It Wasn’t Roaring, It Was Weeping:
Interpreting the Language of Our Fathers Without Repeating Their Stories
It Wasn’t Roaring, It Was Weeping
Interpreting the Language of Our Fathers Without Repeating Their Stories
by Lisa-Jo Baker
Pub Date 07 May 2024
Convergent Books
Biographies & Memoirs| Christian
Convergent Books and Netgalley gave me a copy of It Wasn’t Roaring, It Was Weeping to review:
In the heart of Zululand during the apartheid era, Lisa-Jo Baker longs to write a new future for her children — a longing that sets her on a journey to understand where she belongs in a story of violence and faith, history and race. Prior to getting married and having kids, she came to the US to study human rights.
Having naively walked right into America’s turbulent racial landscape, Baker experienced a painful awakening that is both personal and universal. Yet years would go by before she traced this American trauma back to her own South African past.
During her teenage years, Baker’s mother died of cancer, leaving her with her dad. Although they shared a language of faith and justice, she often feared him, not realizing how deeply rooted his temper was in a family’s and a nation’s pain. Decades later, old wounds have reopened when she became a terrifying version of her father, screaming at her son until she was hoarse. Only then did Baker realize that to go forward — to refuse to repeat the sins of our fathers — we must first go back.
From South Africa’s outback to Washington, D.C., It Wasn’t Roaring, It Was Weeping is a brave look at inherited hurts and prejudices, and a hope-filled example for anyone feeling lost in life or worried they’re too off track. A story like Baker’s shows you it’s never too late to change.
I give It Wasn’t Roaring, It Was Weeping five out of five stars!
Happy Reading!