Publisher Description
“USA Today bestselling author Tricia Goyer and her family of eleven embark on a yearlong quest to eliminate grumbling from their home and discover a healthier, more thankful approach to life together.
The Goyer home–with two parents, eight kids, and one eighty-eight-year-old grandmother with dementia–is never without noise, mess, activity, and, often, complaining. And it’s not just the kids grumbling. After adding seven children in less than six years through adoption, the Goyer family decided to move out of survival-mode and into unity- and growth-mode. They decided to tackle the impossible: a grumble-free year.
With grade-schoolers, teenagers, and a grandmother who believes children should be seen and not heard, plenty of room exists for flunking the challenge. Add to that seven children being homeschooled together in close quarters, and what could possibly go awry?
In The Grumble-Free Year, the Goyers invite readers into their journey as they go complaint-free and discover what it looks like to develop hearts of gratitude. They share their plans, successes, failures, and all the lessons they learn along the way, offering real-life action steps based in scripture so that readers get not just a front-row seat to the action but also an opportunity to take the challenge themselves and uncover hearts that are truly thankful.”
My Review:
If you only read one Christian non-fiction book in the coming year, make it this one.
This readable, practical, insightful, and totally honest book has the potential to change your own personal outlook, your family, and the community around you. It’s already had an impact on me.
Big statement about a book? Yes. But it will help you take a very clear look at the grumbling that we all do; how it affects us personally; and the effect it has on everyone around us. The Bible has much to say about grumbling and gratefulness, and the author does a wonderful job of sharing those Scriptures with us.
Author Tricia Goyer and her husband, John, decided to take their family of 11 through a “Grumble Free Year” and document the course of their year throughout the book. It’s all there in this book: Their successes; their struggles; the events that shook their world during the year; but most of all, their love of family, their faith in God, and the results of determining to develop hearts filled with gratefulness instead of grumbling.
I took my time reading this book to let their lessons soak in. I had tears in my eyes as I finished the last chapter. It’s easy to identify with the Goyer family and the events in their year. The chapter “The Day that Almost Changed Everything” especially touched my heart and filled my heart with God’s goodness to their family, but also the goodness He’s shown in my own family’s life. There’s good questions at the end of each chapter to think through if you are using this book for devotional reading. I would love to discuss this book with a book club or book study.
My thanks to the Goyer family for leading us through their own experiences. They will be a blessings to many. And one more thing: This book has much to say about the blessings and challenges of adoption, as well as taking care of elderly family members.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own.
