Small Talk Book Review & Giveaway

“Sometimes God uses the smallest voices to teach the greatest truths…”

Watch this book trailer:

WOW!

I can personally attest to the above statement. I am in my third year of serving in our church's elementary ministry. I have moved up with my daughter every year since she was in Kindergarten. I love this group of kids. This year I finally found my sweet spot as a Station Leader. After our entire groups worship time, I get the opportunity to come back and recap the lesson. One particular lesson was on words and how they hurt. I asked the 50+ kids for hurtful words. One boy, in church shouted out B***H. Yes, that is a very very hurtful word. I had to not say anything and just continue on with my lesson. Afterward, I spoke with his grandmother. This boy, sweet little 2nd grade boy, had just been taken away from his mother. His life had been in turmoil. He didn't need reprimand from me. He needed LOVE. Does God reprimand me when I let a bad word slip? Nope. He loves me. Thank you Lord for using that small voice to teach me that truth.

"Every day, one of Amy Julia Becker’s children says something that prompts her to think about life in a new way. “Mom, does Santa love me?” William asks, after his mother explains the meaning of Christmas…In a chat with her dad about the children who died in the Sandy Hook shootings, Penny asks, “Did they go to heaven?” …”You was a jerk, Mommy?” asks Marilee one morning in the car.

These conversations deepen Amy Julia’s relationships with her children, but they also refine her understanding of what she believes and what God is doing in her own life.

In Small Talk, Amy Julia draws from the wisdom and curiosity of those young voices to reflect on beauty and kindness, tragedy and disability, prayer and miracles. As she moves through the basic questions her kids posed when they were very young to the more intellectual questions of later childhood, she invites us to learn from our own day-to-day conversations with the children in our lives.

This eloquent parenting memoir is about the big questions little hearts ask, the thoughts their words provoke, and the laughter and soul-searching their honesty brings—to adult and child alike.

One of my favorite stories in the book is one of when Amy was babysitting and her reflection upon Psalm 23 when David says "He MAKES me lay down..." Note my dots. Just like Amy says God doesn't stop with us there. He leads me, He restores me, and He guides me. But before any of that happens I have to rest and let God be God. Wow, again. 

Amy Julia Becker writes about faith, family, and disability for Parents.com, the New York Times Motherlode blog, TheAtlantic.com, The Huffington Post parents page, Christianity Today, The Christian century, and numerous other publications. Her first book, A Good and Perfect Gift: Faith, Expectations, and a Little Girl Named Penny, was named one of the Top Ten Religion Books of 2011 by Publishers Weekly. Amy Julia lives in western Connecticut with her husband and three children.

Official Website: http://www.zondervan.com/small-talk

Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFiRKM19JZY
Amy’s Website: http://amyjuliabecker.com

Follow her on Twitter here!
Check out her Facebook page here!

One of my blessed readers is going to receive their very own copy of this must read book. Who wants it? Just enter on the easy Rafflecopter entry form below.

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