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In Stronger Than You Think: Becoming Whole Without Having to be Perfect: A Woman’s Guide, Kim Gaines Eckert explores our desire for wholeness. Using true stories from some of the women that she has counseled over the years, Kim addresses the common traps that women face universally. She describes how women search for wholeness in romance, motherhood, or their careers.

Eckert describes how many women are focused on the next role in life, and yet many seem unsatisfied when they attain their next goal. “As a college student, I could not wait to graduate and get married. As a young married woman, I just knew that finishing graduate school and getting a great job would bring satisfaction. As a professional, motherhood became my next goal. I was grateful for each new experience and role, which made it all the more confusing and guilt-producing when I still felt something was missing,” she writes.

Eckert explores women’s longing to “be filled up with God’s presence and to find our peace and identity in Christ. When we don’t see that happening in our own lives, we add that to our guilt and self-condemnation.”

Eckert discusses relationships as the primary source of our pain. She explains how past hurts and failed relationships may destroy our current relationships. She also explores the underlying sense of inadequacy that many struggle with, writing, “We may have grown up hearing critical comments from parents, peers or siblings. As adults, we sometimes internalize those harsh statements and become our own biggest critic.” As Eckert explores our pursuit of wholeness, she points out that true wholeness is found only in Jesus Christ.

You can read an excerpt from Stronger Than You Think, to open up a PDF version of the first chapter.