A while back Heidi, a friend of mine asked me to read some extracts from her book ‘Handmade by God’ and write something to appear on the back cover.

The book came out at the beginning of June and earlier this month I attended the book launch too.

Handmade by God is perhaps more of a booklet in size but that doesn’t make it any less of a worthwhile resource (just shorter). Handmade by God is really in 2 parts.

The first part tells Heidi’s story of being a fairly typical (Christian) young person, growing up in a Christian family, attending youth groups, finishing sixth form and heading off to university but during that first year Heidi became more and more obsessed with weight loss and began eating less and less until it emerged she had developed anorexia and a distorted view of her own body image.

In that time following her diagnoses and having to work hard at putting back on weight and getting out of bad eating habits Heidi read bible passages that helped her and made notes of them which is where part 2 comes in!

The second part of the book consists of 52 short bible passages and a brief thought on them directed at how we view ourselves followed by a space to write your own thoughts, feelings and prayers associated with these verses.

As a youth worker I think this book has huge potential to be used in youth group settings with the older end of young people (14+) but also on an individual basis for people of all ages (perhaps more so females than males). The verses could help put together a session on self esteem or you could use one of the two self esteem sessions I’ve previous written over on youthworkresource.com (Links: Session 1 – Session 2).

If you’re interested here’s what I actually said about the book on the back cover…

 “Heidi’s story isn’t dissimilar from the increasing number of young people who are developing eating disorders in order to conform to the unrealistic expectations that society presents to them.

In this book Heidi shares her own story and a selection of bible passages that teach us some essential truths about how God feels about us and how we often need to face up to the lies society tells us and come back to our loving Father who accepts us, welcomes and calls us just as we are.

I hope that people reading this book will realise that ultimate satisfaction in who we are comes from accepting that God, our creator, has made us who we are and that our self-esteem and self-worth need to be rooted in Him.”

Purchase Links: Amazon Physical Book | Amazon Kindle | Gilead Books | Eden