Review of "Cradle My Heart"

Serving in women's ministry when I was offered the opportunity to read and review this little book on the topic of abortion, I immediately replied yes please send it to me.  My heart breaks at the times I have come across the path of a broken heart of a woman due to an abortion that touched her life or that of a loved one. The abortion brought with it suffering and most of the time experiencing it all alone, because of fear of how others will react, if they know that the choice of abortion was made so the suffering is spent alone filled with shame.  

Cradle My Heart written by Kim Ketola is a beautiful sharing of allowing God to use the broken heart of one woman to heal her and others by the sharing of her own personal path.  Kim is very real in the telling of her story.  The reader feels her pain in the shame of the abortion causing her to walk through so much of her life alone, the feelings of unworthiness, and finally the healing through realizing God's love is still her's for the taking!  Yes, indeed He restored her hope, He renewed her spirit, and He is using her to help heal others by her opening up her journey through the pain and back to Her Savior!

Kim walked the path and knows the feelings women feel and she speaks beautifully to the despair and the heartache, but also to the hope of being healed!  I have found in ministry that it is so helpful to be able to offer the words of someone that might have experienced a decision that is close to the one another might have made.  If I haven't walked the path, then my words fall short even if I mean the words with all my heart!  Some might doubt because I don't truly know the path, well Kim knows the path.

I intend to purchase this book for our women's ministry to offer women that made the choice of abortion and need to know that God still loves them!  It is a wonderful book and whether any of us realize it or not abortion breaks many hearts of the women sitting in the pew next to you at church.  One fact I learned in this book is 1/3 of women in their mid-forties have had an abortion, more than 1.3 million experience elective abortion every year which translates into around 8 to 10 million Christian women had an abortion.  Most of these women suffer alone because of the fear of how others will react if they know that they made the choice of an abortion.

I highly recommend this book to any woman whether the choice of abortion was part of your own journey or not it helps you to understand what the choice truly does to other women that did choose abortion.  It will help you to help others without judgment, but with love.  We all make choices that are perhaps not a good choice, but not all of us must suffer alone or feel the shame that these women experience.  It breaks my heart that these women suffer so deeply and they experience it all alone.

Also, if you would like to hear more about this wonderful book sign up for the webcast that I am going to link for you:

In coordination with the launch of their fall releases, Kregel will be hosting a live webcast event on September 20 at 8 PM EDT featuring authors Kim Ketola (Cradle My Heart), Teske Drake (Hope for Today, Promises for Tomorrow), and Dawn Scott Jones (When a Woman You Love Was Abused). The webcast will allow women to come together to share their struggles and fears in order to move toward healing and hope. Women will able to support one another and discuss shared experiences in a non-threatening, open and loving environment.

Cat Hoort of Kregel says, ""We are seeking to provide safe means for Christian women to be vulnerable with each other, to seek help and guidance from authors and counselors, and to find encouragement from those who have shared similar experiences. Our hope is that the Women Redeemed webcast will become a forum for hurting women as well as for those who can help. Kim, Teske, and Dawn are all survivors and their stories will surely inspire and equip other women to move toward healing and hope."

To register for the event, just click here. {https://www.facebook.com/KregelBooks/app_241719209283045}

Also, here are a few more facts about the book and Kim that might interest you:

Abortion continues to be a hot topic in politics, women’s rights, and medical practice. But for the eight to ten million American Christian women who have had one, abortion is a spiritual issue as well, raising questions of life and death, heaven and hell, grief and loss.

Writing from her own experience, Kim Ketola sheds light on one of the darkest and most neglected personal issues of our time: the widespread need for healing and spiritual recovery after abortion. “After abortion brought the worst trouble into my life I had ever known,” writes Ketola, “I just couldn’t see my way free to believe in God’s love.”

With a compassionate heart, Ketola offers ten true stories of healing promise from the Bible to help women answer the most common spiritual torments they face: Is abortion a sin? Does God hate me? Where can I turn in my shame and distress? How could I ever tell anyone the truth? And more.

Inspired by Romans 6:4--“just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life"--this is a definitive resource to help women see themselves and God anew and--finally--to find spiritual healing.

Meet Kim: 

Kim Ketola is a sought-after writer and motivational speaker with the Ruth Graham and Friends conference. After thirty years in the broadcasting industry, she founded a nonprofit organization through which she presents professionally accredited conferences to equip counselors and help individuals recover from the emotional and spiritual wounds of abortion. Kim lives in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Visit her website: www.cradlemyheart.org

If you would like to purchase this book and I do recommend it highly here is the link:

Link to buy the book:

http://ow.ly/cTF02

I don't know your story, but if you walked the path of choosing abortion please purchase this book.  I am a woman that suffered with infertility and this book allowed me to see the suffering of women that perhaps might have been used to heal my own suffering.  I never realized until God called me to women's ministry the suffering that these women also experience.  Deep in my heart I held resentment towards women that made this choice until God showed me the broken hearts of these women and just how easily any of us might make the same choice.  Once again I had to admit to God my judgments that are not mine to make!  Judgment is not mine and it's not yours either.  I believe this book speaks to ALL WOMEN and opens our hearts in a whole new way.

Thank you Kim for sharing your journey back to Our Father through the pain allowing God's glory to show through the cracks!  Father, forgive me for the times that I fail you and become one of those women that allows judgment to enter my heart.

Sweet blessings,

Debbie Covington

Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!

I remember like it was yesterday going to Sunday church and being allowed to pick your favorite hymn to sing.  I was a little girl and even at that point in my life I loved the old hymn "Jesus, Jesus, sweetest name I know... I remember the peace, the calm that just speaking the name Jesus would bring to my little girl problems.

Well, I'm now a woman in her fifties, married for 29 years and still know the peace that the name Jesus brings to my life.  I bring peace into my world just by speaking the name aloud.  I picture this man that was filled with love, compassion, mercy, kindness, laughter, forgiveness, goodness, patience, grace and so very much more and it fills my soul!  When I get into difficult situations, if I simply speak His name softly it is like He is caressing me with all of the traits above and I feel that peace that passes all understanding!  Do I hear an Amen?

Who doesn't need that feeling?  Well, in John 17:11 we are taught that indeed there is power in His Name!  If we say His name, we invite His power into our life whether it is a fight with our spouse, a child that is ill, or a simple disagreement with a friend, whatever we face if we speak His name, His power will come into the situation and bring our focus to Him!

Today, Speak His Name and remember that indeed it is the sweetest name we know!

Loving the sweetest of His Name,

Debbie

Writing block

Lately, I haven't written much and I guess you noticed.  If not, well then you didn't miss anything.  I've been in writer's block or should I say I haven't tried too much.  I've been tired, so I took a break.

I am glad you dropped by and hopefully I will be back at this in a couple of weeks.  No promises.  I have realized that it's okay, if I don't.  All of you go on with your own life and so do I and that is okay with me.  I've been spending quiet time with the LORD and time with the family and friends, which are very important to me.

Sometimes we all get our priorities a little off balance and I am working on spending more time with the LORD than just writing and talking about it actually the doing it.  So if I'm away and not writing perhaps I'm sitting at His feet and learning and growing.  Do you want to join me?

Sitting at His feet,

Debbie