Finding Calm in the Chaos: Christian Devotions for Busy Women

""This is the equation of my life,"" writes Bostrom: ""One husband plus two jobs plus three children plus half a dozen projects all going on at once."" It's no wonder that she feels exhausted, and she is not alone in such fatigue. How can women find spiritual refreshment in the midst of laundry, bills, school conferences and work? The Bible, says Bostrom, offers wisdom for finding ""calm in the chaos"" as early as the opening verse of Genesis, when God creates the earth from a formless void. Bostrom doesn't want this devotional to add to the stress that women already feel, or become just another item on their never-ending to-do lists. To this end, it has a slightly different sensibility than other Christian devotionals: rather than incorporating the obligatory scripture du jour, Bostrom uses a single scripture for an entire week. This way, she says, readers can really delve into the passage and let its meaning wash over them for a substantial period of time. Also, she wants readers to engage in a weekly ""Sabbath celebration,"" to set Sunday apart as a true respite from the clamor of the week. She speaks openly from her own experiences of being busy and tired, noting that she suffers from a chronic illness that forces her to choose only those activities that are most meaningful. Literary readers will enjoy the well-chosen quotations from the likes of William Sloane Coffin, Madeleine L'Engle, Thomas Aquinas, Wendell Berry, Thomas Merton and Frederick Buechner.