Authenticity through brokenness; A Key to parenting

You Can Raise Courageous and Confident Kids: Preparing Your Children for the World They Live"
By  Mary E. DeMuth

I was hooked on this book from the allegory at the beginning: "When he walked down the peopled street into the free, wild unknown, Jacob had no tools to navigate the world. He dropped his satchel and faced the confusing world lost and alone" to the very last page. Mary gives us the tools to use, so that our children will not have to feel lost and alone navigating the world.
I am a great fan of Mary E. DeMuth, both of her fiction and nonfiction. As I was reading this book, I thought how it would help so many people in the "Adult Children of Alcoholics" groups as they have had parenting at its worst. They sometimes talk about their childhood's and how they were parented. It is obvious although some have made great strides not to parent in the same way they were parented they could so benefit by Mary's books. When we have a "lost childhood" we sometimes don't know how to parent.
Many times as I was reading I wished I had grown up in the type of home that Mary is giving her children right now. Although she sometimes feels as we all do, that she fails her children at times. She has written some powerful, helpful things to steer us on in "You Can Raise Courageous and Confident Kids: Preparing Your Children for the World They Live"

Mary also gives questions for group discussions at the closing of the book that could be used as a personal Bible Study. Great addendum!
The story at the end of this book showed the very best scenario and I had tears running down my face as I saw what a beautiful send-off we can give if we really get the hang of raising courageous and confident kids. It would be a great gift to give at a baby shower.
Mary is a master storyteller but she shows authenticity through brokenness and for this reason I recommend this book.

Donna Collins Tinsley

I was very late getting this review written and for that I apologize:)
http://www.amazon.com/You-Raise-Courageous-Confident-Kids/dp/0736929711/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315832138&sr=1-10

What Encourages and Inspires You?

I’m rereading Janice Elsheimer’s book The Creative Call: An Artist's Response to the Way of the Spirit (Writers' Palette Book)
 http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Call-Artists-Response-Writers/dp/0877881383/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1310564089&sr=8-1


I am trying to do the exercises that go along with the page readings. Here is one response. What encourages and inspires me?


Words encourage me, the Word, life, breath of truth, books encourage me. Lives inspire me, babies, beauty, children, people, faith, age, and kindness, sharing; all these inspire me.


Love inspires and encourages me to be a better me. Jaycee Dugard that lived 18 years of Hell without becoming bitter inspires me. Her mother and the hope that she held on to, inspires me. Little Caylee’s big brown eyes inspire me.


People who become better instead of bitter inspire me. The hope of happiness and reconciliation inspires and encourages me; the hope of it through Jesus Christ and Him only who will get all glory. My family inspires and encourages me but the love of Jesus is my chief inspiration and it will always be that way.

The Ringing Phone

When you have gotten that one phone call that shatters your life, you will never hear a phone ringing again without remembering. When you hear the news that your grandchild has tried to take her life you will never be the same. When you realize that she was sadder than you thought, more depressed, in pain and you just didn’t see it, you weep.
When all seems lost yet you know that you are not facing an open grave and looking at a casket, what can rise in your heart but gratitude?


Gratitude for a new day, a new dawn, and new chance for her, for her family and all those who love her. We must give thanks that the Lord has intervened, He has said, “It is not time for the enemy to triumph over this one, this daughter of Mine. I stopped the knife, I sent the help, I’m in the deep darkness of soul pain and hurt. I give strength, I give hope, I give new chances to make things right. I will give justice at My timing and I see all things. I am the “God Who Sees.” There is nothing impossible for Me. There is nothing impossible for Me. There is nothing impossible for Me. She is beauty as the dawn; she is mine.


You can’t control, change or create her life. Give her to Me as you give all the hopes, dreams, tears and prayers. Many will see and come to believe because of a life portrayed as Mine, through her.”

So we press on and hope. We press on and try to have faith, patience and love. We open the closed fists that try to hold on and release to the Lord Jesus those we love and treasure.


