Anne Ortlund

Anne Ortlund's book, Children Are Wet Cement, is my favorite book I've read on parenting. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Her words were refreshing, encouraging, so helpful, gracious, filled with the fear of the Lord, wise, and steeped in the love of Christ and His Word. Such a helpful and lovely book. If I were to hand out a book on parenting, this would be it. I look forward to rereading this. I wish I had read and really took in Ortlund's thoughts when my first two were toddlers, yet the show more Lord is gracious even redeeming our mistakes.

I especially appreciated her thoughts on the importance of encouraging and building your children up. Her specific thoughts are wise and extremely helpful. I don't think I could do it justice to try to summarize what she says. But it is on point and something I will be going back to remember over and over hopefully.

Also, her thoughts on being broken before the Lord and humble at heart with our children was very good. She also had some great thoughts on the different stages in our kids' lives and how we can care for them with love and wisdom.

Lastly, I appreciated how Anne Ortlund highlighted the beauty of God's character and His Word all throughout the book. Yet at the same time reminding us readers that there is "no cut-and-dried formula for child raising..."

Quoting Ortlund, "Are there children around you depending on your modeling and training? Then closely follow the Lord. Just follow Him(italicized). He will not always lead you the way He leads someone else. But follow Him as His reachable, humble child..." show less

I read this book several years ago and gave it a low rating at the time. I have almost zero memory of it now, so it clearly wasn't a memorable kind of book. As I recall, it was a pretty trite and predictable story full of religious platitudes. That might work for some, but it's not my cup of tea.

No matter who you are, it's what happens "between your ears" that determines the shape and direction of our whole life! Anne concentrates on the "inside job" The Christian woman's heart life, thought life, between the ears life. Don's just be a grey Christian, but build a life that burns "white hot" with purity and strength.

Author Anne Ortlund believes one of today's greatest needs is a reconciling of the "generation gap." The responsibility is on the adults of this world to reach across the gap, in love and humility, to their children, and to do this quickly, while the children are still moldable and impressionable. From babyhood on, verbal affirmations are a simple but powerful technique, and she takes us through specific suggestions for each age.