Broken into Beautiful: How God Restores the Wounded Heart [Paperback]

Gwen Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2008

God delights in transforming lives. In Broken Into Beautiful, singer and songwriter Gwen Smith's first book, she tells the real-life stories of women with shattered dreams, shameful secrets, and damaged souls, and the God who makes them beautiful again. Each chapter features a compelling personal story coupled with relevant biblical teaching and application. Readers will meet women wounded by infidelity, abortion, widowhood, abuse, and other tragic events, only to discover the joy of being restored by a loving heavenly Father.

The book will remind women of all ages of God's willingness to eternally forgive and forget and of His heart to transform broken lives. Readers will be empowered to believe truth, to remember grace, and to live for God's greater purposes. Broken into Beautiful is ultimately about a beautiful Savior who became broken for us so that all who are broken can be transformed to reflect His beauty.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Smith, an evangelical singer and songwriter, offers Christian women her debut writing effort with both grace and candor. Smith winsomely challenges fellow Christians to be transparent in their admissions of failures, doubts, struggles and fears. To this end, she takes the lead by sharing her own emotional story of aborting her baby while in college. Years after the abortion, Smith was nudged by God to go public after hearing another Christian speaker tell a similar story. Still she battled against self-exposure because she was deeply ashamed and feared other people's judgment. Smith encourages women to seek God's grace and mercy for inner healing from past mistakes and for today's trials. Each chapter brims over with stories of women who've been there in the trenches of infidelity, abuse, widowhood and despair. Smith exhorts Christians to stop hiding behind their smiles and be brave enough to get real so that they—and others—can discover true freedom and God's extravagant restoration. (July)
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About the Author

Gwen Smith is a worship leader, recording artist, songwriter, and speaker for national women's conferences and events. She challenges audiences all over the country to trade their brokenness for His beauty. Gwen is the cofounder of Girlfriends in God, a nondenominational conference ministry, and lives in North Carolina with her husband and their three children.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (July 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0736923179
• ISBN-13: 978-0736923170
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #77,420 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gwen Smith is a speaker, author, songwriter, and worship leader who inspires women toward the heart of God through stories, songs, and Scripture. Her fun, enthusiastic, and relatable communication style puts audiences at ease and bridges generational, denominational, and racial divides. As a co-founder of the conference and devotional ministry Girlfriends In God, Gwen has helped thousands of women experience how the Word of God and the power of grace, through Jesus Christ, rejuvenates faith and enriches lives.

Gwen has shared her stories and songs on TV shows such as: Life Today, The 700 Club, The Good Life, The Harvest Show, Atlanta Live, and many other television and radio programs. She is the author of a book titled Broken Into Beautiful - which shares the same title as a heart-stirring song that she co-wrote and recorded.

Today, Gwen and the ministry team at Girlfriends In God encourage more than 500,000 women daily through their online devotions (www.GirlfriendsInGod.com). The "GiGs" have co-authored a book,Trusting God: A Girlfriends in God Devotional, that was released on December 13, 2011 with WaterBrook Multnomah Publishers. In addition, Gwen was a recording artist with Great Worship Songs and a staff songwriter for Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing from 2008 - 2011. She has written for Sunday Best Music Publishing since 2004. Her newest CD, Uncluttered, was released in early 2011.

Aside from all this formal bio information, those who know her best would tell you that Gwen is just a car-pooling, coffee-loving, chocolate-craving, Jesus-loving wife and mother who struggles like the rest of us with dirty dishes, everyday life, messy piles, mountains of laundry, complicated relationships and cellulite.

Though she travels regularly, Gwen's top ministry priority is, and always will be, her family. She and her husband Brad have been married since 1993 and have been blessed with three cool kids (named Preston, Hunter and Kennedy) who are now officially: two tweens and a teen.

In her spare time, Gwen loves to cheer loudly at her kid's ballgames, play guitar, relax at the piano, and chat with her girlfriends. Her other interests include bargain shopping, hanging out at local coffee shops enjoying the dark roast, writing new songs, and studying her Bible. Gwen and her family reside in North Carolina, and are members at LIFE Fellowship Church (www.lifecharlotte.com.) Visit her Facebook at www.Facebook.com/GwenSmithMusic.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful devotional about what God can do July 24, 2008

By Christina Lockstein TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

Broken into Beautiful by Gwen Smith is a courageous devotional about what God can do with our broken pieces. Smith, a Christian singer and speaker, exposes her deepest secret so that the reader can come to understand the depth of God's love. When Smith was in college, she had an abortion. She knew it was wrong and deplored her own decision, but couldn't figure out any other option to get her life back. The pain and shame haunted her for years, even after she started speaking at Christian conferences, she still kept it secret until God spoke to her heart and told her of the healing he would provide her and that she could provide others if she opened up. I don't have an abortion in my past, but I have plenty of my own broken pieces, and Smith helped me to see how God can use them to create a beautiful new work in me. Smith is humble and honest, and her book is a balm to the soul.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars From broken into beautiful July 9, 2008

By Daughter of the Most High

Format:Paperback

As a woman whom God has transformed from broken into beautiful, I would recommend this book to all my sisters who have spent time in the pit of despair, depression, and self-loathing. This book will make you laugh one minute and cry the next. I felt as if I were having a personal conversation with several friends as I read the remarkable accounts of how each found healing and restoration through the power of Jesus' free gift of love and forgiveness. Through Him, the shattered pieces can be put back together. A must read for all who are hurting, for all who need healing from a wounded heart, for all who need forgiveness and a fresh start...that covers about every woman out there!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars **** A MUST READ FOR EVERY WOMAN **** July 9, 2008

By K.A.

Format:Paperback

Ever experienced feeling worthless, unlovable, used, forgotten, ugly...?

Then you've got to read this! It is written in such a way that I felt as if it were just me and a friend having coffee and chatting. I'd be rolling along fine with some chuckles here and there and then all of a sudden she would ask one of those heart searching, thought provoking questions that would bring back painful memories or reveal something I thought had been buried deep enough to not be seen or heard from again. Something that God saw me holding onto that was hindering my journey to beautiful.I was gently reminded that God is lovingly and patiently waiting on me to hand over my broken pieces so that He can transform them into a beautiful masterpiece. The scriptures and stories throughout reaffirm God's grace, mercy and faithfulness which sustained real women through some very real, very hard and personal things. From giggles to Kleenex and cover to cover I was encouraged, renewed, convicted, challenged and strengthened.

I believe God can use this book to transform women's lives and heal hearts!! Read this and you'll be reminded, as I was, that you are valued, priceless and adored! Be encouraged, be restored and then get a copy for someone you know who's broken!

K.A.
Denver, NC