Book excerpt: No matter what you are feeling, you are not alone. This book, written by teenager girls for teenage girls, will help you lean into your emotions and develop an attitude of exploration and adventure when it comes to discovering what Jesus is doing in your life. These devotions and prayers provide a real, accessible, and down-to-earth way of inviting Jesus into whatever emotions you are experiencing. Whether you get one for yourself or for a teenager you love, this resource is an invitation to take a small step toward following Jesus in every emotion. INSIDE YOU'LL FIND: ★ Real Emotions Five teenage girls, ages 13 to 19, chose the emotions for this book and then wrote openly and honestly about how they experience these emotions in their everyday lives. ★ Real Encouragement Are you frustrated? Are you tired? Are you lonely, or hopeful, or confident, or carefree? Whatever you are feeling, you are not alone. ★ A Real Jesus Time and time again, these young women help you invite Jesus into your experience. This is no quick fix book on how to stop feeling what you feel. This is a sing at the top of your lungs, shout out your prayers, or talk to the ceiling fan if God doesn't seem to be listening kind of book. Be real. Be you. And you'll find a real Jesus walking right beside you the whole time. INVITE JESUS INTO YOUR EMOTIONS The teenage authors of this book chose six emotions for each of six key emotional experiences. In the Emotion Wheel on the front cover, you can find all 36 of the emotions covered in this devotional book in the second ring of emotions. Each of the authors brings her unique perspective and her unique experiences to these emotions. Their honest joys and struggles invite other teens to experience themselves and their emotions fully, and to invite Jesus into that experience. Each devotion includes a helpful description of an emotion, including some of the ways that emotion gets expressed in physical ways. After sharing a carefully-selected Bible verse and their own, personal experience of the emotion, each author also searches Scripture to find a Bible character who might have gone through something similar. That People Like Me section of each devotion helps highlight the fact that, whatever you are feeling, you are not alone. Each emotion devotion ends with a personal prayer, and the invitation to add your own thoughts and your own personal prayers. Brief faith experiments and reflection questions extend that invitation beyond the devotion and into the rest of your day or week. PRAISE FOR THE EMOTIONAL DEVOTIONAL As a Deaconess, Licensed Counselor, accomplished author, and mom, Heidi Goehmann knows a thing or two about teenagers, emotions, and following Jesus. Here's what Heidi had to say: The Emotional Devotional offers teens a space to explore the many and complicated emotions that are a beautiful and frustrating part of life here on this earth, within a framework of Creation, Grace, and Redemption in Christ Jesus. This resource uniquely offers the normalizing impact of one teen talking to another teen, reading and learning together, around who they are in this body and who they are in Christ. Thank you to the teens for being willing to share their voices and their experiences. The reader will benefit from both! Get one for yourself or for someone you love!