Follow Here To Purchase Growing Up Ziglar: A Daughter's Broken Journey from Heartache to Hope (Voices of Faith Series)

Author: Julie Ziglar Norman

Publisher: Guideposts

ISBN: 978-0-8249-4531-2

Famous Zig Ziglar, renowned positive motivational speaker, had several children, one of which forged her own destructive path down life’s bumpy roads to tell. Julie Ziglar Norman’s Growing Up Ziglar is a memoir that encompasses her own grief, sadness, and guilt of her past to a repented, redemptive, joyful personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

This one hundred and seventy four page soft-cover book has an endearing photograph of father and daughter in their older years against a purple background. Beside the six reviews on the cover, there is a short biography of the writer, along with some family photos. Inside are five pages of more reviews, a dedication, and table of contents along with an introduction, about the author section, audio purchase information and her foundation’s website. Each page has a very light spray of lavender flower designs at the top.

The book is written in casual format, thus includes contractions, dangling prepositions, numerical numbers and misspellings (i.e. neeeed) for emphasis. No other grammatical or typographical errors were noticed.

Julie’s book is about life: life choices, life regrets and life changes. Having been brought up in a “perfect” positive family, she learns early how to hide her guilt and shame of doing any thing wrong for parents or others to see, judge or condemn. She masters hiding her past secrets well throughout the years but she is honest enough to want to accept her short-comings and change her ways.

Without divulging all of her personal flaws, sins and mistakes mentioned, the book spans from life as a young child to a fifty-something year old, mature woman who looks back at those mistakes and tries to understand, correct and deal with them. Her path of life choices is sad, tragic and humbling. To get past the past, she accepts and believes God is truly the One in control of our lives and it is He that directs our paths. “Everything happens for a reason” can be applied to our choices, disappointments and regrets.

By the grace of God, Julie has beautifully and honestly told her intimate story of heartaches, disappointments and wrong choices. Both idealistic father and Julie are human like us and we all make and will continue to make mistakes in life. She explains how God redeemed her from the shame of hiding her secrets and lies, the guilt of repeating life-altering mistakes and the constant negative self-talk. She promotes church affiliations and friendships, reading the Bible and most importantly, trusting Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, who can shed you of all pain and sorrow.

Julie did an excellent job not making the book all about her, but how God changed her to be who she is today as she encourages the reader to think about her own life choices. This is great book for both the Christian struggling with past sins and guilt and anyone wondering how they can get on track with God in their own messed-up lives. Since it is soul-searching, even Christians who appear “having it all together” will understand “… all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23.