I received a book that I ordered this past week and though I've been busy with a big project and a presentation I've needed to work on, I kept making time to read this book. In a way I was glad that I had to fit it into a small part of my day because I love to read and it's such a lovely book that I would have read it all in one or two afternoons or evenings if I had more time. The title is "Women Of Life" and the author is Janelle Obieroma, a Pastor and the wife of a Pastor in Africa, and she is someone who I've never met in person, but somehow have felt a kinship to ever since we started following each other on Instagram.
Janelle Obieroma's posts are always inspiring, beautiful and interesting, and when I heard she had written a book, I felt like I really needed to read it and so I ordered it as soon as I had chance. From the moment I opened it and began reading, I felt right at home, as if this was a woman who was a friend who understood me and who I could talk to about the things of God and the way we as women live in this world though we are not of the world. She has such a wonderful way of sharing information, very straightforward and still full of grace and beauty. It was very affirming to read what she has written because so many times I feel like I'm the only one thinking a certain way and then here she was writing the way I think about so many things, but writing it in her own way and in her own refreshing voice.
In her Instagram posts, she sometimes will have videos and so I've heard her speak, and as I read I hear the words as if she were speaking right to me. It's been a wonderful experience, and feels as if I have a friend visiting, or someone who is calling me every day to talk a bit and give me encouragement. It's a lovely book, but also one that is very practical, and it was written by a woman who lives the life she is writing about. The family that I've seen in her posts is a beautiful one, and in her introduction to the book she talks about her families history and her own growing up, and her stories give so much insight into the woman she is and has become while helping us as readers continue walking on our own path of becoming who God has made us to be.
I think it must be a very special gift when someone sits down to put a pen to a paper, to write words or type them, because not only do we have the opportunity to experience their voice and their story once, but we can go back to it over and over again and we can share it with others, too. I do read some things online, but reading an actual book has always been one of my favorite pleasures, and to hold a good book in my hands is in a way something that I've always found extremely comforting, enjoyable, relaxing and life giving. Reading a good book helps me feel connected to the author, the characters and people who are being written about and also in a wonderful way to myself and the deepest parts of myself that no one else knows. Janelle Obieroma's book, "Women Of Life" has all those qualities that truly great books have, those books that as we read them become a part of our own life and help us to live our lives to the fullest.
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