#REVIEW: The Fruitful Wife: Cultivating a Love Only God Can Produce by Hayley DiMarco

Title: The Fruitful Wife: Cultivating a Love Only God Can Produce

Series: none

Author:  Hayley DiMarco

Published Date: Sept 30, 2012

Publisher: Crossway

Format: ebook

Pages: 208

ISBN: 978-1433530708

Genre: Christian self-help

Add to: Goodreads

Purchase: Amazon | Crossway

Rating: 1 star

Synopsis: Are you loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, AND self-controlled? Most of the time? Sometimes? How about when life gets hard or marriage gets tough? Whatever your answer may be, the good news is that you are not alone.Best-selling author, mother, and wife Hayley DiMarco understands the challenges we all face and answers the question at hand: How can you be the woman God is calling you to be—a woman who bears the fruit of the Spirit in your marriage and in the daily grind of life? To help you grow, Hayley explores the biblical significance of all nine fruits of the Spirit, explaining how each fruit first begins to grow and then how each impacts your day-to-day life and marriage. She writes like a close friend, openly sharing stories of her own failures to be spiritually fruitful as well as her relational struggles for control, authority, and respect. Ultimately, Hayley teaches us how even the rockiest of marriages can blossom and generate the fruit God intends to produce.

My Review: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

First I want to start out by saying, I am not joyful, loving, peaceful, patient, kind, good gentle, or self-controlled. But I want to be those things! I want to be my grandmother. She had the patience of a saint, and could get everything done without breaking a sweat, and all with a smile on her face. Me? Not so much, I balk at housework, dig my heels in, going to it like a cat about to face a bath and feel like the responsibility of the entire household is on me.

So when I saw this book, I nearly jumped for joy. Finally, a book that will show me concrete ways of being the person I want to be (and probably my family too)! The cover was so pretty, and the promise of showing me how to become the worker, wife and mother that I want to be, had me almost giddy.

Oh but I was disappointed. Each chapter details the fruit of the Holy Spirit, with much Scripture attached. The author adds in stories of before she did whatever she did to have that particular fruit. And then she shows how she acts now that she has done whatever it is she has done to bring in that particular fruit, whether it be love, joy, patience, etc etc. I’m so glad that someone was able to do that. That’s what I want to do….now how do I do it?

That’s what’s missing! There’s nothing concrete that says, “Hey, try x, y, and z, and it will help you to bring joy into your life.” And that is why I give this book 1 star, without concrete methods to try, it’s just a book of fluff.