Tuesday, January 3, 2012

One Perfect Word by Debbie Macomber

Words are powerful. A word, the right word, can change a life.
Yet we are bombarded with thousands of words a day. Are words losing their impact? Do we need to go on a word diet?
What if you were to take one word, just one word, and meditate on it for the whole day, for the whole year?
“Wwhen we choose one single word from His Word and spend a year with it, I've found that the Lord takes us by the hand and walks us through the year, teaching us about that word, about ourselves, and even more, about God Himself.” (11)
Macomber has two goals in this book. First, she wants to encourage us to begin the practice of focusing on one perfect word each year. She helps us find the word, how to explore it, and how to recognize the lessons from it.
Second, she shares fourteen of her own words. She explains what she has learned through stories. For example, she writes of desire, her desire to be a writer. It was five years before she sold her first piece of writing, a magazine article. Another example is the word balance. Her concentrating on that word included determining her priorities, and setting smart goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Rewarding, Time-bound). Pray, organize, and de-clutter, she learned.
She encourages us to get a notebook and begin to gather the words that appear over and over again in our life.
She also points out that the word she picks for the year is in addition to her regular reading and study of God's Word.
Discussion questions at the back make this a good choice for reading groups.

This is an inspiring book. It is a joy to read. Not only was I inspired to choose my own word for the year, I also received a great deal of insight from her as she shared the lessons she learned from her own words.

Howard Books (a division of Simon & Schuster), 207 pages.
Find out more about Debbie and her books at www.debbiemacomber.com/ .

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of this review.

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