Zondervan Homeschool Mom's Bible {A Review}

A beautiful Bible filled with encouragement for homeschool Moms.

Homeschool Mom's Bible - NIV

The Essentials - What you need to know
• Zondervan 
• Homeschool Mom's Bible - NIV 
• Age Range: The devotions in this Bible are targeted toward moms of homeschooling children.
• A hardback book with thin pages and a paper dust jacket.  It is a comfortable size, niether large, nor pocket sized.
• $34.95

The Review

This review was a bit of gift for me.  The Bible that I generally use I got almost twenty years ago. It is well used, highlighted and written in and to tell the truth a little shabby looking.  This beautiful book was a joy to read not only because it is the inspired word of God, but because of the new, crisp pages.  It is not a large book, about the size of any church pew bible, measuring 8 1/2 inches by 5 1/2 inches. It fits nicely into a tote bag.  I requested the New International Version (2011 update) because that is my personal reading preference.  There is also a King James Version available. The type is standard print, not large print.

As far as basic Bible features there is a table of contents, list of books of the Bible, a preface by  the Committee on Bible Translation, which is in every NIV Bible, table of weight and measures, short topical index, and a few pages for notes. It does not have a lot of Biblical scholarly extras, commentary or concordance but it does have a wealth of encouragement for the homeschooling mom.

There is a beautiful forward written by Vickie Farris wife of HSLDA founder Dr. Michael Farris, talking about how we need to pause in the busyness of our homeschooling days to spend time with God's word. There is a few short paragraphs about the publishers and one short paragraph about Janet Tatman, the author of the devotionals sprinkled throughout the text. Then there is half a page About the NIV Homeschool Mom's Bible where Janet explains how the book is organized.  The book contains 365 devotionals, each a page long or a little less.  Every day of the year has a devotional chronologically ordered starting with January 1.  They are spread throughout the scriptures every few pages.  It dawned on me, after a few weeks that if I read the scripture between the devotionals it would give a nice framework for reading through the Bible in a year. I always wanted to do that and with this new tool intend to do so starting January 1 of next year.   The one thing that I deeply appreciated about the introduction to the devotionals while they are designed to encourage the homeschool mom they do not take away from the supremacy of scripture.  Janet ends her introduction with these words "More important than any of the special feature of this Bible is the text itself..."

The devotionals themselves are short and chock full of encouragement.   They range in topics and address all aspects of the homeschooled life.  They include a scripture, devotional and prayer. They all hold a nugget of truth.  I have my devotional time first thing in the morning.  Reading scripture and this short encouragement helped me to start my day with a right mindset.  I would recommend this Bible to any homeschooling mom. It would make a great gift too.