Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women – Review

My daughter spends time with her Bible, a devotional, and journal each morning.  I love seeing her so excited about digging into God’s Word and want to be sure she has quality materials to use – and that’s why I’m so excited to be reviewing Zondervan‘s Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women.

First of all, the cover is beautiful.  I’ll apologize for  my less-than-fabulous pictures now, but I had to take all the photos on the sly because this book will be a Christmas present for my Big Helper.  It’s too beautiful to keep to myself!  It’s a very sturdy, glossy cover.  It’s cream with wine-colored accents and doodly flowers and branches.  Some of the flowers are metallic, making them glint and flash light.  The bit of sparkle adds an element of fun to the cover.

Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women is a hardback book that’s about the size of a trade paperback.  It’s very thick, however, as there’s a single devotion per page.  This size makes it handy to carry and to store.  It would be a great size to take to a Bible study group, and I think that the devotions themselves are perfect for that … but I’ll get back to that.

I love the page layout.  It’s simple, but it’s also both pretty and meaningful.  I love that the wine color is carried through the book, and the design from the cover is brought inside to decorate each page.  There’s something special about getting to spend a few minutes alone with something beautiful.  It feels luxurious and pampering, somehow, and while these devotions would be just as meaningful if the page were a plain black and white, the color and design make it feel feminine and fun.

The day count, Day 11 above, instead of a date makes it feel as if you could start any day.  Getting this book as a gift for your birthday?  Start the next day.  Did you get behind schedule and weren’t able to start on January 1st?  No worries – you can start when you’re ready.  There’s even a convenient ribbon bookmark inside so that you can move it along at your own pace.

Beneath the day count at the top is the scripture verse that the daily devotion is based upon.  It’s printed out for your convenience, and it really is just that.  Having it printed there for you means that you’re reading the same version as the devotion’s author.  You’ll read the same language as she did, and while you can certainly look it up for yourself or go to other translations, it’s not required.  If you have a limited amount of time, you’ll find everything you need on each single page.

The devotion itself follows the scripture.  I love the casual but sincere way that they’re written.  They’re definitely written with women in mind, and they feature issues and problems and concerns that most women have – but that most men won’t be able to relate to.  They’re the kinds of things that women discuss over coffee at the shop or when they run into each other in the aisles of the grocery store – the kinds of things that we stress about that men don’t understand:  issues of self-worth, confidence, perspective, hospitality, security in our roles as women and wives and friends.

Now, not to downplay the wonderful simplicity of the above parts, but my favorite feature is at the bottom of the page:  a few blank lines.  Space for you to reflect on what you’ve read and what it means to you and to jot down your thoughts before your day catches up with you.  This feature is a rarity in devotionals, and I love that it’s in this one.  You won’t need a separate notebook or journal, unless you really have a lot to write; this is all-inclusive.  

In the title, Zondervan says this book is targeted for young women, and I think that’s spot on.  I’d say for teens and up, as some of these devotions may be more relevant to people who are living on their own and making decisions more independently than some teens may be able to do.  Other teens may find that these are issues that they’re beginning to think about as they consider living on their own for the first time.  Either way, I think there are many thoughts relevant to women today, and I enjoyed reading through these devotions.