Made New: A Women's Year-Long Devotional

If you have been a part of the #BISsisterhood for a while, then you know that, each year, we bring you devotionals for the Advent and Lenten seasons.

You have been asking us for a devotional that can be used throughout the year, too. A year-long devotional that can be a companion to your prayer.

We are so excited to tell you about Made New.

Made New: A Year-Long Devotional for Catholic Women

When a publisher reached out from Harper Collins about collaborating on a book, I kind of couldn't believe my email.

My interest and intrigue grew as we met and heard about what they were open to and what Blessed is She could bring to the table. In my heart, I have always believed our devotional writing team to be the best writers out there, Catholic or no. Just a remarkable group of women who write from their hearts each and every day for the whole world to read, for tens of thousands of women to receive in our free daily emails, for them to open our Advent and Lent devotional books, for them to hear how our prayer and relationship with God is going in an unfiltered, real way.

So as their Managing Editor, I couldn't have been more proud than when our book pitches were received so graciously, and our writers leapt in. They wrote at what I would call a drop-dead-marathon-pace. Brittany Calavitta, Liz Kelly, Leana Bowler, Jenna Guizar, and me all wrote as fast as our little hearts could. Then we edited and edited and of course, dragged our fearless Theological Editor, Susanna Spencer into the mix and she read and read. We turned in a manuscript that was strong, clean, and darn-near ready for publication!

Jenna wrangled the art end of things, and Ash Ulmer put together the most beautiful Scripture pull-quotes and cover.

The women we worked with at Harper Collins Christian Book Division (Thomas Nelson) were all-in for the book, believed in us, helped us navigate the churn-y waters, and landed this gorgeous book into our laps. We're so very grateful.

Enough of the backstory, on to the book!

What to Expect

It's a book for your whole year in 2022. Who doesn't need to be made new after all we've been through? And it's called just that, Made New, to shine light on the ways our identity is made new in God.

It's divided into five sections:

1. beheld
2. belong
3. beloved
4. believing
5. becoming

The five writers tell ten stories each (well, I snuck in an eleventh) from ten stages of life, ten different seasons that we all experienced so differently.

But yet, rooted in a Scripture passage for each week, we come to the same conclusion: our identity isn't in how successful or how popular or how acclaimed, or how included, or how loved on we are by people but rather being made in God's image and likeness. It's been about Him all along.

Oh yes, and there are two questions I drafted after each reflection and they're to help you find out this truth too.

I weep over our stories, I laugh, and I cheer. I know you will, too. Please get a pre-order copy. We've put together some sweet gifts for those who pre-order. But no matter how you get it, you, your sister, your bestie, your neighbor, and your grandma all need this book to experience being made new in 2022.

We're all in this together, so we made this book for you.

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About Nell O'Leary

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Nell O’Leary is the Managing Editor for Blessed is She, an attorney turned writer, speaker, and editor while tending to her husband and five kiddos. She also facilitates our community groups as she loves helping women find sisterhood. Her undergrad is in English from University of Minnesota and her J.D. from Ave Maria School of Law. Notably, she can down a hot cocoa in two seconds. Find out more about her here.