A Place Called Blessing

"Where Hurting Ends and Love Begins"

 

Bookworm's Ranking - 4 Worms

Storyline - Josh and his two brothers are left orphans when their parents are killed in an accident. After going from foster home to foster home and a terrible accident, life becomes harder still for the boys. They even become separated. When Josh turns 18 and leaves the system, he has learned not to trust others and carries around much pain from his past. But, when he rents a room from a kind woman, Anna, she starts to break down the walls around his heart. Much is about to change for Josh.

Author - John Trent, PhD, with Annette Smith

Publisher - Thomas Nelson

Age Group - 15 and up

Content - Josh grew in God throughout the book and made positive choices (after a few mistakes). There was a lot of forgiveness in the book. How open the people were to forgiving each other and continue on and love one another was really wonderful. It seems people forget about that and feel they should hold a grudge or make someone pay and this book showed the opposite. A few mistakes were made but that is natural in real life.

Personal Opinion - What a moving story. A tear jerker but was so beautiful that it needs to be read. Uplifting even through the tears. The book is to show these five elements in a new way from another book by the auther, John Trent, called The Blessing, which I have not read. Some parts of the book might have meant more to me had I read it but I appreciate it for other reasons (you by no means have to read The Blessing to understand this book).  The forgiving of each other, no matter what, was very meaningful to me because it is not something often discussed and some people like to hold grudges (like I was saying before) and it is so good to forgive and love. Something this book really promotes. I thought there would be more of his story in his coming to God but it was still great. There are some discussion questions at the end for those who want to go deeper. Some issues were brought up and talked about in the book that makes this more appropriate for an older audience but teens could enjoy this as well. I think much can be learned from this book, for people who have been in Josh's (or one of the other people's) shoes and who haven't.

Awards - I think the authors have won some for other books but this one hasn't, yet.

Disclaimer - In exchange for an honest review, I received this book for free from the publisher through Booksneeze.com.

Links - Learn more about the book and author at: http://theblessing.com/

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