been asked in the daily devotion. My daughter pointed out that she likes that it is labeled by day (such as day 118) so that you can start it at anytime of the year. There is also a ribbon bookmark attached. Such a nice elegant addition, and so convenient.

My original plan with taking on this review was that I would read the book myself and give my thoughts as a mother of a daughter. I wasn't sure if my 17 year-old daughter would read it, but I showed it to her one day and asked her if she'd read it a little bit and give me some of her thoughts. To my surprise she said yes, and she even marked a few passages, and had some great thoughts. She said it definitely felt like it was written to girls her age (in their teens and early adulthood), and that she liked how it used women from the bible rather than someone's personal life stories like other devotionals can do. She also likes the layout, the bookmark, and the lines to write thoughts down. One things she said she wished it had was more scriptures that weren't necessarily about women, but that could be relevant to women, like some more inspirational scriptures. But, overall, she had a lot of great things to say about this book.


For myself, I really enjoyed this book! Even though it is written for Young Women, I really found a lot of passages helpful and inspiring. I want to keep reading even for myself. I think if my daughter was open to it, I'd love to read it with her each day. Now that I know she was open to even reading it, I might pose that idea to her. This can be a great way for a mother and daughter to share some meaningful time together. But either way, together or separate, this is a very good faith building book for young girls to appreciate their place as a woman in this world, and see themselves through God's eyes.

Also, one last thought. The scriptures used in this book are from the NIV. While that is not the version of scriptures I prefer, I still found it to be a very great and relevant book with many great thoughts and stories about women from the scriptures.

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