Terribly Interesting

If you are looking for a good devotional to start the year for a girl in your life, I recommend Beloved . My girls and I have been going through it and it is truly inspirational. We also learned quite a bit about different women in the Bible. It is amazing what you can pick up and process in under 10 minutes a day. The book is affirming of how God created women in their beauty and helps us put the focus on what true value is. Dig in! BOOK REVIEW – ZONDERVAN BELOVED: 365 DEVOTIONS FOR YOUNG WOMEN Book:  Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women Author:  Lindsay A. Franklin Publisher:  Zondervan From Zondervan comes  Beloved: 365 Devotions for Young Women : Relationships, inner beauty, and chasing your dreams are all topics on the top of a teen girl’s list. So give them great Biblical role models to admire as they grow and understand who they are.  Beloved  is a topical devotional that uses the inspiring stories of girls ...

View this post on Instagram As I was walking out of the house yesterday, I saw my grandmother’s mink hat. I have never worn it and I thought It would be perfect to wear on the car car ride to a dinner party. It wasn’t cold out, but my husband likes to keep it cold enough to cultivate icicles wherever he goes...so it was perfect. I also finished this book about a woman who stepped up to lead a football team in Brownwood, Texas during WWII, when all the men were gone. It was interesting on many levels. Seeing the tragedy and heartbreak stateside as well as the mentality against women stepping into male dominated roles was fascinating. {link in bio} Pass the gumption. While The Men Were Gone was a fabulous read. The story about this woman who bravely coached a football team during World War II is interesting in many ways. You can see things about the time and the harsh reality of how war crushed families and...

The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God's Goodness Around You by Shannan Martin My rating: 4 of 5 stars I just loved Shannan's book. It is exactly what it says it is, ministry in the ordinary space of your every day life. I can completely identify with her story of selling her white picket fence dream home to move to a scary place that needed a lot of love. These words are a breath of fresh air reminding us to keep opening the door. Keep inviting people to dinner. Keep reaching out to the addict, the imprisoned, the hurting. Your light is a lifeline. Will you get hurt? Absolutely. Keep pressing on. Shannan's husband is a jail chaplain. She gives us a window into his life ministering to and loving inmates. It is a great encouragement to see people pouring out their hearts to love the unwanted of society. Thanks for being brave and sharing what you are learning. View all my reviews

I keep hearing the guy on the street in the movie Pretty Woman. "What's your dream? Everybody has a dream." At the beginning of fall, I began praying through what I felt like God was leading me to do with my life. It is ridiculously easy to get to the end of the day (month, year) and not actually accomplish anything. We are a distracted people. We can also strive so hard to accomplish goals that we miss the humans we are meant to care for. I pondered through Bob Goff's question about what we would do if we weren't afraid anymore. I thought deeply about Mary Oliver's Summer Day poem that asks what we are going to do with our one wild and precious life. I made several lists and talked down fear over and over. I wrote out all the visions cast in my heart and things I have been too afraid to do. I laid out a step by step plan for each item on my list and I keep placing each item back into the hands of God.  Each day, I have been asking him to do th...

Kingdom Citizen: Your Role in Rebuilding a Broken Nation by Tony Evans My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a tiny little book that packs a punch. There are so many things we want to waver on every day because our culture tells us we are unloving. Tony reminds us that pointing people away from God's truth and righteousness is hateful. It is not loving. I closed the book being reaffirmed to stand the ground that God has given us. Actually invite the kingdom and love according to God's word. May we be a kingdom people. View all my reviews The news is filled with stories of violence, division, and despair. American politics have become polarized. Effective leadership is in short supply. Change may seem outside our reach. And Christians struggle to understand their role in reversing the downward spiral of our nation. Dr. Tony Evans offers a healthy dose of hope: the solution to our nation’s problems and unrest  isn’t  out of reach. The solution is here―and each one of us...

I bought this book in the Birmingham airport a few weeks ago and finished it on our day of travel. It is fantastic. Deeply moving. The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather   Morris My rating: 5 of 5 stars I do not usually buy books in airport stores because they are incredibly overpriced. We flew from Birmingham to Chicago to Austin and then drove to Waco. That meant I had 9 hours of travel on my hands. I have been seeing this book and had it on my wish list, but had not picked up a copy. With the recent shooting in the Jewish Synagogue (and Jewish nurse working on the shooter), my heart was pricked to remember the story once again. Angry, empty people are everywhere looking for a target. It’s good to remember the people who stood against atrocity. It’s good to reread the horrific acts and see the hidden heroes in unlikely places. That’s what this is. I had wondered if this was a true story because it says it’s historical fiction. The publisher tells us that the designation...

Are any of the rest of you desperate for good words to pray over your children? Parenting is one of the hardest things I have ever done. From conception to training to loving through pain. Often, I find myself unable to even formulate a decent thought because I am overstimulated. Can you empathize? As I read through these pages, I found myself breathing more deeply than normal. These are the words in my heart that I was too tired to speak. I keep reading them repeatedly. Perhaps you are weary from the battlefield and need some backup artillery. This is it. These are prayers for your arrows to fly true. Prayers for the Battlefield: Staying Momstrong in the Fight for Your Family and Faith by Heidi St. John My rating: 5 of 5 stars This is a book that you keep out to read over and over. There are thirty-one topics and prayers in this book and in each one I was moved to pray for myself or someone else. The words resonate. As I would read through the warfare prayers, I would thin...

Three books have spoken deeply to my heart this year. One line in Bob Goff's Everybody Always keeps coming up to me. "What if we weren't afraid anymore?" I have lingered in Dr. Barry C. Black's Nothing to Fear . The Brave Art of Motherhood has been the third installment in my semester of God turning my heart upside down. It's not that I haven't been brave. I have done plenty of things that take gumption. The thing is that I have done those things through fear and they have caused so much pain to release.  I picture myself packaging up presents, leaving them on doorsteps, and running. Maybe no one will know it was me. I want to be brave enough to bear my pain for the healing of others and greater glory of God.  This book grabbed my attention because of three words that I pray for regularly. Brave. Art. Motherhood. I come form the tribe of "I'm not equipped for this." Somehow, with no formal training, I am here. I have realized that de...