Teresa Whitehurst, a clinical psychologist who counsels and works as a personal and career coach, has developed a comprehensive “can do” resource for single moms. A single mother herself, she offers these women wonderful doses of emotional and spiritual encouragement as indicated in her book’s title. Whitehurst gets highly practical and shares numerous personal stories during periods in which she floundered and lost sight of life’s bigger parenting picture. She also generously provides chapter-by-chapter “case studies” of other single mothers who have struggled, suffered, and felt weighted down by their myriad parenting responsibilities, and gently suggests remedies to these universal problems.

Whitehurst shares candidly about how she mistakenly believed that God didn’t love her anymore (or was at least disappointed in her) after divorcing at the tender age of 25. Her marriage at 17, her subsequent motherhood journey that began at 20, and the few years of marriage following these major life junctures had Whitehurst believing that she and her then-husband had beaten the harrowing odds of “teen marriages with the 50 percent divorce rate.” However, by age 25, she found herself parenting solo and was scared.

Whitehurst discusses how she feared single motherhood because she accurately recognized that she would be doing the work of two parents on her own. Second, she writes that she misunderstood single motherhood by assuming she could do it alone. She realized eventually that self-sufficiency doesn’t mean that a single mother need not rely on outside help and the support of a group of other people. Finally, she says she was unprepared for single motherhood. She understood early on that as the only parent in the home, she was all things to her daughter, and still had to communicate with her ex-husband, take care of herself, and plan for the future…all at the same time. This daunting realization may cause many single moms to simply give up and resign themselves to a hopeless, dreary life.

It is for these reasons that Whitehurst wrote this book and gives numerous to-the-point instructions on analyzing one’s emotional and spiritual temperature through specific quizzes (for understanding both the short- and long-term life goals) and positive “boxes” of perspective on the wonderful parts of being a single mom. Specifically, single mothers will discover new ways to find self-care, get support, become organized, restore faith and confidence, take care of their children, and begin viewing themselves as the CEO of their homes. All positive perspectives, all practical principles, Whitehurst writes from her experience as a single mom on a mission to uplift others.

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