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CARRY ON, WARRIOR by Glennon Doyle Melton

CARRY ON, WARRIOR

Thoughts on Life Unarmed

by Glennon Doyle Melton

Pub Date: April 2nd, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4516-9724-7
Publisher: Scribner

A wife and mother's reflections on being imperfect and loving it.

When people from her church started telling blogger and momastery.com founder Melton that she and her family seemed so "perfect," she was dismayed. Rather than continue to let others believe that she led a trouble-free life, the author decided to become "a reckless truth-teller." In a memoir that is also an inspirational guide to daily living, Melton tells the story of how she learned to carry on through the inevitable trials of living "without armor and without weapons.” For two decades, she writes, "I was lost to food and booze and bad love and drugs." Her problems with alcohol and drugs led to arrests, a criminal record and difficulties getting a job. Although she was happily married, Melton's relationship with her husband had begun as a result of "confusing sex with love, and [winding] up pregnant." Then one day she was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Melton credits a deep faith in God as well as strong connections with her family as being the cornerstones of her personal success. But as with everything else, learning to make those relationships work was a daily challenge. As a wife, Melton had to be willing to not only understand her husband's needs, but be honest about her own and find effective ways to communicate them. As a mother, she had to learn to forgive herself for allowing her anxieties "to pour out like gasoline on [the] raging fire" of her children's tantrums and other difficult behaviors. Only by living in a state of loving vulnerability would she be able to do what she desired most: touch others and be touched by them in return.

Gentle words of wisdom from a woman driven by "senseless, relentless hope.”