When Life Doesn't Match Your Dreams: Hope for Today from 12 Women of the Bible by Jill Eileen Smith

ABOUT THE BOOK

Life is full of twists and turns. Relationships falter, careers fizzle, health fades. We may be faced with choices we never wanted to make or have situations pushed upon us we'd never expected. Yet, in all of it, God is at our side--even when he feels far away.

Drawing on her extensive research into women of the Old Testament, novelist Jill Eileen Smith turns her pen to the lessons in trusting God that we can learn today from women like

- Eve
- Noah's wife
- Sarai
- Hagar
- Lot's wife
- Rebekah
- Rachel
- and more

Readers will learn from what these ancient women did right--and even what they did wrong--when faced with dashed expectations and deferred dreams. And they'll come away with the confidence that ours is a faithful God who loves us and is forming us through our trials into the women he longs for us to be.

MY THOUGHTS


When Life Doesn't Match Your Dreams: Hope for Today from 12 Women of the Bible by Jill Eileen Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Jill Eileen Smith is usually associated with writing wonderful Christian fiction and now I can say that she also writes wonderful non-fiction. When Life Doesn't Match Your Dreams is a book about twelve real women who didn't have their dreams come true. These twelve Old Testament women were probably like many of us who once thought that our lives would be one way and then watched them as they became entirely different. It is through the stories of these Biblical women that we can recognize that our troubles can defeat us or they can make us stronger; we can continue to struggle by ourselves or we can turn it over to God and let him fight for us!

Many of the women's names are familiar: Eve, Sarai (Sarah), Hagar, Rebekah, Rachel, Dinah and Leah. And then there is Noah's wife. Her name is never mentioned in Genesis 7 but Smith has given her the name of Adah for the purpose of this book. Others mentioned are Melah (Lot's wife), Aneksi, Tamar, and Zipporah. They all faced different problems but they all persevered.

This book has twelve chapters that offer a biblical account titled If I Were.... and there are also sections titled In Our World, Imagine with Me, Ponder this, and Taking it Further. These sections allow us to consider how we might have handled the same situations and they also offer understanding and encouragement.

It is apparent that Jill Eileen Smith devoted many hours to studying Bible scripture and her efforts have helped me gain new knowledge of these women. When Life Doesn't Match Your Dreams is very well-written and I think that this book would be a valuable resource for organized Bible Study classes. It truly does give "Hope for Today from 12 Women of the Bible".

I received a complimentary copy of this book but I voluntarily chose to write this review.

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