My Great Love Languages Adventure Began One Year Ago This Week
My great love languages adventure began one year ago this week when I boarded a train bound for the Windy City.
All by myself.
That’s right.This small town woman spent several days in Chicago after being invited by the publisher of Sharing Love Abundantly in Special Needs Families: The 5 Love Languages® for Parents Raising Children with Disabilities which they released on August 6, 2019.
Caregiving families loved the book.
My great love languages adventure didn’t end that week. I was invited to speak at special needs conferences and at churches about how parents could adapt the love languages for their children with disabilities. Radio stations and podcasters asked for more interviews. Parents signed up for book studies. They sent emails about how helpful the book was.
It was wonderful.
Because I raised a child with special needs. I know families like ours desperately need the encouragement and practical tools found in Sharing Love Abundantly as they care for loved ones. To know that the book was reaching the parents it was written for was deeply satisfying.
Then the coronavirus hit.
Parents had to figure out how to do school at home and shelter in place. COVID-19 was the only thing radio shows and podcasts talked about for months.
It was a weird time.
It’s still a weird time, and what Sharing Love Abundantly has to offer caregiving families is as vital as ever. While this small town woman can’t board a train for Chicago to promote the first anniversary of the book’s release, I’m determined to do what I can.
Starting with a book give away.
To enter the drawing for a free book, leave a comment below about how you plan to use it–for your family, as a gift to a friend, to donate to a public library or to your church. Just leave your comment by midnight on September 3. To sweeten the deal, I’ll give away a free book for every 10 people who enter.
How’s that for an anniversary celebration?
My great love languages adventure began with a trip to Chicago one year ago this week. Despite the pandemic, the adventure is not not over. Not by a long shot. I have anything to do with it, the adventure won’t end in my lifetime. Because I raised a child with special needs. My desire is to support families like ours. I’m going to do whatever it takes to make that happen.
Coronavirus be damned.
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By Jolene
Jolene Philo is the author of the Different Dream series for parents of kids with special needs. She speaks at parenting and special needs conferences around the country. She’s also the creator and host of the Different Dream website. Sharing Love Abundantly With Special Needs Families: The 5 Love Languages® for Parents Raising Children with Disabilities, which she co-authored with Dr. Gary Chapman, was released in August of 2019 and is available at local bookstores, their bookstore website, and at Amazon.
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I think I first heard about your book after Sandra Peoples interviewed you. It’s on my wish list still!
I would like to to use it for our new special needs ministry at church and have 5 families who started right before covid. I am also a mom to special needs child. Thank you
I would like to get a copy of the book to share with my daughter’s friend who is raising a special needs child. I got to know her while caring for the children in their small group, and it was a delight. Thank you for the great insights and encouragement in this book – very readable! I borrowed it from the library, and will recommend it to her either way!
Jolene, thank you for the opportunity to win your book. I have been living a “Different Dream” for 17 years with my beautiful, amazing daughter.
I would love to read and learn from your book, and then share it with other families who’s Dreams took a turn with a diagnosis.
So excited to read your book, Jolene! Of course, I would read your book first, and then donate it to the bookmobile, for others to read. Knowing you, and reading your books has always been a highlight. Thank you for the opportunity.
I plan to read it and then share it with a friend.
Thank you for this opportunity. I would like to read it, refer it to others, and I would like to share your books along with others in the book I am writing as reading materials… with your permission of course. Our journey has been a long one and still going. Through my son and those who have shared what they have learned, by giving references to others as helpful materials and reafing, it is my hope that together we can alll make a difference for the young familes of today and those whose children are not born yet.