Choosing Rest: Cultivating a Sunday Heart in a Monday World, by Sally Breedlove (NavPress, 2002)
If I could only have my Bible and, say, five other books, Choosing Rest would be on the list. I’ve read a lot of books that have impacted my life, but this is a keeper, a book for all seasons of life.
Sally Breedlove addresses many things that we all experience at one time or another, and invites us to allow them to become gateways to rest. She touches on hot spots like expectations (ours and others’), busyness, unforgiveness, heartaches, the shadow times in our lives, grumbling, fear, grief and depression.
In all these things, she points us back to the God who loves us. She reminds us that “…rest does not come after a long battle in which we manage to change or to conquer all the issues that keep our hearts in turmoil…it’s good to know that the heart rest God desires to give us is located in the midst of these very difficulties.” (p. 139)
Choosing Rest is a book for people in their everyday struggles, not just for people in crisis. In fact, it’s better to read it and begin to learn before the crisis hits. This book is filled with sound, basic teaching, pulled together with honest, open writing and personal examples that show us we’re not alone…and give us hope of entering that rest of heart that we long for.
I originally wrote this review a few years ago, and it looks like I’ll have to buy a new copy of the book to re-read it. I lent my original one to a number of friends, and one of them apparently felt the need to keep it. Click here to read a sample chapter of Choosing Rest.
Author and speaker Sally Breedlove is also co-author of The Shame Exchange with Steve Breedlove and Ralph & Jennifer Ennis (NavPress, 2009). From Sally’s website:
Sounds like a book that far too many of us could benefit from!