What Your Soul Needs for Stressful Times: 60 Powerful Truths to Protect Your Peace

by Holley Gerth

Stress is inevitable, but letting it control your life is optional. As a bestselling author, counselor, and life coach, Holley Gerth has learned a lot about dealing with stress and what truly helps. What Your Soul Needs for Stressful Times is your invitation to pause for a few moments of encouragement, peace, and strength each day.

This 60-day devotional offers spiritual truth to soothe your soul alongside practical tools to apply that will truly make a difference. Each day, Holley offers Scripture, a prayer, questions for reflection, and inspirational quotes to help you learn to live with more peace and less pressure, more calm and less chaos, more worship and less worry.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Christian, Religion

256 pages, Hardcover

Published September 21, 2021

About the author

Holley Gerth likes humans, words, and good coffee. She's also a Wall Street Journal bestselling author with over 500,000 copies sold.

Find out more about her new release, What Your Mind Needs for Anxious Moments.

Reviews

[Harley Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

4★: INTERESTING MIX OF PSYCHOLOGY & RELIGION. While I can’t tell you any of the 60 truths, I can share two quotes. The first I didn’t catch the source, but that’s audio for ya:

“You can only love others to the extent that you take care of yourself.”

The second one I thought was so spot on that I searched the interwebs high and low for the original source:

“I find that there is liberation in [the] suspension of more or less everything. In spite of it all, we are free now. Any fashion, sensibility, ideology, set of priorities, worldview or hobby that you acquired prior to March 2020, and that may have by then started to seem to you cumbersome, dull, inauthentic, a drag: you are no longer beholden to it. You can cast it off entirely and no one will care; likely, no one will notice. Were you doing something out of mere habit, conceiving your life in a way that seemed false to you? You can stop doing that now.” (Justin E.H. Smith in “It’s All Just Beginning,” The Point magazine, March 23, 2020.)

I’ll be looking at more of Justin’s work later, but his essay can be found here: https://thepointmag.com/examined-life...

So, this book was a quick, easy listen and if it weren’t for the cool quotes, it probably would’ve gotten just 3 stars.

[Jill Kemerer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book for women. We all deal with stress daily, and I enjoyed these devotionals. Holley Gerth writes with compassion and experience.

[Gina Clabo · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars... I really enjoyed these verses & stories. I started the 1st one around the first week in Dec and read one story a day. You feel like you could relate to Holley on so many levels. I do have to say that she does have a lot of anxiety, stress and fears and for someone who is a Christian and writing Christian books it's somewhat confusing. God says 365 times in the Bible do not fear, stress, complain or worry and yet we are all Human poo happens but if we are true believers living for the Lord, we would follow his words and do what he says not what others, or our own brain allow. Satan is all but destroying people with negative thoughts daily and it is said in the Bible Satan comes to Rob, Steal, and Kill the joy in people and their minds. We have a lot of Mental Health issues going on right now and Satan is having fun keeping people down. Example (If you think your ugly, and think people are saying your ugly, but everyone is actually saying your pretty, or beautiful then Satan is going to take that thought and our weakest areas and use it to tell you over and over no one thinks you're pretty everyone thinks your ugly when in reality you are beautiful, and God made you beautiful and he loves you.) Just keep in mind that even though we go through hard times in life God is still with us and we need to keep praising him for all he does in all parts of your life good or bad. Gina Clabo

[Cindy Davis- Cindy's Book Corner · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Your Soul Needs for Stressful Times: 60 Powerful Truths to Protect Your Peace is a perfect read no matter what season you are in. I think most of us strive for more peace in our lives.

As the title suggests, the book has 60 days of content. Each day begins with a Bible verse. Next is a short story to accompany the verse, followed by a prayer. After that there is a question or two to ponder what you have read, ending with a relevant quote.

I enjoyed the book and think it is one that would be great to return to during especially stressful times.

The only thing I really didn't like about the book is the font. The red font is pretty but hard to read, especially in the early morning light.

★★★★/5

[Elli · Rating 5 out of 5]

100% recommend this book! It was full of encouragement for all of the stressful and anxiety-inducing situations that life throws our way, specifically from a biblical perspective. I loved how the author included so many reminders of who God says we are and who He created us to be, because it can be so easy to forget those things, especially during stressful and overwhelming times. The author also included some tips and things we can do to deal with stress, anxiety, and feeling overwhelmed, in addition to facts and information on these topics, which I really liked and thought was really helpful! :)

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holley Gerth writes a nice self help inspirational book on dealing with stress in trying times. Each small essay gives encouragement with passages from the Bible. Each essay is a pep talk encouraging the reader that they can find peace whether dealing with anxiety, disappointment, the hurt we sometimes feel from other people. She gives examples from her own life as well. A nice read and feel good book.

[Sharon Hughson · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a perfect devotional for such a time as this. I’m sure when I pick this up again in a couple of years, different stories Gerth shared will touch me more deeply than they did this time.
Gerth’s conversational style draws you close. Reading her books is like sitting down with an understanding friend who always has godly advice but never sounds judgmental.

[Sharla Fritz · Rating 5 out of 5]

These devotions did indeed calm my soul in a busy, stressful period. I love Holley Gerth's always encouraging voice. One of my favorite devotions talked about resisting the world's insistence that we optimize everything and instead rest in the fact that God is working in us and will continue to work in us until that work is complete.

[Ellie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is another excellent book by Holley Gerth. Almost every day's devotion was applicable to my life in some way. Each day has a Bible verse, a couple/few pages of the author's thoughts, a short prayer, a question, and a quote. I highly recommend this devotional for yourself or as a gift.

[RyReads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This felt like therapy during the stressful past two weeks. 5/5
I had never read this author before, but I will be reading more from her in the future!

[Jan Gustafson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great little book of short chapters with words of encouragement and wisdom to deal with stressful times!! Will reread this book often!!! 💖

[Sara-Beth Dulina · Rating 5 out of 5]

The things Holley shared were relatable and insightful. I was able to glean some helpful tips from this book as well.

[Madison Judson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book helped me a lot when I was going through a hard time. I love how it includes scripture and ends each topic with a prayer and question for reflection.

[Ashley Whalen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book really helped me out. I loved how it was both personal and biblical.

[Kaitlyn Bouchillon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've read all of Holley's devotional books and this one was my favorite yet. Each entry/devotional follows the same format:

- a short and relatable story
- followed by Scripture, practical take-aways, and non-fluffy encouragement
- ending with a short prayer, a question to consider, and an inspiring quote

This is a devotional I'll return to again and again... but it's also one I'll give several friends. The topic is especially timely and the content is approachable, thoughtful, well-written and encouraging.