Book Review - Every Heart's Cry

Recently we were given a stack of books. I, of course, looked through them as soon as politely possible, and then settled down to read one that caught my eye, namely Every Heart's Cry.

Basically, Every Heart's Cry goes through identifying every heart's cry, (to be loved unconditionally), why we crave love, the negatives of refusing to love, and being brave enough to love and be loved wholeheartedly.

Judging from the title (and cover picture) I was wondering if this book would be all about the love between a husband and wife. But it's not. Of course, all the principles discussed apply to a husband and wife relationship, but it's actually written from the perspective of having friends, and being a friend.

The reason we crave love, and want to be loved unconditionally, is because that's how we were created. God made us out of love, and we love him because He first loved us. Back in Eden everything was loving, loveable, and lived forever; that's the kind of environment we were designed to live in. We were made to love and to be loved. That's also why it hurts when somebody is unkind, or we have to deal with the loss of loved one. Those things were never meant to be a part of our life.

Towards the end of the book it talk about being wholehearted in our friendships. All of us want wholehearted friends. But to love and be loved wholeheartedly, we need to be vulnerable. Dannielle Synot describes vulnerability “as a fundamental characteristic of people who are wholehearted” (page 73) Now, in my mind, up until this point, being vulnerable was synonymous with weakness, maybe even cowardliness. It's not something I'd ever aspire to be. But this book points out that we have to be vulnerable. We have to show who we really are, and what's behind all the masks and excuses. You can't become friends with a mask, you have to know the real person.

Being vulnerable begins with having a little self-worth, and letting go of what we 'should-be' and just being who we are – still striving to be our best of course, but accepting who we really are and being content with that. If we're content with where and how God has placed us in the moment, then we'll feel comfortable about sharing it with others.

Maybe none of that is new to you, but for me - I know I have a lot of things to learn about being a good friend. This book brought up quite a few things i'd never thought about before. The principles discussed made sense to me, so I enjoyed reading the book from that perspective. But, I can't really recommend it because it was poorly written. There was incorrect grammar, and the style was very casual, not professional, and almost flippant at times. I know sometimes that style is effective, but I didn't like it in this book. Then, I felt like it spent a lot of time going around in circles saying the same thing in a few different ways - to bulk out the book, maybe? In my opinion it could have been a lot more condensed and concise.

 So, have you read Every Heart's Cry? What do you think are important principles of friendship?