From the foreword: This book doesn't tell you to try harder or to be more heroic. The book shows you how to come to Jesus, just as you are, for everything you need.
The Life We Never Expected is a book about parenting special needs children. It is written by a husband and wife, Andrew and Rachel Wilson. They have an autistic son and an autistic daughter. They wrote this book with a) parents in mind, b) family and friends of those parents, c) anyone and everyone who is suffering and needs encouragement.
The book is divided into five cycles. Each cycle is broken down into the same sections: weeping, worshiping, waiting, witnessing, and breathe.
While the book contains plenty of personal stories, the focus is never: LOOK AT US, WE'VE GOT IT TOGETHER, WE HAVE THE ANSWERS. The focus remains constant, and, that focus is on JESUS CHRIST and his gospel. This book celebrates Jesus and elevates the Word of God. The personal stories are balanced perfectly by proper, close attention to Scripture itself. The book is practical as well as authentic.
I would definitely recommend this one. It is GOOD. Here are four of my favorite quotes:
"Celebrating the gospel is beautiful and is good for my soul, but it doesn't make me sleep more or cry less. Until God fixes everything, I'm still waiting."
"Up until I was about thirty, I couldn't fathom why so many of the psalms were about pain. Now I'm thirty-five, and I can't fathom why so many of them are about something else."
"I don't read Scripture in the morning primarily to study it academically or to get through my reading plan; I read it in search of joy, like a forty-niner looking for gold--even if I have only a few minutes while Zeke is watching TV at some ridiculous hour of the morning."
"So I have to remember: the story is not mine to save. The pressure to write a story that makes sense of what has happened to us, as acute as it can feel, must be resisted; God is the great storyteller, the divine happy-ending maker, and I'm not. I am a character in God's story, not the author of my own, and it is God's responsibility to redeem all things, to make all things work together for good, and, as Sam Gamgee puts it in The Lord of the Rings, to make everything that is sad come untrue."
© Becky Laney of Operation Actually Read Bible
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