Mended, by Blythe Daniel and Helen McIntosh (Giveaway!)

Happy Mother’s Day! I hope you are having a wonderful weekend and are able to celebrate some special moms in your life.

Today we are telling you about the next book in “Get Ready for Summer Reading Giveaway Series.” If you haven’t entered our week one giveaway for the book Becoming Us, there is still time! Click here! 

Get Ready for Summer Reading Giveaway Series, week 2

Today I want to tell you about a really special book that will truly change so many relationships for the better, Mended: Restoring the Hearts of Mothers and Daughters.

We are especially honored to share this book, because one of the authors Blythe Daniel, is our literary agent and friend. Molly and I met her at a writer’s conference and she has since been helping The Gingham Apron girls to publish a book that we wrote together. Our book, The Gathering Table, will be coming out in the fall of 2020, and we couldn’t have realized this goal without the help of our friend Blythe. 

Blythe and her mom, Helen McIntosh, a counseling psychologist, have written a book about making the mother/daughter relationship healthy and strong, even when it is coming from a broken or difficult place. I love this book and learned so much from it, and I know it will be a blessing to you, too. I had the honor of interviewing the authors about this powerful work. 

1. When did you first decide to pursue this project? Tell us what made you so passionate about the topic of the mother/daughter relationship. 

We decided to “go for it” at the end of 2016 and started outlining it right after. We both were encouraged to do so over breakfast with a dear author friend. There are just so many broken mother-daughter relationships in my world, in contrast to my great relationship with Blythe.  Blythe had asked me for years about writing a book together about our relationship.  But my heart was to share how to repair as well as sharing about our good relationship and how to preserve a healthy relationship.     

2. How did you decide on the title of Mended? 

Our publisher took our thoughts about mending our hearts to each other and shortened it to this and we’re so glad because it represents so much in the book: being mended to God, first of all, and then stitching our hearts to each other, word by word.

3. Why do you think that the mother/daughter relationship can be so strained? What do you feel that God truly intends for this important relationship? 
   
   Great questions. We believe that because often mothers and daughters can be so different (just like any two children in the household from the same family!) that we can clash over our choices, and our differences can drive us apart rather than closer together. If there was ever any lack of love or attention to a daughter, she probably feels like there is an invisible wall between her and her mom. Or a mom might feel like how she handled her daughter, even to the best she could at the time, hasn’t been enough and she feels frustrated not only in her relationship with her daughter but also at how her daughter is leading her life. We see that God intends for us to break down walls and the devastation that has come between us and to rebuild! Just like the verse that’s the basis for our book Mended, Isaiah 58:12: “Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”
   
   Maybe your dwellings haven’t been good or maybe you feel pretty good about it now. But when something does shake your foundations, are you a repairer or a divider? We want to encourage women to do what Isaiah says and restore: with our words, with our anticipated expectation of what can be, not just what is. 

4. How did you decide to write the book Mended? What has this project meant your relationship and to your family heritage? 

We decided to write the book because we believe that setting new generational patterns of healthy relationships is possible. Mom has done this and I’m living the results of it. I (Blythe) see how important it is to start early with my kids in saying words that bring us closer together even in the midst of hard places with each other. Really, the conversation starters in the book can be applied to any relationship – it’s come from language that my mom has given me and I’ve turned around and used with my family. So for these reasons, it really has meant a lot to write this book for our family heritage and to be able to share with those who want the same. I love that we’ve had this experience together of sharing our hearts, and I know that your Gingham Apron family feels the same way as you share tools with your readers to draw closer together. These family gatherings and basis for conversations are so important as we all age and mature in our walk with the Lord and with each other.

5. Tell us a little bit about what the co-writing process was like. Did you know right away which topics you wanted to include? How were you able to achieve such a warm conversational style? 
   
   Wow, as we look back on our process, we can say that it wasn’t normal or typical and we are great with that! Just after we signed our contract and started thinking about the book, Mom was diagnosed with Stage 3 Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. She started chemotherapy and I was traveling to writer’s conferences and to be with Mom. She would go to her computer to type on days that she felt well enough to do so. Because of the intense time for our family and subsequent hospital stays that Mom had, we didn’t get to work on it like we had anticipated. We were given a year to write it, but we really didn’t start writing it until a few months before it was due. I would sit in the hospital with Mom and listen and type while she downloaded such richness. Then I’d build in my stories and repeat! We live across the country, but we did most of our writing when I visited her. After our editor gave us her good feedback, we spent another couple of months on edits back-and-forth and I actually loved that part the most (the editor in me)!

Mom really laid the groundwork for the topics and I loved how she came up with those. We did try to be relational and I hope it shines through. The process certainly drew our relationship, and what we felt led to share, in sharper focus and I hope it comes across as such. 😉

6. What do you hope to accomplish with the message of this book? What vision has God given you for the powerful theme of reconciliation? 

My (Helen) vision is for it to be a reference book for mothers or daughters seeking to be “repairers of the breach” (back to Isaiah 58:12 and Isaiah 61:4).  It contains some basic but crucial relational principles, some actual sentences to make things better, and some strategic prayers for breakthrough…so they can be MENDED! 

What we want to share is that repair and restoration are possible!  We want each reader to have new ideas and a fresh approach as she attempts to repair and restore the relationship with her mother/daughter.  Our book is super practical. Our wish is for broken mother/daughter relationships to be made new or stronger. It contains actual language for restoration.  We also cover the repeating of family patterns in the generations behind us and how to start over with your family.

7. Blythe, you’ve represented so many authors in your career. What have been some of your favorite parts of being a first-time published author? Helen, what has it meant to you to share this experience with Blythe? 

Thank you for asking this – it has truly been a joy for me to be an author. My favorite parts have been completing all the writing and editing and being able to say “we did this together” to my mom. I wouldn’t have wanted to do it without her, truly. I have loved getting to talk about the book with those, like you, who have asked, and to hear over and over the wisdom and depth that Mom has to offer. Hearing stories of people who are reading the book and really liking it has been another gift.

Well for me (Helen), seeing my daughter in action has been so fun! To see how God has wired her, and to see her walk in the gifts she has, has been an absolute joy. I love being a co-author with her, and I am grateful to Blythe for her sharing this experience with me. I love watching her juggle so many things, but mostly love her for who she is and for how God has made us closer through this. We didn’t have one moment’s trouble writing this book, which we believe is truly from God. We hope women will be encouraged that voicing  or writing out your words to the other can bring healing to us and to them!

Good news! We are giving away a copy of this wonderful book! Even if you don’t have a mother/daughter relationship that you’d like to specifically work on, I can say from reading it that I gained a lot of wisdom about how to strengthen any relationship. So I believe that this book is great for anyone! If you’d like to be considered for this giveaway, comment below. You can either say, “Enter me!” or you can answer this question: What is your favorite part about spring? We will announce a random winner one week from today, May 19th.