A striking call for the reintegration of the psyche that provides valuable steps toward healing.
The surrender prayer can bring peace to suffering souls according to this Christian book about personal growth.
A licensed clinical social worker, debut author Lynch laments that “hurting Christian believers…are often prevented from accessing” therapy “because of the ignorance, fear, and intolerance of much present-day, mainline, Christian religion.” Conversely, therapy without a spiritual component can shift the problem without truly addressing it. The surrender prayer is modeled on Jesus’ words as he faced crucifixion. There is a lot of buildup to it, and the prayer itself has no script, only an outline. A preface explains Lynch’s background and why he wrote this book. Then a one-page caution, entitled “Safety,” warns against prematurely bringing up issues that could trigger reactions like panic attacks, depression, or suicidal thoughts. An introduction explains how to use the work to augment the reader’s religious practices and therapy. The volume’s 21 chapters are divided into four parts entitled “Awareness,” “Acceptance,” “Surrender,” and “Prayer Group Next Steps.” (Lynch advises that while praying is often a solitary act, one’s understanding of it deepens when people share the experience.) Each chapter includes biblical verses, probing questions with lines for the reader to write down answers, and a prayer. A conclusion sums up the process, and, finally, the reader encounters the prayer template along with a summary guide and instructions. (An audio version of the template is available online at thesurrenderprayer.com.) This all sounds dry, but it’s a mature blending of faith and therapy that could also be adopted by non-Christians, though Lynch believes that everyone should embrace Jesus. It’s also a vivid repudiation of magical thinking and shallow, rule-based salvation (“prayed the ‘right’ way, listened to the ‘right’ pastor, attended the ‘right’ church”). In his helpful manual, the author advocates getting angry at God, admitting one is scared of him, working through why an individual fails to tell him some things, and letting go of the idea that one must be perfect before approaching him in prayer. Lynch’s compassion makes his exercises a rewarding experience, whatever one’s beliefs.
A striking call for the reintegration of the psyche that provides valuable steps toward healing.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Surrendered Publishing
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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