But when we hear the phone ringing we will always remember the phone call that changed our lives

The Treasure Within and what is better than a Hallelujah?

Sometimes it is hard to figure out what the Lord is up to in our lives. That's where the Lean not on your own understanding verse comes in. And of course the Hebrews chapter 11 that has so much encouragement: All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.


And especially: the world was not worthy of them.

Remember the vision the Lord has given you, my friends and prayer warriors. The world is not worthy of the treasure within you but the Lord has chosen to use it not abuse it. May we live to ever praise Him in the midst of tears, pain, heartache, family dilemmas, hardship, lost dreams and broken hearts.

I love the lyrics to Amy Grant's song that I am including:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOHJghBU0XA
Better Than A Hallelujah lyrics
God loves a lullaby
In a mother's tears in the dead of night
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes
God loves the drunkard's cry
The soldier's plea not to let him die
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes


We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful, the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah
The woman holding on for life
he dying man giving up the fight
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes
The tears of shame for what's been done
The silence when the words won't come
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes


We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful, the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah

Better than a church bell ringing
Better than a choir singing out, singing out
We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful, the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah


We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful, the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah

(Better than a Hallelujah sometimes)

Better than a Hallelujah

(Better than a Hallelujah sometimes)




Songwriters: Hart, Sarah; Hartford, Chapin;

Read Life in Defiance: A Novel (Defiance Texas Trilogy) by Mary E. DeMuth

I was torn between wanting the savor the book as I knew it was the last one in the Defiance Texas Trilogy and hurry up and finish so I could see who killed Daisy Chance. It was so hard to put down and go about what I needed to do during the day; my reward was coming back to the book as often as I could. I will savor it the second reading. I love everything that Mary E DeMuth has written! I will always be a fan of her writing, her overcoming spirit and her fiction story telling.
Daisy Chain (Defiance Texas Trilogy, Book 1) A Slow Burn (Defiance Texas Trilogy, Book 2) must be read first, although there is enough background for this to be a stand-alone book. But you don't want to miss a word that Mary has written. Powerful, scorching, melodic and spiritual words that will sear your soul.
I will always love Mary's characters and Hixon is still my favorite but Emory grew to be a close second. Strange how things can change from the first book to the second. And in Life in Defiance she became a woman after my own heart.

Perhaps it was a bit harder for me to read this one as I lived through seeing my own mother abused horribly when I was a young child. Not only her, but I still remember the purple welts on my brother's back. Maybe I didn't want to read deeply and find those memories and flashbacks are still deep within me; forgiven but who could forget memories like those?
I so love this trilogy that I had to email Zondervon Publisher and ask: Why would you let Mary end with only 3 books when the story's characters call out to be elaborated on in many other books; Defiance, Texas trilogy surely is only a beginning? Mary's readers are crying for more.
Mary, you are a magnificent writer and I feel you deep in my soul. I only wish I could buy all your books for all my friends and family. Blessings, peace and fruitfulness I pray for you and yours.

Who Could Make Normal out of This?

Who Could Make Normal out of This?




Do you sometimes look at your family and think, "Who Could Make Normal out of This?" Does it require faith to live a normal life in the world we live in? I believe it does!


It's impossible to please God apart from faith. And why? Because anyone who wants to approach God must believe both that he exists and that he cares enough to respond to those who seek him. Hebrews 11:6 (MSG)

Do you have a “normal family”? What does normal look like to you? Do you have to be happy to be normal? I’m about to come to the conclusion that there are no normal families, because what makes one person happy in the family doesn’t always make the other person happy. And when you have a large family it is a miracle if you can get anyone to agree on anything. Unless you are the Walton’s, and sometimes Mama wasn’t always happy with the kids, especially when they got older and sassier.


I must concur with Patsy Clairmont, who said, “Normal is only a setting on your clothes dryer.” May your day be blessed, and don’t worry if your family isn’t normal; God loves them anyway!