Books often meet a need. My friend was devastated when her mate left her after forty-three years married. She went searching for help. This book delivered. There is a need for this type of book, one that offers spiritual truth in addition to practical hands-on ways to apply then incorporate it into real life. Traditionally, in evangelicalism, the realm of feelings and emotions was largely treated as a simple formula of confess the sin, get right with God, and all will be well. Those who were struggling often felt alone in their suffering. This is a somewhat academic book with an emphasis on feelings and emotions as they relate to spiritual living. I found it to be somewhat dry in the first few chapters which relate to a biblical foundation for truth but increasing in interest as Borgman delves into the nuts and bolts of dealing with our human emotions like anger, unforgiveness, bitterness, fear, anxiety, worry, and depression; then offering solutions found in confession, renewing of the mind, relationships, reading, meditating, prayer, and imagination. Faith and Feelings opens the door for greater exploration of the relationship of feelings with faith.

Many evangelicals have become suspicious of the emotions and generally discount them. This is tragic. Others have so exalted experience and the emotions that they have minimized truth, doctrine, and theology. This too is tragic. The glorious reality is that truth and emotions, faith and feelings, theology and experience are not enemies, but the best of friends.

The Day I Met Jesus takes us “there” during the days and times of Jesus Christ when He walked, talked, and healed the despicable, desperate, down-in-out, untouchable and sinful.

Mary DeMuth skillfully weaves the details found in five women’s stories, women who lived in biblical times, who experienced first-hand the healing touch of the Master Teacher through his infinite love, offer of grace, amazing restoration and full transformation. We view each story by walking in the shoes of women with strikingly different stories. Each one pulls us into the storyline as we feel their emotion and understand their confusion and pain. Hope is found in the shape and form of Jesus Christ, Who, with His God-love, reaches them in the inner soul and connects through life-giving God-based union. Frank Viola provides the reader with further study and analysis to unlock the beauty found within these amazing encounters. Each woman’s story is not for the purpose of entertaining, but, rather, is for the purpose of teaching us something we need to hear and that resonates with us in our world today. Culture may have changed but the human heart has not. DeMuth and Viola take us to the point where one human connects with another human in a highly spiritual way. A book based on the gospel accounts.