Get your joy back by Laurie Wallin

An invitation and a promise for weary Christian parents of special needs kids from a parent who’s been there.

“It isn’t the long day of monitoring a child’s precarious health or being hypervigilant about her mood and mental health challenges that weighs parents down; it’s the wishing that things were different. . . . Resentment, not the intense care they must provide their child, is the parents’ greatest stressor and source of pain.” —Laurie Wallin

Parents of specials needs children are exhausted. They’ve done all the research, consulted all the experts, joined support groups, gotten counseling, fought for the best life for their children. Often just caring for their children’s needs and attempting to maintain a home maxes out parents’ mental, emotional, and spiritual reserves.

Laurie Wallin knows firsthand the difficulties of this journey. With Get Your Joy Back, she steps forward to make a bold, audacious claim: in the midst of this long-term, intense task, it is still possible to have an abundant life, full of joy. The key to radically changing daily life and restoring joy to the weary is forgiveness. Wallin gives parents a lifeline to find that restoration, pulling them back to shore when they feel like they’re drowning.

This book is full of practical, biblical insights and strategies to shed the resentments that leave Christian special-needs parents themselves spiritually, emotionally, and socially drained. Wallin meets readers right where they are, sugar coating nothing, but addressing issues with honesty, humor, and–above all–hope.

My opinion: This book was wonderful. Even though I do not know the struggles of being a parent of a special needs child I have seen those around me struggle with the additional challenges of having a special needs and the wear and discouragement that it often brings. I appreciated Laurie's honesty and insight coming from her own struggles. I think this book would make a lovely gift for someone who is struggling to find the joy along the journey. I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opnion.