Pierced and Embraced : Seven Life-Changing Encounters with the Fierce Love of Christ

How would you describe the love of God?

Throughout the Gospel accounts, Jesus engaged women differently than He did men. Sometimes the difference is subtle. Sometimes it is stark. Always it is profound.

Sometimes the love He offers them is gentle. Sometimes it is fierce. Always it is powerful.

Sometimes that love feels like a warm embrace. Sometimes it’s more like a piercing jab. Always, it changes everything.

Women today long to experience the same sort of life-changing love that Jesus lavished on His followers 2000 years ago. We still want to be completely seen and known and valued and set free—as painful as that process might sometimes be.

Pierced and Embraced digs deeply into seven encounters that Jesus had with a wide variety of women in the Gospels to show how His love can be equally transformative in our lives today. It mixes attentive Scriptural engagement with personal narrative and relevant application, making the content fresh, accessible, engaging, and practical.

You will:

• Understand the unique and powerful and complex ways in which Jesus loves the women of the gospels.
• Recognize your own longings for love and the (often inadequate) ways we seek to satisfy them.
• Discover how to live in the fullness of Jesus’ love for you.

Includes study/reflection questions at the end of each chapter, inviting women to dig into the passages for themselves.

Winner of the ECPA's Top Shelf Cover Award 2017

KELLI WORRALL is Professor of Communication at Moody Bible Institute, Chicago. She’s also a writer and a speaker and blogs at www.thisoddhouse.org. She coauthored the book 20 Things We’d Tell Our Twentysomething Selves with her husband, Peter (www.peterandkelli.com). Kelli received a B.S. in Communication from Cedarville University, a Masters degree in Religious Education from Trinity International University, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Roosevelt University. Kelli lives in McHenry, Illinois, with Peter and their two children, Daryl and Amelia.