Just the Right Words at Just the Right Time

When Leanne penned a note to her daughter's coach that day, she had no idea it would make such a huge difference in Jill Beran's life. She didn't know Jill was at her lowest point, where doubt and loneliness had lead her into deep depression.

With just the right words, God spoke courage and hope into Jill's heart, through Leanne.

At just the right time, He reached through the darkness and touched Jill's life, through Leanne.

The night Jill came home, her depression had turned to despair. And then Leann's note fell out of Jill's journal. Simple words of appreciation brought hope into the darkness. Someone saw something in Jill that she couldn't see in herself. Someone believed her life was worth living.

Leanne's simple words helped changed the course of Jill's life. But, as I shared in my devotion today, that’s just the beginning of their story. You can read the rest of it in their book Letters from Leanne. Today, I asked them to share more with us about it:

Tell us a little about the book: Letters from Leanne is the story of our friendship over the last ten years and how God has worked through it . We share the joys and trials we've encountered on our walk of faith, but ultimately how we saw God’s hand in every situation.

Jill, why did you write this book? Initially, I wanted to thank Leanne. I’d been blessed by her perspective as a mom, her acceptance as a friend, her guidance as an older woman and especially the love she poured out as a Christian. But it isn’t just a thank you to Leanne; it’s a thank you to God. Our friendship has been and still is a gift. I pray by reading our story, women will be encouraged to build similar relationships in their lives.

What do you hope readers will gain? We pray women will be encouraged in their faith and inspired to find or be a mentor. We share how mentoring is not about having all the answers, but simply sharing your life with someone. We give you a look at a specific spiritual mentoring relationship and take you on the journey of how our's grew.

We've also included questions in each chapter to help women apply what we share to their personal lives. Women are encouraged to slow down and take a look at their own lives and find lessons in the letters.

To find out more about Letters from Leanne, visit Amazon. And if you'd like to connect with Jill you can visit her blog.

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Encouraging Words Gift Pack

A copy of Letters from Leanne
A $5 Starbucks gift card
A pack of pretty cards
A notepad to give away
20 verses to personalize and send to a friend

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To enter to win, click on the word "comments" below and include these three things in the white box:

1. Leave your name and email typed out (your name at email provider dot com).
   
   
2. List one person you're going to encourage this week and how you're going to do it.
   
   
3. List your favorite "encouraging" verse if you have one.

Be sure to come back Wednesday for a video blog chat with my friend, author and speaker, Jennifer Rothschild. She's shares great insights as we talk about the power of words! Also, I'll be sharing about new make-up I discovered that I call my "magic eraser." We used it to cover Jennifer's black eye. More about that Weds. You might even win some along with two of her amazing books and another gift card!