Gravel Road Musings

  A 6-week guided journey to un-hurrying your heart Let me say first off, this is not the book "Growing Slow", this is the study guide that goes with the book. Let me also say, I haven't read the book and did not realize there was a book to go along with this study guide until I opened the study guide to look at and write this review.  I haven't done the study guide because I was in the middle of a different study book when it arrived, but I was intrigued with what I saw. Reading the book is not a requirement for this study guide, but it does provide a framework and some key concepts that help you apply the lessons learned. For my personality, I will probably try to read the book along with the study guide when I do it, but I was happy to see that I won't have to in case I can't get a hold of the book through the library or Net Galley.  Each week's study has six sessions: key Bible verse, My land (where Jennifer shares her struggles with Iowa), Your land H...

  I like Crystal Paine and I follow her on Instagram, but when I saw she wrote a parenting book, I will admit I raised my eyebrows a bit. Her kids are still in their early teens, what does she know about parenting? But then I read the book and I was hooked from the first chapter on.  The first couple chapters are so much deeper than parenting. They hit on the core of who we are as humans and on how we will live based on our beliefs. If I could describe in two words the premise of the book, I would say, "Live Loved".  Before we can be love-centered parents, we must first believe that we are loved, that God loves us and it is out of that love that we can love others.  "You can't give what you don't have. You can't love your kids well if you don't believe you are fully loved yourself." "Love-centered parenting is about wholeheartedly loving our kids because we know how much we are wholeheartedly loved by God."  Love-centered parenting isn'...