Glimpses of Grace [eBook]

Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home

Sometimes life feels a lot like a burden—day-in and day-out its the same chores and tasks, challenges and discouragements, anxieties and responsibilities. Dust bunnies show up on the stairwell, social commitments clutter the calendar, and our families demand daily attention and care. At times, just catching our breath seems like an impossible feat.

So where is God in all of this? Does he care about the way we unload the dishwasher or balance the budget? Do the little things like changing diapers or cooking meals make a difference? And how can we use our spheres of influence for God’s glory and our joy?

Whether you are a stay-at-home mom or a working woman splitting time between the office and home, Gloria Furman—writer, pastor’s wife, cross-cultural worker, and mom—encourages us to see the reality of God’s grace in all of life, especially those areas that often appear to be boring and unimportant. Using personal examples and insightful stories, her richly theological reflections help us experience the gospel’s extraordinary power to transform our ordinary lives.

Gloria Furman is a wife, mother of three young children, doula, and blogger. In 2008 her family moved to the Middle East to plant Redeemer Church of Dubai where her husband, Dave, serves as the pastor.

“I know no one who is leveraging her everyday life more for the glory of God than Gloria Furman. I want to learn about God and grace from people who live it and fight to do so. I’ve seen my friend do both beautifully. Gloria has taken the bigness of God and laid him into the cracks of the mundane, and somehow the mundane starts to feel big.”
—Jennie Allen, author, Stuck: The Places We Get Stuck and the God Who Sets Us Free

“This is sustaining grace, this is the desired haven: to know his steadfast love that saves and keeps us. Glimpses of Grace is not a how-to. It is a true friend’s invitation to see and know the Lord’s steadfast love displayed in every wave, big and small. Gloria offers encouragement rooted in her personal experience and wisdom from saints who have weathered the storms decades and even centuries before us. May you catch glimpses of his steadfast love and find an anchor for your soul.”
—Lauren Chandler, writer; speaker; singer; wife of Matt Chandler, The Village Church, Flower Mound, Texas

“Gloria is real! She’s going to tell you about the smell of her kitchen floor and the steadfast love of her Savior. Jonathan Edwards is right in there with peanut butter sandwiches and sprinkles. The grace this book shows us is no vague idea; it’s the biblical gospel infusing the stuff of life—the daily life of a homemaker. Strongly, humbly, and winsomely, this book calls homemakers (and all of us) to walk in faith, connecting the visible with the invisible.”
—Kathleen B. Nielson, Director of Women’s Initiatives, The Gospel Coalition

“Glimpses of Grace is a beautiful picture of what it looks like to see Jesus Christ every day in every circumstance. Our friend Gloria takes the glories of Christ’s life and opens our eyes to their realities in the seemingly mundane circumstances of our lives. She builds a longing to know more of God and to believe that he is present in all of our work as mothers and wives. Her passion for missions and joy in God is contagious. We are excited to recommend this book to anybody wanting to see the ultimate reality of satisfaction in Christ alone for every day of your life.”
—Jessica Thompson and Elyse Fitzpatrick, co-authors, Give Them Grace

“We need gospel fuel to joyfully serve our families, and that’s what Glimpses of Grace provides. Many days I unload a barrage of law upon my family, when what they need from me is grace, encouragement, and reminders of God’s faithfulness. I thank the Lord for using Gloria to point me to the glorious gospel of his grace so that I might extend the same grace to my husband and children. As homemakers we can be smothered by the ordinary, blinded by the mundane, living in a fog of routine and fatigue, unable to see how to clean messy noses or break up sibling squabbles for the glory of God. In Glimpses of Grace Gloria helps to lift the fog by showing us how the gospel can change our perspective as we serve and love our families.”
—Kristie Anyabwile, homemaker; mom; wife of Thabiti Anyabwile, First Baptist Church of Grand Cayman

“Every homemaker, every mother, every woman, has experienced the disconnect between what she knows and what she feels, between knowing that what she is doing is good and the reality that it is exasperating and seems unfulfilling. In Glimpses of Grace Gloria Furman brings the gospel to bear on a woman’s distinct calling. With precision and grace she shows that the good news of all that Jesus Christ accomplished, when properly understood and carefully applied, will transform the way a woman carries out the task the Lord has given her.”
—Aileen and Tim Challies, author, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment; blogger, challies.com