Are you watching as your family spins out of control?

Reclaiming Home: A Family’s Guide for Life, Love, & Legacy by Krista Gilbert

About this book: (from the publisher) We live in an era when children often know more about their electronic devices than their own family history, parents invest more time in the carpool line than at the dinner table, and marriages teeter on the cliff of neglect. Reclaiming Home offers families creative, life-changing solutions to these modern-day dilemmas. Learn how to throw small pebbles of intentional actions into daily life to create a mountain on which your family can stand for generations.

*Reclaim and master your chaotic schedule, creating room to breathe.

*Reclaim traditions that will ignite family identity.

*Reclaim the sizzle that keeps romance alive in a marriage.

*Reclaim the hypnotic influence media is having over your children.

*Reclaim a work ethic in children that will impact their future success.

*Reclaim peace and meaningful connections around the family dinner table.

*Reclaim a family legacy that will offer children a place to call home.

About the author: Krista Gilbert is an author, blogger, and speaker who lives in the mountains of Idaho with her husband, Erik, and their four children. Passionate about bringing meaning and fun to the table, she inspires others to live their lives on purpose–encouraging deep roots of connection, faith, love, and grace. When she isn’t blogging at kristagilbert.com, or daring families at meaninginaminute.com, you will find her dancing around the kitchen cooking, laughing wholeheartedly, or racing her kids down a ski run.

Genre: Non-fiction/Family & Relationships/Parenting/General

Why I read this book: To better understand myself and my world; to be encouraged, challenged, and equipped.

Will especially appeal to: Christian moms who want to make godly traditions a family centerpiece but aren’t sure how or where to begin.

First Impressions: Do you love this cover as I do? Yes, that’s the author and her actual family, and the warmth captured here draws me right into wanting to know more of Krista’s story. Plus, I love the image of them all setting off on a journey. That’s what this book is all about.

This story matters to me…because my family is my most important legacy, and the happiness they will enjoy, and the world change they will render, begins right here at home…with me.

[Tweet “Take back control to gain eternal blessings for your family: Reclaiming Home @KristaTGilbert”]

My take: With so many competing forces vying for moms’ attention, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s important. No–that’s not exactly what I mean to say. We know what’s important, so it’s not a case of losing sight of it…it’s more a matter of losing our grip on it. Of needing to regain control when circumstances pull us away. We can find ourselves knowing what we want but unsure exactly how to have it…and keep it. In that case, we may want an experienced mom who’s walked that road to show us the way.

Enter Krista Gilbert’s Reclaiming Home. Filled with practical tips, step-by-step guidance, Scriptural support, and honest confession, this handy little guide could be for many moms just what they need to turn their home-life around. Given where I am these days, two sections I found particularly helpful were: Practical Ways to Celebrate Family Heritage and Family Interviews, which provides a road map for capturing family stories. Yes, I want these.

There was one other chapter that especially resonated with me as well: Reclaiming Imperfection. Krista writes, “Whether you are in an imperfect situation by choice, or because of circumstances out of your control, what you do get to control is how you respond to challenges as they arise. It is often because of the shadow that we can see the light clearly. Let’s stop running from the imperfect and the uncomfortable, and instead lean into them–soaking up all of the depth, lessons, changes, and sincerity that those offer. It is here that we learn the rhythms of grace and deep love.”

Oh, how I welcome this perspective! Exactly the wisdom my soul needs as I am right now facing an imperfect scenario. Thank you, Krista, for showing me a better way to embrace my circumstances.

A final aspect of this book that I must call out: I am a firm believer in world change beginning at home. Actually, I believe it begins even before that, in our hearts, because we cannot serve well or sustainably unless it flows from the abundance of our full hearts. The effect of that overflow is first seen as we live it out in our homes. If we’re not doing “home” well, how can we expect to serve the world well either?

Thanks to Veritas Communications for providing me a free copy to review. All opinions are mine.

After words: Of course when we’re talking about home, we have to talk about good food too, right? Obligingly, Krista provides several homey recipes that I can’t wait to sample. I just missed our blackberry season, but next year, I’m eager to try her recommended Blackberry/Huckleberry BBQ Sauce. And Soft Peanut Brittle? I’m in.

What favorite food says home to you?