We Engage Gratitude. Mercy. Compassion: A Spiritual Journal On Intentional Living (family On Purpose Book 11) by Rachel Toalson

File Name: we-engage-gratitude-mercy-compassion-a-spiritual-journal-on-intentional-living-family-on-purpose-book-11.pdf

Published: 2016-09-16

Genres: Religion & Spirituality

Summary:
Thanks-giving was always meant to become thanks-living.

Gratitude feels anything but easy on the days when the strong-willed one is fighting you for the fourth time on what he wants to do for quiet time and the little one keeps getting into things faster than you can put them away and another kid can’t open his mouth without whining incessantly. Parenting isn’t easy. Neither is engaging gratitude and mercy and compassion in every single moment.

In We Engage Gratitude. Mercy. Compassion, Rachel shares the daily stories of her struggle to find gratitude in every challenging moment, to practice compassion in every discipline instance and to relate to her children with compassion even when they’ve been sitting on her last nerve for the last hour. In essays about purging toys for simplicity’s sake, what it’s like being an introverted mother of five, and family fun days that turn into family fight days, Episode 11 of the Family on Purpose series is by turns humorous and encouraging—because sometimes all a parent needs to know is that they’re not alone in the trenches.

You will learn:

• How to find thanks even in the hard days
• What we can learn from children about gratitude and compassion
• Why our expectations for children are often unrealistic
• How mastering emotional intelligence could bring about a whole new world
• The secret behind teaching kids mercy and compassion

and much more.

With six young boys who provide daily practice in pulling gratitude from unwilling lips, Rachel understands how challenging it is to meet every moment with mercy, gratitude and compassion. She shares openly about her own struggle to do so and, in the process, brings her readers right into the shifting sands of her life so they can see and know that they are never alone in the shifting sands of theirs. Mostly so they can know that we can do this, together.

We Engage Gratitude. Mercy. Compassion is the eleventh spiritual journal on intentional living in the Family on Purpose series, which spans the year Rachel and her family spent living out their family values. She wrote their process into twelve diaries that sat on her bookshelf for a couple of years before she realized they would be useful for other people. Values take intentional practice, and her family practiced for a year, and she had proof of their victories and failures. Because she knows the value of authenticity, Rachel knew she had to share what it’s like to live with kids and raise them God’s way and parent with love and compassion and, in every circumstances, teach them emotional intelligence. Part memoir, part diary, part spiritual devotional and part research collection, the Family on Purpose series will teach and guide and, most of all, encourage.

“Family on Purpose is the most vulnerable and honest preparation for parents-to-be. I've learned more from Rachel's stories than from any other.”
-Wouter ter Keurs, parent & journalist

“As a mother, I appreciated reading about some of the feelings that Rachel had on some of the more frustrating days, because it makes me feel not alone. I also loved when she highlighted ways in which practicing their family values brought light to their lives. It has helped me look at situations in a different light with my own kids and what they might be thinking.”
-Sarah Drake, parent & artist