I still remember reading Katie’s Davis’ first book Kisses From Katie. I was sitting under a mosquito net in the stifling heat of a Haiti summer. My husband and I were operating a non-profit at the time. We had three daughters chasing each other through the mission house and a host of Haitian children playing in the yard. Reading about Katie’s life raising a dozen adopted girls in Uganda and starting a non-profit as a single woman, gave me just the spoonful of brave I needed to wade through the hard stuff.
Her words were my lifeline, my inspiration, my challenge to keep on keeping on. That was four years ago. Almost a different lifetime ago for both Katie and me.
The other day a friend texted me. “You have to read Daring to Hope by Katie Davis. I can’t put it down, reminds me of you.”
I went straight to Amazon and ordered it. I knew I needed her words again.
The book asks this critical question: How do you hold on to hope when you don’t get the ending you asked for?
This is a question I’ve asked myself dozens upon dozens of times in the last three years since my husband graduated to heaven. Katie is a hope writer like me. She is always chasing hope, always looking for God’s glory in unexpected places.
Although Daring to Hope could be considered a sequel to her first book, this book also stands alone. It’s a book about holding on to hope when you’re bone-weary and broken. Katie’s poignant storytelling and vulnerable sharing invites readers in. She grapples with the death of a friend, the sickness of many in her community, the suffering of her children. She walks a tightrope across life and death and still manages to embrace the extraordinary in the ordinary. She returns again and again to God’s Word and her purpose to give Him glory.
“Slowly, I was beginning to understand that it wasn’t my productivity that God desired; it was my heart,” writes Katie. “It wasn’t my ministry God loved; it was me. God was glorified, isglorified when we give Him our hearts, give Him ourselves, and faithfully do the thing right in front of us, no matter how small or trivial.”
That’s a big statement coming from a woman who experienced a lot of large things in her young life. She had a large family and directed a large ministry called Amazima. She led a large team of staff and volunteers to serve more than a thousand families.
This book reminded me that grief always gives way to the joy, that death always holds a promise of new life. I love the way Katie unfolds her love story, which again is a story brimming with hope.
Katie’s version of hope is never cheesy or far-fetched. It’s gritty, and sometimes a little bloody, and always redemptive. As she so beautifully sums up, her “scars whisper of His glory.”
**Thank you for reading today! If you’re interested in more of my book reviews, click HERE. I always share about books that touch me deeply and help me wade through grief to His glory.
