"With God's Grace Our Worst Past
Becomes Our Best Future"
Becomes Our Best Future"
SYNOPSIS
God indeed has a sense of humor. He chose children to teach us too-smart adults what being his child means, the very special relationship the believer enjoys with our Heavenly Father. We adults experience the same chaos, misadventure, and heartaches as our charges. Through a child’s example, we learn how God nurtures us with his infinitesimal patience. This easy to read, often hilarious narrative, uses cartoons, witticisms, anecdotes, quotes, and Scripture study to bring home these truths. A veteran social worker, Rondeau draws upon her many experiences in working with families as well as her personal experiences as a mom. You will want to keep this book close at hand for those moments of weakness and pass the story along to your friends.
READERS COMMENTS
This is not fiction. Nowhere near fiction, but definitely entertaining AND educational. The book is filled with pithy quotes, cartoons, and bits of Godly wisdom. If you didn't know before that God has a sense of humor--after all, He created us in His image--you might get a glimmer by the end of the book
I would highly recommend this book to mothers looking for a good devotional. I love how the author paralleled parenthood with godly lessons. Good humor kept me laughing at the beginning of each section too. This book would be a great resource because the examples are relatable on many levels and for mothers at all stages of motherhood.
Linda Wood Rondeau provides funny gems interspaced with Godly wisdom in her devotional, I Prayed For Patience, God Gave Me Children.This parenting devotional brought tears of laughter to my eyes and earned warm heartfelt responses. I loved how Linda wove in stories of how parenting our children helps us understand what being God’s child means. I especially respected how Linda illuminated the Bible’s commentary on ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child.’ Linda treads the quicksand between sparing and spoiling and explains what the Bible really means. I loved Linda’s astute comment, “If children hired parents, most of us would be standing in the unemployment line”. I highly recommend this devotional forparents and for grandparents.
Do you want a devotional?
An encouragement in your life?
An understanding of what God thinks of us?
How about a laugh?
Then this is the book for you.
With wit and wisdom, Rondeau shares experiences from her parenting and that of others and shows us how God sees us. If you want to dive deep, the work is filled with Scripture and study. If you want to read quickly, the pages can fly by and have you laughing out loud.
You will identify with the vignettes. You will be encourage
EXCERPT
Late to bed and early to rise makes for a very long day.
He also said, “ is is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain— rst the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” (Mark 4:26–29)
GOD’S SERVER NEVER SHUTS DOWN
“Do you want any help after the baby’s born?” my mother asked. She knew. I didn’t. I was young and foolhardy.
“No, thank you. I can manage. After all, I’ve taken care of children my whole life.”
How could I have known the di erence between caring for someone else’s child and my own? Then they put this eight-pound challenge in my arms. “Congratulations,” the doctor said. “Get ready for twenty more years of tired.”
I suppose he mistook my ashen panic for exhaustion.
As soon as I could get to a phone (in the days before cells), I rethought Mother’s kind invitation and relinquished my stalwart independence. “Help! I am scared sti !”
Wimps beware. Parenting is the ultimate endurance test where wit wins over strength. Th e job takes more patience than conducting a science experiment, sculpting a masterpiece, or waiting for a fish to bite. Parenting is hard work.
Whenever I wilted under the heat of day-to-day stress, my own mother would wrap her encouraging arms around me. “Patience, Dear. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither are children.”
Therein is the dilemma. Our culture allows us to experience immediate grati cation as never before. Technological wonders provide the modern parent with near instantaneous solutions to problems our matriarchal ancestors solved with grit and common sense. Searching Web MD, Women’s Day, Parenting on a Limited Budget, or a myriad of search engines, information is but a click away.
Yet, no tome of knowledge can quiet a mother’s anxious heart when her child weeps. Nor can a computer wipe away a tear as efficiently as a parent’s hug. From the beginning of time, most parents have managed to raise responsible children. The odds are in our favor. Even so, it’s nice to know we have help.
More dependable than the fastest wireless connection, God hears our confused cries before they are even uttered. “Do you need my help?”
“Every day in every way,” we answer.
INSIGHT
Read James 1:2–7, Ephesians 3:14–21, Romans 5:1–4, Hebrews 6:19,
Luke 21:19.
How is parenting, like our faith, a growth process? Do you sometimes feel you can’t hold on any longer? What do the above verses teach us about perseverance? How do we apply that as parents? As God’s children? Our children do not come with a manual, and each parenting event is peculiar to the individual child. Likewise, our spiritual journey is unique to us. However, we do learn, and we do have a teacher. There will be times our joy in the Lord will be tested, just as children test our patience time and time again. For
those inevitable times of doubt, confusion, and frustration, James tells us to seek wisdom from our omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Lord.
PRAYER
Lord, here is my outstretched hand. I pray that you will grab hold of my insecurity, fears, and doubts and lead me on this journey. Help me to remain fi rm, keeping hope in the fi nished result.
