Get Your Joy Back by Laurie Wallin with a foreword by Joni Eareckson Tada is her affirmational self-help advice guide for parents of special needs children on coping with and recovering from the the stresses of caretaking and thus restoring themselves emotionally and rediscovering hope and fulfillment, free courtesy of Christian publisher Kregel.
A quickie skim of parts of this seem to indicate that it's lightly "inspirational" for the main part, with a good deal of standard advice with relatively few scattered faith/scripture mentions (up until the dedicated chapters dealing with Church and community), so perhaps more secular caretakers might be able to make use of some of this as well.
Currently free, probably just for one day @
B&N (also
UK) &
Amazon (available to Canadians & in the
UK).
Description
Parents of specials needs children are exhausted. They've done all the research, consulted all the experts, joined support groups, gotten counseling, fought for the best life for their children. Often just caring for their children's needs and attempting to maintain a home maxes out parents' mental, emotional, and spiritual reserves.
Laurie Wallin knows firsthand the difficulties of this journey. With Get Your Joy Back, she steps forward to make a bold, audacious claim: in the midst of this long-term, intense task, it is still possible to have an abundant life, full of joy. The key to radically changing daily life and restoring joy to the weary is forgiveness. Wallin gives parents a lifeline to find that restoration, pulling them back to shore when they feel like they're drowning.
This book is full of practical, biblical insights and strategies to shed the resentments that leave Christian special-needs parents themselves spiritually, emotionally, and socially drained. Wallin meets readers right where they are, sugar coating nothing, but addressing issues with honesty, humor, and--above all--hope.