From the Heart of a Woman book review

From the Heart of a Woman 

Love Letters to My Lord

by Sylvia Hensel book review 

So many times when author Sylvia Hensel bows in prayer, she finds herself transported to another place. She feels herself being lifted up on arms of love to a realm of oneness with her Lord.

She feels as though she is the bride in the Song of Solomon. He comes to her in the midnight hours and calls her to Himself. Every nerve of her spiritual being is in tune with Him as He whispers words of love in her ear. He takes her in His arms, and they dance across the heavens while He sings over her. She is enraptured by His exquisite love for her.

In those moments they share their intimate thoughts with one another. It is when His presence is lifted that she finds she has written much of what was said, and she is awestruck at the beauty that had transpired during the time they shared.

These are her personal love letters to Jesus. For many years He would not allow her to share them, but He has let her know this is the time. It is His desire that you too experience this intimacy with Him. Jesus would have us claim Him as our spiritual husband and intends that our desire should be toward Him. 

God wants to lavish His love on us as the bridegroom for the bride and have it returned with the fullness of passion. He wants us to love Him to the point of abandonment, resulting in a consummated love. He wants our spiritual womb to be forever fertile, producing beautiful fruit of wondrous delight for the world to behold. 

“And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.” (Genesis 4:1)

I love how Sylvia Hensel freely pours her heart out to God in these lyrical, poetic prayer offerings.  She sometimes rhymes and sometimes uses free verse to express her love to God.   I appreciate that she includes scripture with the prayers but a few times I was not quite clear as to the connection between the prayer and the scripture.  I would say though, that since these are her own personal interpretations, that I might not be intended to fully grasp the connection.   I would have liked it if pictures or images of some sort were included in the book as I personally feel this would add to the effect of the prayers.  I truly applaud the effort to engage the reader in the prayers and encouragement for the reader to know God more intimately.  Sylvia gives a very good example of how to become more intimate with God in her writings here.  I would have liked a bit of devotional or comment from the author on some of the prayers.   I think that, for me, reading it straight through to review it, I did not get the full effect of the prayers. I believe this book would best be digested by reading one or two of the prayers per day and included them in one's own personal prayer experience.  I intend to go back to the book and do just that with it.   I think these prayers will be a wonderful complement to my daily time with the Lord.   

About the Author:

Sylvia Hensel began her writing career at the age of seventy-four by entering Faithwriters’ weekly writing challenge. She quickly advanced to win the coveted “Editor’s Choice” award, for which her story appeared in their monthly magazine.

She now writes for two online magazines and has written for Yesterday’s Memories. She has also had the privilege of speaking at retreats, luncheons, and conferences.

From the Heart of a Woman is her first published book. She is in the process of completing a children’s book, Animal Adventures in A B C Land.

Sylvia is the mother of two, the grandmother of three, and the great-grandmother of six. She and her husband moved from Ohio to Virginia Beach to be near family.

I received a free copy of this book from booksneeze.com in exchange for my honest review.