Terribly Interesting

In the South there is a saying about being taken to the woodshed.  The woodshed is where you go to get a whipping and sort out your issues. I've been spending so much time in the woodshed spiritually speaking that I could take up residence. In the truest sense, I have been sorting out some deep hurts and some desperate hopes with Jesus. As I followed this book through the Beatitudes, I was more and more desperate to be like Jesus. Humility is my buzzword. Every time I hear it, it is like an auditory prayer. Simply the word coming in changes into a cry of my heart. Pride is an easy thing for us to muster. Especially for those of us who have been abandoned and wounded. We all want to cover our scars with anything that will conceal our hurts. It is an easy trap. Of course we want others to think well of us. We want them to think we are smart, educated, beautiful, and possessing a perfectly timed wit. Pride doesn't heal others though. It doesn't even look at them. That...

I did not know what I was getting myself into when I selected this book for review. It's hard to tell which direction people are going these days with the adulteration of the church. Thankfully, Bob presented a simple, honest plan for spreading the gospel. It's the plan I would say is closest to my heart. Bob shares stories from around the globe, not about major marketing plans for our churches, but how people were reaching thousands by loving their neighbors and encouraging others to do the same. It's authentic and relational. The words are a call to self-abandonment. It's counter-culture. It sounds radical. So many of the ways that he is engaging different cultures would be terrifying to us. We are comfortable and have a hard time veering from our routine. We never engage these people except with disdain or pity. What if we were their friend? What if we really listened? What if we were there when people needed us? What if we respected people and allowed God to ...

When I saw the cover of this book, I knew I had to read it. Whoever designed this cover did an amazing job. It made me feel peaceful and drawn to it. Once in the pages, I felt no different. I felt like Becky was simply talking to me the entire time I read her book. It was as if I was sitting across the table from a dear friend. There are so many things we can identify with in her narrative.  In case you need reminding today. #mom #mama #mamabear #motherhood #momlife #Jesus #forgiveness #grace #peace #mercy #hope #kids #children #girlmom #wildflower #nature A photo posted by The Gospel Mom (@thegospelmom) on May 25, 2016 at 11:31pm PDT She had plans to marry a pastor and have a certain type of life for herself. God directed her another way and her life seemed to unfold much differently than she expected. She ended up in the middle of nowhere a bit disheveled and depressed until God started to spark a fire in her heart for blogging. From there on we follow he...

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...

It was fascinating to me to see a historical fiction account of Exodus from Egypt written from an Egyptian slave's perspective. There were many aspects that I had read but did not truly understand the gravity or impact of. The terror and length of each plague, losing generations of men, and the impact of darkness. Connilyn gives some brilliant and well thought out ideas of how a foreign people who worshipped many gods may have seen the plagues. They had gods that governed each of the things dealt with in the plagues and those gods were failing them. It makes you imagine the rumors that were flying about Moses. What sort of sorcerer was he? Could their gods overcome him?  Thought the book we journey through the every day, the release, the Egyptians that escaped with the Hebrews, and the treacherous journey through the desert. The imaginative account gave much more to the story for me. I was able to put myself in the shoes of the Egyptians and Hebrews. Of course, there's s...