Review: Etched…Upon My Heart by Jill Kelly

As a Christian parent, I sometimes struggle with deciding how much about my past to disclose to my children as they grow up. Like most all people on earth, I’ve made decisions I certainly regret. Mistakes that I hope my children will avoid.

I was interested in how Jill Kelly would handle that decision when writing her book, Etched…Upon My Heart . After all, her children will certainly read her book someday, if they haven’t already.

Etched…Upon My Heart is a compilation of lessons Jill Kelly would like to pass on to her daughters. Lessons that she sometimes learned the hard way. Lessons about topics such as love, significance, and suffering. And much to my surprise, and in the end, my delight, Jill laid her entire life on the line, so that her readers could glean wisdom from her experiences.

She recounts decisions she made as a teenager, before she was a Christian. She relives her husband’s infidelity. And she brings us along with her as she experiences her son’s terminal illness and eventual death. She intersperses personal stories with practical lessons that she’s learned in her lifetime.

Jill Kelly has not had an easy life, but with her struggles have come Godly wisdom. Wisdom that she is able to impart to her readers with her down to earth and honest style of writing. Who better to teach a lesson about significance than someone who has struggled with significance and come out the other side? Who better to teach a reader about prayer than someone who admittedly began her prayer life with very selfish prayers, only to discover prayer isn’t about the person praying, but about her Savior? And who better to show the reader that God is faithful despite our human suffering than someone who was able to say with confidence that God is faithful, after burying her son?

From the book

I never thought anything good would actually come from the heart-wrenching marital strife that Jim and I endured. Certainly, I never imagined that having a terminally ill son would ever prove to be “good.” Yet even now, the Lord continues to show me daily how He has used sickness, death, depression, fear, anxiety, suffering, and so much more of what hurt so deeply for good. (p. 139)

Etched…Upon My Heart was a blessing to read. I, too, see where God has used painful circumstances in my own life for His glory. To hear someone else recount the same perspective was an encouragement to me. And I believe Etched…Upon My Heart would probably be a good book for teen girls to read also. I plan on passing this book down to my 14 year old. There are a lot of good lessons to be learned in this little book. Lessons I wish I had learned before I left home and headed off to college. I think Etched…Upon My Heart will be good reinforcement of those lessons for my own daughter.

About the Author. Jilly Kelly is the wife of former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jim Kelly. At four months old, their son, Hunter, was diagnosed with Krabbe Leukodystrophy, a devastating fatal disease. Jim and Jill founded the Hunter’s Hope foundation to help other children suffering from this disease. They live in New York with their two daughters. Jill is also the author of Without a Word .

Etched…Upon My Heart will be released on January 22, 2013.

Disclosure: I received a copy of Etched…Upon My Heart from Faith Words in exchange for my honest review.