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Do You Need to Get Your Joy Back?

Do You Need to Get Your Joy Back?

Get Your Joy Back 1Are you raising a child with special needs? Perhaps struggling a little–or a lot–as your child’s needs mount and your energy and spirits flag? Then Laurie Wallin’s new book, Get Your Joy Back: Banishing Resentment and Reclaiming Confidence in Your Special Needs Family is for you. And so is the book give away contest you’ll learn more about in just a few minutes.

Meet the Author of Get Your Joy Back

Laurie WallinLaurie writes from experience as a mother of four daughters, two of them adopted out of foster care and with significant mental health and behavioral special needs. She’s been a staunch advocate for her daughters with doctors, mental health care practitioners, educators, and at church for more than a decade. But somewhere along the way, the demands of special needs parenting stripped away her joy. Get Your Joy Back is the story of how Laurie lost her joy and found it again.

How You Can Get Your Joy Back

But Get Your Joy Back is more than Laurie’s story. It’s also a book about how you can get your joy back as the parent of a child with special needs. Laurie gently guides readers through a tour of the people who can drain parents of joy–starting with themselves and moving on to their children, spouses, extended families, professionals, the church, the community and even God. She gently encourages parents to forgive those joy drainers (Not that God needs our forgiveness, as Laurie makes perfectly clear. But we need to come to grips with the hard things He allows into our lives and the lives of our children.) and then to regain joy through practical steps and examples from her own life and the lives of other parents. The book is easy to read, not to long (because the author knows parents of kids with special needs don’t have much spare time), and packed with the perfect balance of empathy and motivation to change.

To read the rest of this review and enter the give away contest, visit Gravel Road’s sister site, DifferentDream.com.

Laurie Wallin Says Your Weirdness is Wonderful

Laurie Wallin Says Your Weirdness is Wonderful

Why Your Weirdness Is Wonderful

Who is Laurie Wallin?

I’m so glad you asked! She’s a writer friend and also the parent of a child with special needs. Until her writing career went into high gear last year, she was a regular guest blogger at www.DifferentDream.com, my special needs parenting website.

Laurie’s first book, Why Your Weirdness Is Wonderful, will be released by Abingdon Press on March 18. (The paperback and Kindle versions are available for pre-order on Amazon now.) I interviewed Laurie about why she wrote a book encouraging women to view the quirky things they don’t always like about themselves as the way God designed them. Here’s what she had to say.

When did the idea that our individual quirks–those personal weirdnesses that drive us crazy sometimes–are part of who God created us to be?

The pivotal moment was while reading a colleague’s blog post. She shared how frustrated she was with her tendency to overthink things, and how she prayed God would make her different. I was mad! Not at her, but at the situation. . . that clearly gifted people spent so much time lamenting how they are. And how easy a strategy that would be for Satan to use to keep us distracted from living well. If we’re fighting who we are most of the time, we’re missing out on the reflection of God’s image that is trying to show through us. I commented on this post, asking what if God made you that way because something about that tendency reflects something about Him, rather than it being a flaw? We went back and forth about the idea for a few comments, and ultimately, she said, “You need to write a post about this.” I did, it went viral, and the rest, as they say, is history!

Why do you think it’s important for women to see their weirdness as wonderful?

Women, in particular, have this fog of expectation clouding our view of ourselves and each other. The more I studied personal strengths, the more I noticed that:

  1. the things that annoy me in other people are them living their strengths and either me not appreciating them in the situation, or them not living them in a loving way; and
  2. the things that annoyed me about myself suffered from the same two issues.

So I started asking myself “What strength is she trying to live right now?” when I sensed jealousy or frustration or judgment creeping up with a friend. You know what happened? Where I used to feel insecure, I started noticing a desire to see the good in others and celebrating—affirming—the God-glimpses I saw in them. As a woman, to be able to feel secure in the face of others is a HUGE change to what we often experience. It makes us allies, supporters of each other, champions of what God’s doing in each others’ lives, instead of defenders of what we think is insufficient in ourselves.

In the book you talk about the dark sides and positive sides of our quirks. Could you give a few examples for readers?

As a Star Wars fan, I’ve always related to the whole Dark Side, Light Side (or, as I call it in the book, Life Side) idea. God invests tendencies in us, and we either love Him and others with them (reveal their Life Sides) or we live from fear (Dark Sides). The most common struggle strengths I hear about from people are tendencies to overthink things, be too sensitive, worry too much, argue too much, or be controlling. There are a lot of possible strengths hiding in these Dark Sides, and maybe they come from different strengths in different situations. For example, overthinking can be the Dark Side of being analytical, an achiever, someone who is contextual and sees connections between anything done or said now, and what it will effect. It’s not an exact science, but the important thing is to allow the question—to stop fighting who we are long enough to let God show us what is possible in us right then.

Can you pinpoint a quirk of your own that you now appreciate, even though it once drove you crazy?

