Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed by Glennon Melton

Carry On, Warrior: Thoughts on Life Unarmed by Glennon Melton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

About the Book: In Carry On, Warrior, Glennon Doyle Melton shares new stories and the best-loved material from Momastery.com She recounts her mistakes and triumphs with candor and humor, and gives language to our universal (yet often secret) experiences. She believes that by shedding our armor, we can stop hiding, competing, striving for the mirage of perfection, and making motherhood, marriage, and friendship harder by pretending they’re not hard. In this one woman trying to love herself and others, readers find a wise and witty friend who will inspire them to forgive their own imperfections, make the most of their gifts, and commit to small acts of love that will change the world.


My thoughts: I'd never heard of Glennon Doyle Melton. I can't believe I haven't been reading Momastary. Glennon is the blogger I daren't be. She lives out loud and without apology. She has confidence in the person she is and the direction is going for the simple reason that she is solid in her faith in God and His Love for her. Before you tune out thinking this is another religious book, let me clarify. Many of her ideas on God resonate with me loud and clear. Some don't but it doesn't matter. What connects the loudest and clearest will connect with any person that believes in a Higher Power, regardless of religion or spiritual persuasion. Except atheist, I suppose. Agnostics will be filled with hope.

Glennon is FUNNY! I mean, truly funny. She also brought me to my own epiphany when I looked her up and listened to an interview and researched her obsessively and Aaaawed all over her family and sighed all over her husband and cried all over her separation. If Glennon reads this review, I am certain she will understand my stalker like behavior. Glennon is an incredibly gifted writer who can not only articulate thoughts and feelings and experiences beautifully, but she has the courage to dig out the core truths of them all and write them. When I read her essays, she had a southern accent and she talked fast and with focus. Then I listened to an interview and realized she is not an outgoing, public speaker. I mean no disrespect because I get that. I really, really get that. I realized that I am not alone in my gift of writing and lack of gift of speaking. In fact, I'm an utter failure when public speaking. I'm okay with that but it disappoints me to disappoint others. On the other hand, there is Glennon, carrying on, giving her all, and stepping right up to her fear and sticking out her tongue at it.

I love that.

With perfect and focused honesty, Glennon shares her short road to sobriety (taking a pregnancy test), making a decision to choose every day to stay sober, raise her family, and live out loud. And don't even get me started on the essay she wrote one August when she made the decision that she was finished parenting her children until something significant differentiated one day from the other and when was school going to start again. I laughed and laughed. Because this woman is a mother who loves her children, her family, and the idea of being a mother and a wife. She is also a woman who tells the truth about the reality of daily living as a wife and mother. I have raged my own diatribes about well-meaning women who catch me in the grocery store with four children hanging off a basket while I'm trying to keep it from tipping over, wrestling a package of Oreos from another child before it gets opened only to realize that that isn't my child and that nice old lady smiles nostalgically and says, "Enjoy them while their young." I bite my tongue from telling the old lady to enjoy her ambulatory way of life while she can because death is creeping up on her. Because that would be rude and I'm nothing if not a pillar of politeness.

There is so much more to say. Just read it. Love it. Love yourself and accept that you are perfect just the way you are.

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