Wholeness Through Coloring: a book review

I have been known to steal crayons from my kids when we go out to eat so I could draw and color too, but I don’t totally get the adult coloring craze. If I am going to sit down with a crayon in hand, I want to create something new—sketching, drawing, creating. I don’t want to color inside the lines, or outside. In my world, there are no lines. 

But Words of Healing: A Coloring Book to Comfort and Inspire is a fantastic coloring book. Like other Paraclete Press coloring books, the right-hand page has a pattern and design with a Capital letter, the left-hand page has a word that begins with that letter, and a Bible verse. So on one page, you read the word Deliver with Psalm 91:14, “Those who love me, I will deliver; I will protect those who know my name,” on the corresponding page, is a calligraphic “D” with a leafy pattern behind it.  Coloring the letter provides space to meditate on the word and passage, and to pray. A full-color Lectio Divina. 

This is great when you consider the coloring book’s theme, healing. The words and verses speak of God’s kindness, healing, renewal, hope, light, freedom, grace, good news and more. In the Christian sense, healing means being made whole. It is always God’s work.

When we are in need of healing—when we are broken or wounded, in pain or suffering from a chronic illness—we do not have the mental space for study, hard work or creative endeavor. Spiritual practices that are too demanding will not be helpful because we do not have the mental capacity for them. Coloring in a book like this is a way of quiet way of being in God’s presence, to allow Him to work. 

As someone who has been privileged to walk alongside people in pain, and provide pastoral care and home visits,  I appreciate a resource like this. It provides people an easy way to connect with God when they don’t have the psychological wherewithal for reading, theology or heroic spiritual disciplines. I may not be an avid colorer, but I can commend this book for the simple way it enables us to be available to God when we feel broken, tired, hurt and like we have nothing left to give. This is the sort of resource that is nice to hand off to someone who is going through hard times. I give it five stars. 

Note: I received this book from Paraclete Press in exchange for my honest review.