As a wife, mother of two children, and co-pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, Victoria Osteen loves her life. Through Lakewood, she and her husband, Pastor Joel Osteen, reach one of the biggest audiences in the U.S. and across the globe—over 40,000 people attend Lakewood church every week, tens of thousands attend worship events across the U.S., and millions more tune in by television. To say her life is busy would be an understatement. And yet, she strives to balance the demands of her commitments with joy, faith, love, and passion.

In her first book, LOVE YOUR LIFE: Living Happy, Healthy & Whole (Free Press; October 14, 2008; $25.00), Victoria Osteen presents a powerful plan for women to help them embrace and more fully enjoy their lives as she has done with hers.  Victoria encourages women to strike a balance between the pressures of the modern family and the modern world with their own happiness. In this book, she shares the eleven foundational truths that will inspire readers to tap into their own treasures within to live happy, healthy, and whole.

LOVE YOUR LIFE helps readers to love themselves first so that they can be of service to others. Victoria Osteen writes of nurturing her children to remind them of their greatness, and challenges readers to find their own greatness, too. Victoria weaves together Biblical wisdom with personal stories and messages to empower women to love themselves, love others, and commit fully to an engaged life of passion and action.

Victoria Osteen also shares the keys to her loving marriage and reinforces the importance of forgiveness, support, and reasonable expectations within relationships. Study the people in your life and make the necessary adjustments to have healthy relationships. Look for the common ground that unites you in your relationships, and honor it. Encourage the people around you with words of love, praise, and support. Keep the connections strong.

“Ultimately,” she writes, “loving your life is about discovering the greatness that’s inside of you and the influence you have on the world around you. You will be amazed at the impact you will have when you tap into the treasures within.” We hope you will study the attached with feature suggestions for a story on LOVE YOUR LIFE, or consider a timely review of Victoria Osteen’s new book. I look forward to discussing this inspiring new book with you soon.

**Also this fall, LOVE YOUR LIFE will be published as a Spanish edition—AMA TU VIDA: Cómo Llevar Una Vida Plena Sana y Feliz (Free Press Paperback; $16.99) and in January 2009, Little Simon Inspirations will release UNEXPECTED TREASURES (LSI; January 6th, 2009; $16.99), the first of many upcoming children's books written by Victoria Osteen.  Subrights information: Featured Alternate in Doubleday, Doubleday Large Print, Literary Guild, Crossings, Black Expressions, and BOMC2.

LOVE YOUR LIFE: Living Happy, Healthy, and Whole

Victoria Osteen

Women’s Magazine Feature Suggestions

v     Confidence is a process – how past experiences are preparing you for where you are right now, and how your experiences today will prepare you for your future, and why getting out of your comfort zone is important to reach new levels and successes. How Victoria’s own mother stretched her to build her confidence by taking an active role in the family’s fine jewelry business at age 13, even when she was terrified to interact with customers.

v     A working mom’s perspective – How it became stressful for Victoria to constantly be on the road traveling with the ministry, with many sleepless nights stressing over what they had packed and whether they’d remembered everything. Finally, she took a step back and realized how out of character her thinking had become, that her worries and concerns had distorted her perspective. She decided right then and there she’d never be stressed about packing for trips ever again. She decided to let herself off the hook – it wouldn’t be the end of the world if she forgot her son’s socks or her daughter’s toothbrush – and it released her from an enormous load of pressure. Now she doesn’t get trapped in self-defeating thoughts of worry and, instead, switches gears and moves forward – allowing herself to enjoy her future experiences. How you can do the same.

v     Enjoy the people you love - Don’t put off important things because we make them bigger in our minds than they already are – keep your attention on what matters. Often times we think we can’t do something because we think we need to schedule it too far in advance, or we don’t have the right clothes. Maybe you feel like you can’t invite your friends or family over because the dining room needs painting or the gutters need fixing. Stop. Find perspective and make your relationships a priority by finding simple ways to enjoy the people you love.

v     Cultivate rich relationships – Learn to have realistic expectations and let people off the hook. Give people room to be human and avoid heartache. It’s not up to anyone in our lives to keep us happy and content; that is our own responsibility. Depend on our God-given inner strength as a source of fulfillment. Disappointments are for a season, relationships are for a lifetime.

v     He said, she said – Love your husband by understanding his communication style. Adapt to him to have a better relationship. For example; Victoria communicates differently by only sharing the most important details of the story.  She knows when Joel is going on “detail overload” and adapts to his style of communication to have a better relationship with him.

v     Speak words of faith and victory into your family – Recognize the weight your words carry and the influence you have on those closest to you. Understand the power of encouragement, take time to identify specific strengths in people and build on those strengths with our words.

v     More is caught than taught – be careful in front of children. They are like little sponges, absorbing every word that comes out of our mouths and imitating our every action.  By living our life with purpose and resolve we can challenge those around us to rise higher, using our words to paint pictures in the hearts of those we love, creating masterpieces with every stroke.