I have recently been encouraged by three different people to read this book - and then I stumbled onto the author's blog without realizing who it was. So I took the hint and broke down and picked it up. Haven't gotten very far yet, but the first few pages are excellent. Here's a brief excerpt:

There are days I just want to throw my tired hands to the sky and shout, "Enough!" in some sort of poetic declaration to the noise gods that I will not listen. It's not really their fault. I have to learn to turn things off, to not clutter my life with so much noise. I can't hear the important things if the unimportant clamor minute by minute for my attention. "This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: 'In repentance and rest is your salvation, and quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.' " (Isaiah 30:15)

If I disdain repentance, rest, quietness, and trust, I will not hear what God wants me to hear. I will be tossed here and there by noise, neglecting the cries of my chilodren or stifling the cry of my heart to be quiet before Jesus.

Many times the noise I refuse to quiet is my own, coming from deep insdie me. Its voice utters words like "should," "you'd better," or "so you can cross that off your list." When I listen to these voices, I am more apt to snap at my children's innocent needs or miss a friend's nonverbal plea for a listening ear.

(By the way, this book is also part of the "Hearts at Home" series, which also contains the book Professionalizing Motherhood that I'm always raving about.)

This author has also written a book called Building the Christian Family You Never Had, and that topic is addressed in her

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