Praying Upside Down by Kelly O’Dell Stanley

Do you often wonder if God hears your prayers? Do you pray the same thing over and over and still don’t receive any answers?

Do you ask yourself the following questions?

• Is God listening?
• Am I praying the wrong way?
• Why won’t He answer?

I’m sure we’ve all gone through times when we’ve asked at least one of the above.

I have.

Perhaps we need to shake up our prayer life. Change things.

Kelly O’Dell Stanley’s book, Praying Upside Down will help do just that. It gives us fresh insight on how to pray. I love this explanation she provides:

“Praying upside down is a way to move your prayers away from the expected so that you can learn something new, hear an answer you didn’t anticipate, or see God in a unique way. It isn’t a form of manipulation or an attempt to trick God into giving you what you want. And it’s not a time-consuming, difficult, lofty type of prayer. It’s a set of tools that will grow and change and adapt as you use them.”  –Kelly O’Dell Stanley

This book challenges the reader on how we’ve thought and been taught about prayer.

Ms. Stanley is an artist and she uses that perspective to teach us to step out of the box and contemplate how we can approach our prayer lives differently.

I enjoyed the “prayer palettes” at the end of the chapters. Each one gives a creative idea on how to approach the throne uniquely. I loved the “shift your perspective” concept. The chapter lengths were a good size and made it easier to read. My only negative comment about this book is there was one chapter that I thought she could have condensed. Other than that, I loved her personal stories and thoughts on prayers.

I give Praying Upside Down five stars.

I’ve seen the power of prayer. I’ve felt it. I believe in it.

And yes, God is listening. Sometimes, we just need to look from another angle.

This book will help give us that perspective.

And turn our prayer lives upside down.

I personally wouldn’t have it any other way!

**Book has been provided courtesy of The Blog Spot for an honest review.

Contest!!

I would like to give away my copy of Praying Upside Down. The contest rules are simple—leave a comment on the blog and you will be entered. Bonus entry– if you leave a comment AND share this post on Facebook you will get two entries (tag me on Facebook or let me know in the comments). Contest closes Saturday, May 30th at midnight. Enter now! (Open to residents of the USA and Canada only.)