Looking for a GREAT Mother’s Day Gift? Buy this book! Real Love for Real Life (by Andi Ashworth)

My gracious event host in Tennessee gave me many treasures this past weekend, but one that I am just beginning to open up and enjoy is this book by Andi Ashworth:

(That’s the link to its Amazon page so that you can read all about it, but you’ll definitely want to buy it here from her husband (Charlie Peacock’s) online store to avoid the $38 Amazon price. Yowza! It’s $10 on his site.)

I’ve only gotten into the first couple of chapters, but already I’m thinking of many “unpaid caregivers” (her words) whose work is “fundamental to sustaining the human race” and “changes the shape of people and their worlds” and thus, is “important work.”

(Amen to that!)

But who may not always know “how to fully express what their vocation is because they’re not used to considering it as real, dignified work.”

Can you relate? Can your husband who is laboring to serve his ailing mother (or disabled son or the flock under his diaconal care)? Or your neighbor who takes care of other neighbors? The people who show up at every church wedding, funeral, prayer breakfast and just get to work organizing, serving, cleaning up? The mother changing the upteenth diaper …

If you know any “extremely capable women who do an incredibly important job yet apologize for their existence” (a Christian once asked this author if she DID anything or if she was JUST a housewife); if you are keenly aware how devalued caregiving gifts and activities are in this society that judges everything by financial compensation and human acclaim; if you’d like to encourage someone in your life who realizes that “human needs are complex”, “love is passed through people, not businesses,” and “Our God is a caring God; we care because we were made in His image” … buy them this book.

It’s not angry or defensive. It is contemplative, rigorously thoughtful, and beautiful.

Yes, “creating beauty” and “relationships” have been emphasized and I’ve been a bit tempted to despair because of my weakness. But then she reminds us:

So true. And comforting. Yet gently challenging.

I’m looking forward to working through the rest of this book and prayerfully, hopefully, growing as a caregiver in response. Hope it’s a blessing to you too.

Yours,
Tara B.

PS
As I read this book by this obviously wise and gracious woman, I remembered that I actually had a very strange personal encounter with her once; one that I’ve regretted many times.

It was in an elevator at Covenant Seminary. I had just finished speaking at a little Q&A “pizza lunch discussion” with the students and I walked onto an elevator that already held a man and a woman. The woman was friendly and greeted me and we chatted a bit. But when they introduced themselves, I got terribly embarrassed and flustered when I realized it was Charlie Peacock.

I’ve always thought, all these many years, that his wife probably assumed I was flustered because he was CHARLIE PEACOCK. And that somehow I probably communicated not as much respect or interest in HER because he was “FAMOUS.” But do you want to know that 100% truth? (I remember it as though it were yesterday.) I was actually flustered because I felt so stupid for not recognizing some “famous Christian.” It’s true. I don’t know the “famous people” so when I bump into them at a conference or in an elevator or wherever, I treat them just like I’d treat anyone else. But then they leave and someone says, “THAT WAS SO-AND-SO!” and I think, “I’m such a loser. I hope I didn’t offend them by not knowing who they were.”

Over the years, I’ve thought about even writing her a letter and trying to explain all of that—just so she’d know where my heart was. But I’m sure it wasn’t even a blip on her radar screen. Or if it was, that she has gently covered it over with grace. But hey! Mrs. Ashworth-Peacock? If a Google hit on your name or the name of your book leads you to this blog entry—please know that some 29 year old in an elevator at Covenant did NOT mean you and your calling disrespect. Just the opposite. I was enjoying visiting with you—I just thought I had disrespected you and your husband by not knowing who you were.

Anyway—thanks for this book. I’m reading it SLOWLY. And I rarely read books slowly.