I’ve decided to try something else today – I want to send you more than just resources from publishers (ie. books I’m reviewing). So, today I suggest a book, a website, and a resource…or two.
A Book
The first book I’m reviewing (they gave me the book to review) is this small book for the anxious heart.
This book is a 50-day devotional on anxiety. It isn’t a ‘self-help.’ I didn’t see a lot of practical tools. Instead, I’d say this book is a heart re-writer. Sometimes, we need to set a new perspective. We need to see the enemies that we face (in this case, fear, anxiety and worry) from a new perspective. If anxiety takes up too much of your headspace, starting the year by thinking about what you are thinking about might be a good idea.
What you’ll find is that the people in the bible faced these enemies of the heart too – and they learned to lean into trust – the enemy of fear is trust in God. You’ll find this book here.
A Website
As you head into a new year, it is good to do some personal reflection. I found this blog post particularly inspiring this morning; why do you do what you do? What is your calling? How will you make a difference in the world?
A Resource…or two
First, I want to introduce you to a program that I’ve decided to study: Relational Wisdom 360. I first heard about this at a conference with Donna Barrett. I am so impressed – I’ve been concerned for some time with the fact that much of our emotional education as a society doesn’t seem to be inherent in growing up. We teach people skills like how to not offend others, but we don’t teach the basics of how to relate to others. Therefore, it would seem that much of our emotional education now takes place in the workplace (at least in the Northwest where only 6-14% of our people attend in any kind of a church). Relational Wisdom 360 is a great training tool to help people in your workplace. They also have a faith-based program in case you are looking for a good curriculum to use in your small group.
Last, I got frustrated with my expensive planner situation – I loved the planner I was using, but I was only using the weekend review… and the cost was astronomical. After much research and trying different options, using Outlook for my calendar and task management seems to work best for the daily grind – but I still need that big picture view that is so helpful. So I created a new planner.
The planner I was using was bulky and although I wanted to carry it with me, I hated the extra weight. (Let’s be real, as you age, this becomes an issue). So, I decided to create a planner that would work for me. I researched soooo many planners. I liked parts of many of them, so I decided to take my favorite weekly review parts and create something that would be affordable for me (if you create something on Amazon, you can buy it at the publisher’s price). Then friends suggested that I make it available to others. As of today, I’ve lowered the price to $6.50 for the 3-month planner. (I’m not sure how long it takes for the price online to update, so it might be tomorrow before the new price takes effect. This lowered price will stay through the end of the week.) That means you can get an entire year of planning for $26 – as opposed to $125-$160 that I was looking at before. This book won’t give you lots of space to work out your daily grind. Instead, its sole focus is to help you zoom to the big-picture view weekly and make sure you are still making the main thing…the main thing. Below you’ll find a brief view inside.
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