SEASONS WITH MY SAVIOR

A writer offers a Christian-themed tour through the four seasons.

In her slim and beautifully designed nonfiction debut, Wrobel presents her readers with devotional reflections on the “astonishing ways” God moves through their lives. The author writes these ruminations with the clear understanding that even devout Christians can sometimes find their faith difficult to uphold. “Have you experienced moments of feeling like your soul is as dry as the desert?” she asks. “Where even the most moving of praise and worship songs leaves you feeling apathetic and blasé? Reading scripture is a chore?” Her book’s plainspoken, enthusiastic prose is clearly aimed at helping believers during those and other difficult times. She enhances this effect by mixing in portions of her own life story to illustrate the struggles that someone can have with the daily walk of faith. When writing about her grief following her mother’s death, for instance, she recalls that her prayers were “stilted and weak” until God opened her heart to the simple concept of joy. These anecdotes do quite a bit to personalize a faith narrative that would otherwise be fairly standard in its general outlines. Wrobel’s comments about the faithful finding support even in the midst of trials and sickness will strike many readers of Christian inspirational titles as very familiar, almost clichés. But her invocation of everyday things, such as worrying about the health of relatives or tackling back-to-school shopping for her youngest daughter, helps to ground her observations and flesh them out. The author concludes each of her work’s brief sections with blank spaces where her readers are called to “Selah—Meditate on These Things.” Some of her seasonal references are comforting, as when she notes that the winter snows can be seen as reflections of the purity and holiness of Jesus. And the volume’s central message of hope remains uplifting.

An inviting and attractively packaged devotional for Christians.