Beauty for Ashes: Letters from a Mother's Heart

Dear Reader, Why do ordinary, intelligent, and loving women end up having abortions or putting their own child in foster care? The author did both. This is her story as told through a series of letters from the heart to all her children. Laura John's first book takes readers through a very personal account, from being a child with no roots, who has a teenage abortion and a mental breakdown in her forties, to the woman she now is. An unshakable faith and preservation of family have become the driving forces in her life, and she describes through a series of heartfelt letters to her eight children how one very dysfunctional family is torn apart and reconciled to survive rape, alcoholism, divorce, miscarriages, drug abuse, and autism. The "blended" family that emerges through these pages will encourage anyone who has experienced a breakdown in relationships. This is not a self-help book or a book brimming with advice for parents; rather it is a chronicle of being a mother in often difficult circumstances, and about making impossible choices and living with the consequences. It has been said that the only thing stronger than fear is hope, and it is hope that emerges triumphantly in this book that is essentially about being a mother. Laura John was born and brought up as a white child in Central Africa (Congo) to English missionary parents. She now lives in Sydney, Australia with her youngest children (one of whom is autistic) and her husband, who describes himself as the "madman" from Galashiels.