The Seasons Nobody Plans For

Prayer books for parents are organised around good themes: protection, identity, purpose, faith. Nobody writes the page for the Tuesday a doctor used a word you had heard before and never about your child.This book is an index of those weeks. Thirty-three of them. You are not meant to read it cover to cover - you are meant to open the contents, find your week, and start there.THE SEASONSThe day of the diagnosis · when they are in hospital · a pain nobody can explain · when they are being bullied · when mine is the one being cruel · a child who has stopped sleeping · a child who is low, and has been for months · when they have hurt themselves · a child who cannot cope with school · when they are grieving · when their parents are separating · moving between two houses · when they do not want to come to church · a child who says they do not believe · when they have been in trouble · a child using something · a relationship of theirs that worries you · rejection · exam results that were not enough · when they leave home badly · an adult child in trouble with money · when their marriage is failing · when they stop speaking to you · a child who has died · a grandchild in trouble · the sibling nobody is asking about · when you are the one who is ill · when you cannot pray at all · the season after the season - and more.SIX PAGES EACH- What this season actually is - written by somebody who is not pretending it is manageable- The verse, printed in full on its own page. King James Version, public domain, reproduced without alteration- The prayer- A short one-line prayer for the corridor, the car park, and the kitchen at three in the morning - because in the worst weeks the ability to construct sentences goes- A page of practical things, which ends by saying plainly where this book stops and somebody qualified starts- A lined page for your own wordsA PRAYER BOOK THAT LEAVES OUT THE DOCTOR IS NOT BEING MORE SPIRITUAL. IT IS BEING LESS USE.Every practical page names the ordinary steps that help and then tells you the point at which to stop reading and make a call. No warfare language. No promise that praying hard enough determines the outcome - that implication is cruel to every parent whose child is not all right anyway.ALSO INSIDE: the 33 short prayers gathered in one place to learn by heart · every verse in one place · a page for whoever is supporting you · and twelve things people say to parents in hard weeks that land badly, with what to say instead.PERFECT FOR the parent in it now, and for anyone standing in a shop trying to find something to give that is practical rather than decorative. Turn to their page and fold the corner before you hand it over.