Sacred Parenting: How Raising Children Shapes Our Souls by Gary Thomas

Sacred Parenting works off a simple premise: Raising children shapes the parent every bit as much as parents shape their children. Many books have been written about how to parent a child effectively, how to become a better parent, and how effective parenting produces better kids. Sacred Parenting explores an entirely different reality: how parenting affects the parent. It explores the spiritual dynamics of parenting, and why caring for children is such an effective discipline in shaping our souls and forming the character of Christ within us. It doesn't tell parents how to handle a chronically sick or rebellious child, but it does help parents find spiritual meaning behind the almost heroic care that such a child requires. Parents will be encouraged by stories of how other men and women have successfully struggled with the challenges and occasional defeats of being a parent and they will be inspired by stories that reaffirm the spiritual value of being a parent. Because Sacred Parenting is not a 'how to' book, it unstintingly admits the difficulties, struggles, and failures that often accompany parenting---and then shows how God has used those difficulties, struggles, and even failures to build up the parents who experience them.