This has been a good read and I can hardly wait to share it with members of my family.
Eight steps for managing life's storms were prevalent throughout the book.
These steps are.
1. Move forward
2. Think on these things - make a choice to think on better things, good memories
3. Practice Forgiveness
4. Make Right Choices
5. Share your story with others
6. Communicate, communicate, communicate
7. Pray with Thanksgiving
8. Focus on Eternity
It was a devastating thing to have happen to the family. To know that your child could perform such a heinous crime, and yet through this crime, a message of grace and forgiveness has been heard around the world.
"That day I chose to love my husband". P68 Making a choice to continue to love. Sharing her pain and anger and despair with her husband.
Praying Colossians 1:9-13 about children, This is a prayer she prayed over her four boys, and then needed to learn to pray it over additional members of her family as well. This need showed her anger at God for allowing this to happen and her need to let that anger go.
9 And so, from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 10 so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. 11 May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, 12 giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. 13 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,
Media were relentless... But through them grace entered in a way unexpected... P123. It brought prayers and stories and forgiveness. Whoa.. Never would have thought to do that... To send prayer and support to parents dealing with such calamity. This section just touched my heart and just made me think of how I can pray and support families in ways I hadn't thought of before.
The sheer caring of the Amish community stunned me. The protection they offered along with the love, prayers and forgiveness freely given.
The showing that forgiveness is a choice. This fact was evident throughout the book. It's HARD to face a community where a member of your family wrought devastation, but their love and acceptance helped them work through this difficulty.
It might not be an easy thing to do but it is a choice none the less. One can choose to live in anger or to let it go.
The need to call out to God to let good come from evil.
The difficulty and need for prayer when daughter in law Marie remarried. "We have choices to make in life. We can choose to look for the good and celebrate the joy of others, or we can concentrate on our own emotions."P. 177 Isn't that a powerful statement?
The tears will always be there but we can always find something to be thankful for.
Learning to see that life storms can mirror world storms by thinking if the one who holds you safe through them.
God wants us to do more than survive, he wants our surrender. How I liked this statement. God wants so much more from us. Are we bold enough to give it to him?