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Review: The Gift of Love

5/3/2014

Transplant, faith, God, a woman's journey, struggles, marriage, children, death... this book covers a mirade of themes but the biggest is one woman's love of God and family.

Product Details:

Book: The Gift of Love: One Woman's Journey to save a life
Author: Amy Clipston
Pages: 222
Publisher: Zondervan
I received: Softcover edition
Type: religious, true life, inspirational, Christian life.
Reviewed for: BookLookBloggers.

So What Did I Think?

I read this book the week after I recovered from surgery.   It is a simple book as I was quite groggy and still able to follow the storyline well.

It is a true story written by Amy Clipston about dealing with her husband's kidney disease. She talks about it's affect upon her husband and it's effect on her and her own life. Throughout the book her love for God and her family shines through.

In this book I was introduced to the idea of paired donors. This is where the spouse of the transplant needing patient offers up a kidney in the hopes to find a matching pair... where the spouse of another person needing a transplant also offers a kidney for transplant.   Doing this made a difference...it sped up the time needed for a transplant to occur.   Her husband survived and she gave up her kidney to help another person survive.   Her love for her husband enabled her to do go through this surgery.

Amy Clipston is an author, and her royalties from her books enabled her to help support her family during this difficult stage of their lives. Dealing with the deaths of the fathers from both sides of the family, supporting her mother through her father's decline, raising their children, and dealing with Joe being unable to work full-time due to his health issues.   Being an author of Christian literature also garnered her a larger prayer support basis which was very important to her and Joe as they went through the transplant procedures.

What did I take away from this book?   How God worked everything out for them.   It was all God. Moving them to another state, helping them work through insurance issues, and paying the bills, and dealing with family deaths.   God worked it all out.   He even gave Amy the strength to continue despite her fear.

Would I recommend this book?   Yes and no. I disliked the "me" focus of the book. I can see the book being very helpful to others struggling with the same issues, but not a book I will pick up again to read..it isn't compelling enough for me to do so. On the other hand... I know people who would thoroughly enjoy this story. Like me they would see God in action and it is VERY good to see God in action.

Five Minute Friday : Mess

5/2/2014

Five Minute Friday Rules
1. Go to Lisa-jo Baker and learn what the day's word is. Today it is MESS.
2. Write your post in FIVE MINUTES. That's the rule. No editting or looking back, just five minutes of pure writing.
3. Link up.
4. Encourage the person who linked up before you. I tend to do two as link-ups sometimes mess up the order. BUT encourage those who have gone on before.
5. If you wish be kind, add the logo at the bottom of this post. :)

Today's Word: Mess
Three
Two
One
Go

This morning, which is four days after surgery I woke up feeling pretty good. Clear headed, rip raring to go.   I have to admit, I have found it difficult to be laid up, to be so tired that all I want to do is sleep.   Hubby keeps telling me to chill out, to not be mad at myself since I can't really do much.   But i tell him "I'm not made to just sit around'.

So anyways, I wake up feeling pretty good. I get downstairs (just 14 steps) and I'm feeling pooched.   And I'm not happy.... 14 steps!   that's it. I feel pooched and like I just want to nap.    It's irritating. And because it's irritating I feel like a mess.... like the lad's room before I get vexed with it and clean it.   I want this tiredness to be done and gone.

I want the bandages off, my garden planted, and to be able to everything I want to BY MYSELF. I don't want to need help.

But here I find myself.   Needing to rely on my son and my hubby.
And I feel a mess inside.
Why is it so hard to just let it all go?

I have that in my relationship with God to you know... wanting to manage it all. Finding it hard to admit to the Good Lord that I need help.

And I do need help you know.
I need help to manage my emotions and my frustrations.
I need help understanding that sometimes a body needs time to recover.
I need help realizing that even if I want to .. .I am not the super woman that I want to be.

And so here I sit.... this mess... realizing that God knows me full well.
And he's patient and kind with me.
Holding me when I want to weep with frustration.
and he calls me his own.

He does you know.
He calls me his own.
He makes it so much better...even as I fight and want to manage it all myself.
He's given me a good hubby who reminds me constantly.. take it easy. Stop.. NO DON"T DO THAT!   Let me help.    And so he helps.    And I learn to let go just a bit of the control I have. the desire I have to have it all done my way, and to realize it's okay if it's not all done the way I would do it.   It's still done. It's still managed. And I can just rest.

And so, through my hubby's actions, I learn to rest a bit. To trust God all that more.
And this is good.

STOP.