Raising a Lady in Waiting
by: Jackie Kendall
It is time for another book review! I have received a copy of this book from
Destiny Image through NetGalley to write a review.
In a culture that emphasizes finding the right pair of jeans over waiting for the right man, there is no time to sit back and hope everything just pans out. Mom, you are your daughter’s greatest influence, mentor and relationship coach - and it's time to take action!
The most important decision of your daughter’s life is who will be her Master; the second is who will be her "mister." You play a vital role in preparing her to make this choice. In Raising a Lady in Waiting: Parent's Guide to Helping Your Daughter Avoid a Bozo, bestselling author Jackie Kendall opens her heart and candidly shares four decades’ worth of experience with mothers who are raising daughters to navigate the challenges of relationships. (familychristian.com)
Let me just start off with these two qualifiers:
1. I have not read Lady
in Waiting, the original book this one is based off of. The author said it was very helpful but not
necessary. With how it read, I wondered
if it might be necessary to read the prior book, but then again, I have no
interest in reading that one.
2. I did not make it
through the entire book. I stopped about
half way through. My review is based
then on the first part of the book being consistent with the last part.
When I saw this book on NetGalley, I was very excited to
read it. As someone who has previously
worked with youth and young girls through the various churches I have attended,
I was excited to have a book with insight into how to better teach them to wait
on God for their direction in life (particularly in relationships).
I was pretty disappointed.
The best thing that the author did was repeatedly point back to Jesus as
the most important thing in both the daughter’s and mother’s life, and on some
basic aspects of being a Christian.
However, this was also its downfall.
If the mother is a new Christian or one that has a baby walk with God,
then I think this would be a helpful book.
However, for a Christian mother who is in the Word, learning, and
depending on God and teaching her daughter the same thing, then this is
probably going to suggest you do what you are already doing.
Here were some of the specific problems that I had with the
book. Some of these are more of a
personal writing style and some have to do with theology.
1. The author’s
overuse of the words “Bozo” and “Boaz.”
I get the point that she’s trying to make and as I got further in the
book they became less mentioned. That
said, when a paragraph contains a repetition of these names over and over
(sometimes in the same sentence) it gets to be a little too much. It seemed to be a pattern though, in that, I
felt like each of the chapters had a lot of repletion in ideas that was not
necessary. It felt more like it was just
trying to fill up the pages with stories that showed many of the same things
instead of building on a main idea.
2. The book reads
more like a blog than a book. I felt
like it was very surface level with its suggestions. I also felt like it was something that I
would have read as a teenager rather than an adult. From what I understand, that’s what the first
book is targeted towards. She obviously
kept mentioning mothers (from what I read she only mentioned a father once and
then it ended up being more about our Father in Heaven), but the suggestions
were more geared towards a younger crowd that she was, in fact, suggesting for
adults to do.
3. Throughout what I
read, she kept writing things like: “they’re never too young…” or “it’s not too
early…” My question: what Christian parent waits to teach their
children about God and how to live their life for him?
4. The usage of terms
is not always appropriate, like “hit list” to refer to a list for praying for
“young people who need Jesus.” Really,
was it necessary?
5. There were some
theologically questionable sentences sprinkled throughout. One example: “her parents who have dreams for
her that God never dreamed.” She goes on
to explain it, so the theology that she is trying to communicate is more or
less correct, but to say that God has “dreams” for our life is really not
correct. Everything passes though His
hands. He’s in charge. He has a plan for our life. Saying that God has dreams is like saying
that God wants things for us but really has no control. Just pie in the sky type of mentality.
Overall, I would only recommend this book to new Christian
parents, and even then I have some hesitations.
Maybe I just think too much of Christian parents today or maybe this
book is written more towards the people who like to call themselves Christians,
but who don’t walk the narrow road. I’m
sorry if people have read this book and liked it, but I unfortunately did not
find much of use within the part that I read.
Reader: Unknown/New Christian
Merit: 2 out of 5
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