Thursday, April 30, 2015

Soul Friends by Dr. Leslie Parrott

Soul Friends:  What Every Woman Need to Grow in Her Faith by Dr. Leslie Parrott is an interesting book.  I was expecting a how-to manual of sorts on how to make deep, intimate friendships with other Christians that help support and grow our relationship with Christ.  This book instead was 34 short devotion-like stories.

I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of these kinds of devotions typically, but because I've enjoyed other work by Dr. Parrott, I gave this book a fair chance.  My main problem with this book was the misleading title.  While this definitely was a devotion book about, "what every woman needs to grow in her faith," it didn't focus on friendships or relationships really at all.  There were four main parts to this book:  quest, crisis, calling, and communion.  This book was more a collection of individual stories about growth in each of these areas.

While I will say I am not a fan of this genre of devotionals, the stories Dr. Parrott gives were of the quality that I have experienced in her other non-devotional books.  They were very helpful, had meaning and were written well.  There were two questions at the end of each of the 34 vignettes to help the reader tie things together and reflect on what they just read.  Many of these questions were excellent, but a few were a little impractical for me personally.  One was along the lines of, "when was a time someone gave up a dream for you?"  I don't think anyone has ever done that for me and I couldn't think of many examples in other's lives that would apply to that question either.

If you are looking for a light-hearted 34 day devotional that may encourage you to reflect on some of the spiritual growth you have experienced in your life, this would be a great choice.  It would be a nice book to take on vacation when you want to spend some time in reflection.  As a book, though, about how to grow in your faith, there are better out there that speak specifically to that point.

I was provided this book free of charge from Zondervan in return for my honest review.

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