Yes, God! At long last there’s another book to add to
your shelf by award-winning author, Catholic wife and homeschooling mother of
seven, Susie Lloyd. I was feeling a bit
deprived after quickly devouring and being very amused by her two humor books: Please Don’t Drink the Holy Water and Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Kids. Now the wait is over, and the fans rejoiced
with a hardy “yes, God!”
My husband and I
met Susie Lloyd back in August 2009 at the Catholic Marketing Network Tradeshow. She and one of her daughters
were at a booth with books. I could tell from our
brief exchange with Susie that she has a great sense of humor. We ended up buying both of her books after
flipping through them, reading a bit and checking out the amusing cartoon
drawings included.
Our train-ride back
home was significantly more enjoyable than the one up, because I shared stories
from the first book with Kevin, so we were both laughing much of the way.
I was excited to
read on Facebook that Susie was coming out with another book, knowing that
whatever it was about, I’d want to read it.
Interestingly enough, the topic is one with which Kevin and I have
become even more familiar in recent years as two of our best friends/siblings
in Christ have taken the next step in discerning religious vocations: one to
the priesthood and the other to become a cloistered nun.
Yes, God! What Ordinary Families Can Learn about Parenting from Today’s Vocation Stories takes a look at the
families of ten different men and women who have discerned a call to the
religious life. Each chapter focuses on
one aspect of saying yes to God that was particularly important in that
individual’s family through some in-depth interviews and conversations.
The people chosen for this book are those who
have learned to say yes to: duty, affection, strength, spiritual poverty,
inheritance, the Greatest Commandment, generosity, humility, and patience. They learned how to carry out these important
aspects of their vocations from their families.
Susie explains how each way of saying yes to God has played out in these
people’s lives as well as in her own life, faith, and family using her
characteristic sense of humor and parenting wisdom, some of which was learned
the hard way.
Is there an ideal method and/or model for preparing your children for religious vocations? Not really.
The men and women in this book have come from a variety of
circumstances, socioeconomic backgrounds, and even levels of involvement in the
Catholic faith. The common string among
these stories is that each person, when it came right down to it answered yes
when God called them to a religious vocation.
The message is
one of hope, that you don’t have to have or be perfect parents to encourage
your kids to say yes to the Lord. By
living out Biblical values and being true to whom God made them to be, the
families of these five priests and five nuns (two of whom are biological sisters)
helped prepare them for a life-long service to the Lord and His people.
Whether you come
from or are part of a family in which the Catechism was drilled into your brain
at an early age and you prayed Hail Mary’s until the cows came home (or in one
family, at least settled down) or if you tried to learn something of
Catholicism’s draw by actually drinking some holy water or playing a trick on
your blind teacher, you’ll get something from these stories that will help you
say yes to God in your own life and help others encourage the same
submissiveness to the Lord in theirs.
For more
information and/or to order your own download or hard copy of Yes, God! click here. (If you know a father of young girls who has
said he plans on bypassing any vocation issues by telling his two youngest that
they can start dating when the oldest is married, after which he will make the
oldest enter a convent then you should probably just go ahead and give him a
copy of this book.)
