Terribly Interesting

I downloaded this little baby on to my phone a month or so ago to read when I didn't have a book or woke up in the night. I like to have something funny going in the background of reading things that are supposed to make me smarter or wiser. It seems to take the edge off and helps me see life through the scope of normalcy. It's easy to lose our humility in our quest for knowledge. Then we just run around trying to one up one another spiritually. That is lame. Enter Melanie Shankle who just talks like a normal human being. She tells true to life stories and is more honest than most people I know. I think most of us want to share the truth of our struggles, but we have all fallen pray to some sort of fake stepford wife syndrome in the church. We need a good laugh. We need to say it like it is and be seen for who we truly are so that we can all love one another. I realize that some people don't let us do that. Every time we say something real, they retort that it is als...

I loved this book. If you follow me on The Gospel Mom (on Facebook and Instagram), you will have seen some of the things that impacted me from it's pages. I did not pay attention to what the book was about when I selected it to review. You can read about how it hit me and took me back in time when I started reading it on Instagram. I review books for publishers. Often I will click on a book in the queue and select it to review without diving into what it's about. I saw this new book by Matt and Beth Redman and selected it. The book is called Finding God In the Hard Times. It's largely about the testimony of Matt's song Blessed Be Your Name. You probably know these lines from it. "You give and You take away. Blessed be Your name." I wasn't expecting it, but reading this book set me straight back in time to a time of miscarriage for me and my husband. We have lost six babies (one set of twins). We just kind of quietly move forward after the...

Here is all the honesty. I have not been a big fan of Jen Hatmaker. I don't mean to say I don't like her. I just never jumped on the bandwagon. I heard her speak and could have taken it or left it. I thought Seven sounded gimmicky. I just never connected. I am only telling you this because I was given a copy of her latest book For the Love at a conference and I liked it.  I have read some of Jen's blogs over the years and thought of how brave she is to tackle some serious topics of our day. You know people have to write her some major hate mail. This book is really no exception. It's full of good old fashioned wisdom. Much of what she said I can hear myself saying. In an age where so many Christian mom sites are about "stuff you need to do right or you don't love Jesus," this is a breath of fresh air. I can boil the whole thing down to two phrases. Simmer down. Be kind. Well, Jen, I cooked the food and had the neighbor over. I made Ina G...