The Blog Tour Spot: “Someone’s Son” by Brenda Rhodes

A MOTHER’S FIGHT FOR HER SON!

Book Blurb:

Sexual molestation…addiction…homosexuality…HIV/AIDS…

illness and hospitalization…death.

Sadly, these markers on life’s road are familiar ones.  Brenda Rhodes knows them well.  In Someone’s Son, Brenda describes how she watched her sensitive, creative son, Ronal Paul, self-destruct as he traveled down this path.  She seemed powerless to pull him back to safety.

Someone’s Son is a memoir of personal tragedy, but it’s more than that.  It’s an account of God’s faithful love for a prodigal.  Beginning with her own history.  Rhodes unflinchingly writes of the years she strayed away from God.  At the end of her resources, she heard Him urging her to let Him be God in her and her son’s lives.  She did, and she found hope at the end of the road.

Someone’s Son will touch your heart, stir your faith, and awaken your concern for those struggling with addiction and other serious issues.  It will leave you with the confidence that when you encounter someone like Ronal Paul, you’ll realize he or she is not just another drug addict or AIDS patient.  She’s someone’s daughter–and he’s someone’s son.

 

Bio:

Brenda is a retired co-owner of a successful family business.  She encountered the mighty hand of God during the hardest struggle of her life–watching her beloved son self-destruct and die.

Having experience deep sorrow, Rhodes sought a way to help others triumph over pain.  Today she is a Stephen Minister in her local church’s Stephen Ministry, a one-to-one ministry to people in crisis.  She lives in a Southern-style country home in Rockwall, TX, that she often opens to visiting missionaries, and she enjoys her family and friends (as well as her wrap-around porch and her cats).

1 Corinthians 13:7  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.

My Review:

Brenda Rhodes just wanted to have a loving husband and raise successful children.  Her choices put her in a position that changed her life’s course.  She had her two children, but her marriages failed for one reason or another.

From her first marriage she had her daughter, Wendi, and her son, Ronal Paul.  Wendi had a lot of wit and wisdom.  Ronal Paul was the tenderhearted outcast, everywhere, except for his mother, sister and Brenda’s brother, to a point.

Someone’s Son is the heart-wrenching story of a wayward son and his mother’s unquenchable, unending love for him.  His lifestyle brought out the worst in him through his behaviors and attitudes.  She fought for him with a tenacity that never seemed to end.

The heartbreak of watching a son self-destruct right before your eyes is not a pretty sight.  Brenda held nothing back.  Her emotions and despair sit clearly on the pages.  She describes the good and the ugly about her son.  My heart was breaking just reading about her endless, futile efforts to bring Ronal Paul back, despite all her good intentions.  She definitely brought out the mothering side of me.  This is a very touching, moving story.

Brenda wrote this book as a memoir of her son and to reach out to others suffering with family members who have addictions and other maladies. She doesn’t want us to dwell on the ugly side of Ronal Paul’s life.  She came to realize that nothing she did in her own efforts brought Ronal Paul back to the young caring man she once remembered until she turned her own life over to the Lord and surrendered to His will. This is what she wants the world to know– that lives can change with God in control.  Her book is a book of hope and restoration, just maybe not the way she envisioned it.  This is usually true for most of us.

I would recommend this book for those who do and those who don’t have these issues in their lives.  It is helpful in learning how to empathize and bear one another’s burdens, pray, and be there for each other, especially family.  It shows the undying love of a mother for her son and the undying love of God for His children.  She is the first to acknowledge that her book is not a ‘how-to,’ but rather more a ‘hot-not-to.’  I don’t totally agree with her assessment.

This is also a book about choices—how those choices affect us and those around us.  We do reap what we sow, but we also have a merciful God who can redeem our poor choices.

This book was provided by Tina from The Blog Tour Spot in exchange for my honest review.