Upside-Down Prayers for Parents - A Review

Upside-Down Prayers for Parents by Lisa Bergren is a wonderful parent's devotional. Inside its covers are 31 devotionals. Each devotional starts with something you should pray for your child. These are not your run of the mill prayers for happiness, safety, and wonderful spouses. These are prayers that will result in great spiritual growth, for example:

I pray you will...

• suffer loss so you can see how God can use all things for good
• face hardships so you can see how the Lord provides
• get so weary that you will give up and learn that through submission to God comes great strength

After this short prayer suggestion is a short bible verse. Then it gets to the meat. Lisa spends roughly 2-3 pages discussing the reasons behind the prayer. She writes in a way that is completely relatable and I saw myself in nearly every page of this book. Next is a prayer to pray. I noticed right off that these prayers are just as much for the parents as for the children, if not more.

God put this book in my hands today. It could only have been His timing as it has been sitting on my dresser for about a week.. It was a rough weekend and Monday. God used this book to speak to me today. That's right, today I went through the entire book. Nearly all of the devotions and prayers related to the specific difficulties that I have been struggling with over the past 3 days. I needed this book today and am grateful to have had the chance to read it. It may have made its way onto my exclusive list of books to bring on our mission trip.

That is not were the devotion ends though. There is a small area to record your thoughts on the questions about the theme of the day's devotion. Also, there are questions to ask younger kids or older kids to help them understand the topics and help apply them to their lives. This is a book I plan on returning to time and again. I highly recommend it!

I would like to thank Water Brook Multnomah for providing me with a free copy of this book to review as a part of the Blogging for Books program.

Ministry of Motherhood: A Review

I have been reading The Ministry of Motherhood by Sally Clarkson and couldn't be happier with the time spent. This book is all about discipling your children and giving them the gifts that God has given all of us. The gifts discussed include grace, inspiration, faith, training, and service.

If you are the type who skips the introduction to a book, make sure not to skip this one! It was quite a bit longer than expected but I was teary eyed by the end of the first section of the intro. The story of where Sally started her journey with her small children rang so true for my own life.  There is also information about how to use the book in a small group study or as a devotional on your own, as I did. The discussion questions throughout the book are open ended and very thought provoking.

Each part, containing smaller daily chapters, discusses one of the gifts. She gives many examples through narrative. I loved her telling of stories from the bible. They simply come to life and it is like you are right there inside history. The stories from her own life are wonderful too. I was able to relate to each and every one of them. They gave me an insider's view of how she practiced what she is teaching in the book.

This book has become one of my all time favorites. It is compelling and well written. I read it on my kindle and it was very well done in digital format. This is one that will stay in my library for a long time, to read again and again!

Thank you Blogging for Books for allowing me to review this fantastic book for you!

More Books

I have 2 more books to share!

Indescribable by Louie Giglio and Matt Redman
Love! I mean, really and truly  This book is stunning in it's photographs of space. The blending of science facts and the pure majesty of God in this book is phenomenal  I am about  one third of the way through and it is marvelous. I especially like that it comes with a DVD of the same name. Giglio is a fantastic speaker and brings the book to life on the screen. The book hold so much more information though and I am glad to have the chance to read it...even though I forgot to add it to my book list yesterday.

Miracle for Jen by Linda Barrick
I don't actually have this book yet. I got accepted into the Tyndale Blogging Network today. I will be doing book reviews for them as well and this is the first book I selected. It is a true story of God's work and sounds quite good. It should be shipping out at the end of the month as this copy is an actual book.