Maybe your marriage is taking strain.  Maybe the kids are giving you a run for your money.  Maybe your car needs new tires and you just don’t have the cash.  Perhaps you just received an unwanted diagnosis from your doctor … or maybe you’re just flat out burned out.

Maybe you feel like God has abandoned you, or given up on you altogether.  Perhaps you’re wondering how you’ll ever make it through this dark season.

Whatever the case may be, we all have hard days.  We all go through periods of time, sometimes even weeks or months when life is more challenging than usual, and we feel discouraged.

During times like these, Holley Gerth has exactly what you need.

In her brand new devotional book, What Your Heart Needs for the Hard Days, Holley uses the book of Psalms to draw encouragement and hope for the weary soul.

In a compact volume that is small enough for me to tuck inside my purse, Holley highlights 52 verses from various psalms, and uses them to speak important truths to the hearts of women.

While reading through the devotional, I started bookmarking certain entries that I wanted to quote from for the purposes of this review.  Well, by the time I finished, almost half the book was marked!  It’s that good.

What I appreciated most about this collection of devotions was just how insightful Holley is into the real-life struggles and challenges that women face.  It’s clear that she has a wealth of experience in counseling, mentoring and discipling women, and as a result, she has just the right words to soothe and comfort the aching heart.

Holley uses many real-life examples in her writing, and I particularly appreciated the way she was so open and honest about her own battle with infertility, and the way it has affected and impacted her own spiritual life.

Holley understands from firsthand experience that “we always live with both blessings and brokenness.  Challenges and victories.  Sorrow and joy.  They’re all mixed up together.” She has learned that “it’s often in the moments when we feel weakest and most vulnerable that God exerts his strength on our behalf.”

One of my favorite entries is the one on Psalm 90:12, which says, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”  In this section, Holley writes about those days on our calendar that have become life-changing, for one reason or another.  Maybe it was the day of a significant loss, a dianosis, or a divorce.

Holley writes,

“When we think of those days, it changes the way we look at all the ones that are yet to come.  They remind us that life is finite and fragile.

… That’s the hidden gift of trouble: it makes all that’s good and beautiful and true stand out like stars on a night sky.  We learn to count our blessings and to make our days count.

… The people I know who have grasped this truth the most don’t live in fear.  Instead they’re made courageous in a wild and rare way.  They embrace life with both hands and yet at the same time hold it loosely.  They overflow with joy and weep with abandon.  They love deeply and yet they know how to let people go.  They see those circles on the calendar as part of a much bigger circle — one that goes on for all eternity.”

In my opinion, this book would be a great blessing to all who read it — young or old, single or married.

To purchase a copy, click here. For more information about the book, including another excerpt, click here.

I received a free copy of this book from Revell Books in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links.