What’s the Story, Morning Glory?

Title: What’s the Story, Morning Glory?
Author: Julie Lessman
Major Themes: Marriage, Family, Devotionals
Synopsis: With real stories from her own life and excerpts from her books, the author passes on lessons that God has taught her.

What a novel idea—a devotional that combines real-life stories, scenes from novels, and Scripture. I was immediately intrigued. On the other hand, devotionals can be difficult to read in time for a review. I decided to give What’s the Story, Morning Glory? a try anyway. 

Publisher’s description:

My thoughts:

I really appreciated Julie Lessman’s honesty as she shared real stories from her life. She shares not only victories but also mistakes she has made, and how God taught her about Himself and what He wants to do in everyone. The novel story section of each topic proved to be helpful, too, in seeing another perspective of these lessons lived out. One problem I ran into with the novel story sections, though, is that now I want to read Julie’s books! I had never even heard of her before signing up for What’s the Story, Morning Glory?, but now I’m interested in finding and reading them. 

A lot of things really stood out to me as I read this book. One of the first things that stood out was the prayer Julie prayed to become saved. It was not the normal type of prayer—but it reminded me of my mother’s salvation testimony! I also very much appreciated her straightforwardness about sexual purity. In one chapter, she mentioned her son telling someone he didn’t really love his girlfriend, and that was why he slept with her. This type of scene is repeated several times—a message that really needs to be talked about in today’s culture. 

Another rather unpopular topic that is discussed is child training. I was thankful to come across an author that actually believes what the Bible has to say about it, and that spanking, if done properly, is right and good for the child. The chapter about training children and disciplining them seemed very balanced to me. 

The chapter that spoke to me the most was the one about marriage. This was the longest chapter in the book, with ten different real stories and novel stories, on various aspects of marriage. A couple of them were rather convicting to me, and I hope I remember what I learned here. Also, all through this book, Julie Lessman encourages us to pray—but the warning is repeatedly given that “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” I greatly appreciated this encouragement and warning.

If you are looking for a unique devotional in which real-life lessons are shared, you might enjoy What’s the Story, Morning Glory? Nearly every aspect of the Christian life is touched on in some way here. I’ve never read a book like this before, but I enjoyed the opportunity to check it out.

I received a complimentary copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it.

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