Book Review: Mended

I'm thinking, perhaps, I read this book in the wrong way.  It is intended to be read in chapters, once a day for a month, as a devotional experience.  Instead, because it is due back to the library shortly and there is a line of people waiting behind me to check it out, I had to read it in three or four sittings over the space of three days.  Not the way it was intended.  Thus, I don't think I benefited fully from the book's message.

I will say that the most interesting bits, to me, were where the author referenced the story of her daughter, Audrey, who lived for just two and a half short hours, but impacted many lives.  The rest of it, while interesting, just didn't hold me as fully as the story of this grief experience. I think, perhaps, I read the wrong book by this author (for me, anyway).  She has another book, dedicated entirely to the story of Audrey's birth and death, called I Will Carry You.  For some reason, that book sounds more appealing to me.

In this book, Angie Smith, tries to get women to see that even our brokenness is used by God to show His glory through the cracks of our lives.  In the first chapter, she speaks of breaking a pitcher and putting the pieces together again as an exercise of learning that God intended the brokenness and promises to do the mending. She encourages readers to get a pitcher or pot and break it themselves to work through this significant process internally and externally.  Although I will not attempt this exercise, I can see how it might be helpful to a woman who is struggling with spiritual issues and wanting to feel whole again. The heart of her message is one I like, "Your life does make a difference - because of how He is magnified in the cracks."