Reading, Writing & Pondering

I crave a delicious warm cup of homemade hot cocoa from my favorite chocolate shop. . .I crave a day at the pool in Arizona, just like I had last year, for spring break. . .I crave some good girlfriend time in the midst of my week of taking care of my son. . .Right now during a busy stressful season, I also crave a romantic date and time alone with my husband. . .What do you crave? Marilyn Meberg's latest book, Constantly Craving, lets us know that our cravings can lead us to the One who will quench our cravings forever. Marilyn addresses cravings of all kinds in this book that is subtitled, How to Make Sense of Always Wanting More. Whether it is more from friendships, more from your marriage, more time, more purpose or more meaning from life, Marilyn tackles the issue in this book. She also tackles some negative cravings such as the craving for revenge when we have been wronged. The first few chapters reveal why we crave time with certain people in our lives. . .how our past ...

Gary Thomas' latest book, Every Body Matters connects spiritual fitness with physical fitness with a subtitle that says, "Strengthening Your Body to Strengthen Your Soul." I think many of us know that we need to eat healthy and exercise but this book helps us see some of the spiritual reasons that is important. Thomas shares his own story as well as the stories of other people as to how physical fitness, or the lack of fitness before getting fit, affected their spiritual lives as well as living out their lives for God. This topic is one I am especially interested in so I was thrilled to get to review this book.  I thoroughly appreciated Thomas' approach as he shared both a grace side and a sort of  gentle"tough love" side to this issue in each chapter. My copy is all marked up and underlined. I plan to refer back to it often. One story he shared about especially encouraged me in my own walk with faith and fitness: While training to run a marathon, Thomas...