Oh my! What a book!
I was invited to be a part of the Launch Team for this book…and this may be the hardest review I ever have or will write.
Because I’d love to tell you how much I love this book.
But I just can’t.
Would I tell you to order it this second, drive to the bookstore now, buy it and read it today?
Yes!
But I can’t say I love it.
Because the truth is…this book hurt me.
It peeled back layers of ‘we’re doing this parenting thing pretty well’ to reveal a lot of ugliness, selfishness, laziness and fear in my heart.
And that’s never easy, and certainly not fun.
Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World has encouraged me, challenged me, and convicted me. All three in the best of ways.
What I most love and respect about this book and my dear how-I-wish-we-were-friends-in-real-life Kristen Welch writes this not from the perspective from a pulpit, on a pedestal, or as a professional.
She writes these challenging words as a mom in the trenches. Wading through parenthood, teen-hood, tween-hood (is that even a word?)
Just like me.
Repeatedly she talks about how she doesn’t have the answers, her family is far from perfect, she cries, her kids cry, her kids slam doors and roll their eyes.
Just like me.
But the part that challenges me, convicts me, that makes this book hard to love is that there’s one big difference.
Kristen is out changing the world every day.
You see, Kristen started a non-profit that funds maternity homes in Africa a few years ago. You can read more about it here…http://wearethatfamily.com/the-mercy-house/
She also started a club called Fair Trade Friday that delivers high quality fair trade items to your door once a month. I wrote about it over the summer, and I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read a few of my posts about how Fair Trade Friday has impacted me and women around the world.
And for a mom, a nanny, a wife like me…it’s easy to feel like my daily life isn’t good enough. Isn’t changing the world. Isn’t having an impact.
But that’s a lie.
The love, training, teaching, caring, sacrificing, cooking, cleaning, encouraging, praying, organizing, hugging, connecting that I do with the people that God has placed in my life is changing the world. Perhaps a smaller part of it than Kristen…but who knows. Only God does.
Maybe I’m raising the next Billy Graham. Or President of the United States. Or Church Planter. Or Missionary. Or Husband. Or Father of one of these World Changers….
that will change his world….and hopefully, change His world.
So that makes ME a World Changer too.
So I will keep wading through the trenches of tween-hood and teen-hood, but with great guidance, encouragement and grace from this book to help me raise my boys to be grateful kids in an entitled world.
I’m thankful that I read Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World. I strongly encourage you to read it also. (It can be purchased at your local bookstore, Amazon, or Tyndale) It won’t be an easy read…but it will be worth it.
Kristen also has created a journal to go along with the book. The link below opens it for you to print. She took hers to Kinko’s and had it spiral bound.
I hope this journal will help you as you reflect on what you read in the book
https://www.scribd.com/doc/295844134/Journal-FINAL