Mine is the need to make a difference and matter to people. Anyone who knows anything about Christian beliefs will see pride all over that. For years, I fought God, asking Him why I need to be involved in projects that are high profile and far-reaching. It was a sore spot and something I wanted to hide about myself for years. When I started writing this book, I had to sit down and face my big-scary-strength/weakness. God brought to mind projects I’d taken on over the years that nobody else wanted or would touch. Yes, I wanted to be the one at the mic at retreats. But I also was the one who saw a need in my then-classroom and hunted down grants, applied for them, and pulled in thousands of dollars of funding and 20 computers for my science program. I’m a big thinking gal, and in God’s hands it can bring big good. In mine, of course, it’s prideful and annoying. The job every day for me is to listen to His voice and only go after the big fish He leads me to pursue, the way He’s leading me to do it!

How can women embrace their weirdness? Where should they start?

First, we have to decide to suspend judgment about our natural tendencies. This one trips a lot of people up. They’re scared that if they do that, they’re dropping their moral standards. But that’s not what I’m saying. I’m asking people to stop assuming they understand God’s design in the ways they’ve always thought, acted and reacted in life. His thoughts are higher than ours, after all, right? So step one is to notice when we’re making ourselves feel bad about some way we are, like when we use negative words to describe ourselves (overthinker, worry wart, impatient, lazy. . .) and stop right then to chat with God about it. To say, “What natural desire or strength of mine is wanting to come out right now? How would YOU reveal that trait, God?” Then, let God tell you what He thinks. And keep eyes open to see His answers to the questions unfold in life and relationships.

How do you suggest women maximize their quirks to build God’s kingdom?

The more we listen to what God meant when He designed us the way He did—quirks and all—the more we let God reveal His heart for the world around us. The more we’re attuned to the unique ways God designed us to think, communicate, plan, care and relate with others, the more people are drawn to Him, and the kingdom grows.

How can they maintain a balanced perspective about quirks and weirdnesses?

Our weirdness—our blend of strengths and their quirky upside down versions—stays balanced when we focus it on loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving other people as ourselves. The Greatest Commandment is our great balancer in this tightrope walk of living our weirdness wonderfully.

Where can people connect with you and buy your book?

Come visit me and check out more about the book at http://bit.ly/WeirdWonderful, or stop by my facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/LivingPowerLifeCoaching

Anything else you’d like to mention?

I certainly hope you’ll grab a copy of my book and allow me to walk this road with you, but whether you buy my book or not, you owe it to yourself to learn more about your strengths. Whether it’s Gallup’s StrengthsFinder program, the Meyers-Briggs assessment, or Gary Chapman’s Love Languages assessment. . . find out who God designed when He made you. Because if you’re not being all God designed you to be, there’s a hole in the world that nobody else can or will ever fill.

Son of Encouragement

Son of Encouragement

Then when he (Barnabas) had come and witnessed the grace of God,
he rejoiced and began to encourage them all
with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord.
Acts 11: 23

I’ve always been a little starry-eyed about the billing Barnabas gets in the Bible. Why not when his name means Son of Encouragement? Compared to James and John, known as the Sons of Thunder and Rahab, who is remembered as the Harlot, even though she quit that job and began a new life, Barnabas nabbed one sweet name.

Even better, he lived up to his moniker. In Acts 9:27, Barnabas sticks up for Paul, the new boy in town with a bad rep. In Acts 11:23, Barnabas travels to Antioch to encourage the new converts. Those accounts make me go all starry-eyed, and I wanna be just like Mr. Encouragement when I grow up.

But further reading of the adventures of Barnabas, usually in the company of Paul, can take the twinkle out of my starry eyes. Like when the dynamic duo visited the synagogue in Salamis, and “the rulers sent a message to them, saying, ‘Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.’” (Acts 13:15) Then Paul, not always the soul of tact, encouraged them by relating the history of God’s mercy toward his stiff-necked and rebellious covenant children, also known as the Jews, and the fulfillment of his covenant through the life, death, and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ.

How did the audience respond to the encouraging words Paul spoke and Barnabas seconded? At first, the leaders asked them to speak again and invited the entire town, Gentiles and Jews, to come for a dose of encouragement. At that second gig, Acts 13:48 says the Gentiles “began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.” The Jews, on the other hand, incited a riot and drove Paul and Barnabas out of town.

Their reaction seemed a little drastic toward two guys trying to spread sunshine and good cheer. Until I compared my New American Standard (NAS) translation to the English Standard Version (ESV). The word encouragement in NAS is  translated as exhortation in ESV. And exhortation means speaking and teaching the truth. Which means biblical encouragement is not always a rah-rah, feel good experience since speaking and teaching truth often exposes sin. Which leads to conviction. Which leads to repentance. Which requires change. And change is hard.

No wonder the Jews rioted. But by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the words of Paul and the presence of Barnabas, the hearts of many Gentiles were encouraged/exhorted to repent and believe the truth. And they were changed for eternity.

God used ordinary guys like Barnabas and Paul to speak and teach gospel truth, and he still uses ordinary men and women like you and me today. Sometimes, our words may cause a riot. But other times, the gospel will lead those imprisoned by discouragement and deceit to new life in Christ and the promise of eternal life. If that thought doesn’t put a starry twinkle back in my eyes and yours, what will?