His Grace - A Battle Won, book review

His Grace – A Battle Won, A Missionary’s Journey from Tragedy to Triumph is the story of Dana McCutchen, a missionary to Sao Paolo, Brazil, and her family.

Her story is a full landscape, a very real landscape of life. Told openly and truthfully, even when it hurts.

It is the story of a Christian, missionary, wife and mother of two. A story of love, happiness, loss, pain, crushing difficulties and challenges, and victory trough everything.

In her Preface Dana writes “My desire in writing this book Is that it will touch the reader in such a way that he or she will come away with a greater love for our Lord and Savior. Through each difficulty they face in life, they will be able to say, “Thank you, sweet Jesus””.

In her story Dana faces life’s difficulties. She and her family travel through the States trying to find economical sustainability for their mission. They leave their home and families to live in a new country, Brazil. They struggle and work to learn to speak a new language, with many hilarious difficulties.

Dana has to face the disability of her two children who both are diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome. She learns to accept it and live with their daily problems, even to be thankful for other people’s understanding and the help they receive at school.

During their missionary years in Brazil they work in a very dangerous neighborhood. While Dana’s preadolescent daughter is visiting her friend from the church she is raped and has severe difficulties in accepting it and building her life again.

During those years it takes for her daughter to first come forward and tell about the rape to her parents and then find a way to accept herself. Dana and her husband are there, with the rest of the family, to support her, in any way she needs. Even when she is hurting so much that she tries to take her own life.

I agree with her profoundly with Dana’s words when she tells her daughter’s story. “It’s important for Christians to realize that mental health issues are a very real problem in our society today. Having mental health problems doesn’t make a person strange or weird. It just means that they need to talk out their problems more and maybe incorporate medicine into their daily struggles of life”.

Dana herself is diagnosed with a rare neurological disorder that makes her functionally blind. Through all this pain she remembers to put her faith in her Savior and leave everything in God’s able hands.

Even though Dana’s life may seem hard, there are many happy moments and memories. Instead of letting the difficulties drive her family apart, Dana finds ways to make it even stronger.

She never stops enjoying her wonderful children and loving them, even with their imperfections. And she never forgets to thank God for her wonderful husband and for his love.

She truly has been able to say, through each difficulty she has faced in her life, “Thank you, sweet Jesus”.

I read the book at once; I could not put it down. And while I read it, I laughed out loud on Dana’s descriptions of her mistakes while she learned to speak Portuguese. I also cried aloud reading of the fate of her daughter and how it hurt the whole family.

In my opinion Dana’s heartfelt true story makes a great read for anyone. But with the upcoming Mother’s Day I could not recommend more to give this as a gift. A gift that is guaranteed to bring many happy moments and also raise tears to your mother’s eyes. A gift to a mother who has really known how to love her children, through everything and anything.

Find Dana's book in the Amazon.

According to Dana McCutchen's biography in World Baptist Fellowships Mission Agency:

In 1990 Mark and Dana were approved as World Baptist Fellowship missionaries to Brazil where they served one term. After that time they served for one term in the field of New Zealand.  They have now returned to Brazil.

Mark was led to Christ by his father when he was thirteen years old. Dana was saved in church at age fourteen.

Mark and Dana are 1990 graduates of Arlington Baptist College. They were married at Trentman Avenue Baptist Church of Fort Worth, Texas in 1980.

Their sending church is the Pleasantview Baptist Church of Arlington formerly the Trentman Avenue Baptist Church.

They have two children - Shaunna and Justin.

Disclosure: I was provided with a e-copy of this book for review purposes.  All opinions expressed in this post are my own.

Wenesday facts

Today is Wednesday. It's no Friday but it's not Monday, either.

To honor the fact that we are in the middle of week, I will tell you five facts of life, about me or someone else, faith, world and existence in general.

 

And what I want from you, my readers?

 

I want to know about you! 

 

Leave me your facts, so I can enjoy reading them!

 

They can also be about you, your life or anything you find fascinating in this world or in the world beyond.

 

 

Here I go:

 

1)  When I was a child I used to love cross country skiing and skating. My mother's brothers are Finnish champions in Winter Biathlon (skiing and shooting) and I used to play that I was a biatholonist myself. Until as a teenager I started to suffer from undiagnosed astma that was triggered, among other things, by cold. It finally got so bad that I started to hate cold Finnish winters. You would too if you couldn't breath. And that is one of the reasons why I am here in Ecuador, in a country without winter.

 

 

2) I have always wanted to be a missionary. Or at least since I was six years old. That was the first time I told my parents that I wanted to be a missionary when I grew up. But as a child I thought I would go to Africa, like all the other missionaries. When I grew up alittle, I felt that my calling was in India and then I started dreaming about going to China. But when I was in High School I met a girl whose family was missionaries in Bolivia. I talked with her and her family and went to home and told my parents that we were all going to go as missionaries to Bolivia. My parents did have a calling but they felt, after many disapointments, that it was just not what God had meant to happen. But my insisting got them to call to our Church and led to them coming to Ecuador as missionaries. After I graduated from High School and couldn't come with them anymore. So, I came to visit them, and here I am 17 years later. It was a long visit :)

 

 

3) I co-sleeped with my son and carried him around in a sheet, as they call carrying cloth here in Ecuador. He was a colicy baby and cried a lot. And the only thing that would make him stop crying, eventually, was me carrying him around, wrapped in the sheet and singing my lungs out.

 

 

4) I studied first three years in the college for a teaching degree. I dropped that and studied a year for a year in a nursing school. Then I dropped that and got me a degree as an English as Foreign Language teacher from a University. After I graduated I told myself that I was finally going to study something that I actually liked. And started to study my Masters degree in Psychopedagogy. It is about the same as Special Education teacher but mixed with some Psychology studies. It took me some time to find what I really love to do but when I found it, it was love for ever :)

 

 

5) I am a movie cryier. I was already before I got bregnant. But after that it has been impossible. Now I see a pic of something sad, or see a video at Youtube of poor children, or watch a movie, and as they say here, I'm a sea of tears. I just can't stop them. I keep sobbing and sobbing and it's really embarasing. We went to see Toy Story 3 with my son to the movie theater and I cried out loud. And it hasn't gotten any better. I still keep crying at the movies and my son is nine. Can't blame it on him anymore.

Now it's your turn...