Published by Bethany House Publishers on April 25, 2023
Genres: Non-Fiction, Christian Life
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"A new voice for a new generation, Katie Westenberg is exhorting us to remember. We need this challenge. Read her book and take her words to heart!"--Bestselling author Barbara Rainey
In this frenzied world, it's time to focus your faith.
We live in a loud, opinionated world of staggering distraction. It's not only exhausting, but immobilizing. You are tempted to zone out, binge watch, and doom scroll.
With all of this distraction, it's hard to keep focus on what matters most: God and His nearness in this very moment.
In this powerful resource--part book, part Bible study--Katie Westenberg equips you to focus on what truly matters. Leaning on Scripture, scientific studies of memory, and the power of a renewed mind, she helps you uncover the ancient way of being un-distractible.Here is the wake-up call our hearts are longing for--and the clear-eyed focus our souls were made for.
Katie Westenberg writes about the important role that memory plays in our spiritual lives, especially as we deal with so many competing claims for our attention in the modern world. She reflects on our cognitive limitations and the ways that our frenetic, busy, distracted lives make it even more difficult for us to remember things and focus on what is important, and she writes about ways that Christians can take action to better remember God’s faithfulness, see the value of memory in Scripture, and develop healthy habits of memory.
Each chapter focuses on a different theme, such as viewing time through God’s eyes and remembering His faithfulness during times of weakness. Westenberg unpacks relevant Scripture passages, shares illustrations from her own life, and frequently ties in themes related to dealing with distractions, interruptions, and the challenges of life. She shows how cultivating spiritual disciplines can strengthen and help people as they navigate a confusing, fast-paced, and overwhelming world, and she includes Bible study sections at the end of each chapter. These sections are typically about six pages long, with generous space for writing down notes as you study an assigned passage and reflect on life applications.
But Then She Remembered: How to Give God Your Full Attention in a Distracted World is great for both individual reading and study groups. As the title indicates, Westenberg wrote this for women, but the content is rarely gendered at all. She focuses on key spiritual themes that are relevant to all Christians, and even though I thought she overused the word “friend” when talking directly to the reader, I liked that she used this gender-neutral term where many other Christian women writers would refer to the reader as “sister.” This book can be a huge encouragement to people in different demographics, helping them focus on God in a fast-paced world and develop habits of memory to see how God has worked in their lives and displayed His faithfulness.