At a time when divisiveness is often the word of choice to describe dynamics in our country, our politics, families, and even, sad to say, inside the church, a book about love is a welcome respite.

The book I have in mind is not about just any old brand of love either. In her new book, When You Love a Prodigal: 90 Days of Grace for the Wilderness, Judy Douglass writes about the never-give-up fightin’ kind of love.

This devotional/memoir takes the reader behind the scenes of the years-long saga of Judy’s relentless love for her son Josh. With Josh’s full permission, Judy chronicles the ups and downs of their story together. She is forthcoming about the parental agonies she suffered, the helplessness she experienced, and her spiritual battle to trust God with the son she desperately loves when things weren’t going well.

Without concealing how hard it was for both of them, Judy describes how God used their journey to grow and teach her and to deepen her faith. 

It should come as no surprise to any of us that one of the most beloved stories Jesus told was about the prodigal son and his love-driven father. All of us need frequent reminding that we are objects of our heavenly Father’s fightin’ love for us too—that he never gives up on any of us. Nor should we on the kids and grandkids whose mere existence has ignited in us that fierce “never stopping, never giving up, unbreaking, always and forever love.”^[i]

Parents in all stages of parenting will find a friend in Judy. She has traveled this long road and is fearless in looking back to offer wise words of encouragement and hope to others. 

Who doesn’t need that!?

^[i] Sally Lloyd-Jones, The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2007), 173.