Reading, Writing & Pondering

The Secrets of Dynamic Communication from Ken Davis offers a wealth of advice on how to give a speech. This book offers advice from the planning through the presentation. I am a beginner at public speaking (save that one semester of high school speech years ago)so I appreciate how thorough this book is. Ken Davis initially helps the reader find the focus of their speech. He uses a  process called SCORRE to help develop the content of any talk. SCORRE is an acronym that Davis uses to help the reader go through a process to present any kind of speech from the preparation to the presentation. In fact, he encourages the reader to work along with the book to develop a speech as they read. Throughout the book, he gives examples of times he succeeded and times he failed in various aspects of speech-making. I appreciate how teachable he is and it helped me feel like I could be teachable through this book too. With over 40 years of experience in public speaking, he doesn't leave any ...

The Homeschool Mom's Bible is a regular Bible with 365 meditations with prayers interspersed throughout the text. The devotionals were written by Janet Tatman who is a homeschooling mom with over 25 years of homeschooling experience. There is also a forward written by Vickie Farris, who is the wife of Michael Farris, founder of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association. As a homeschool mom with very little experience, I couldn't wait to get this Bible. I figured I could use all the encouragement I can get! My edition of this Bible is NIV but it also comes in the King James Version for those who prefer it. There are enough readings for every day of the year and each one is listed to start with January 1 at the beginning of the Bible. Since I just got this Bible, I decided to start at the August readings and then work my way through chronologically from there. I think you could skip around or do whatever works for you. In any case, the readings seemed to offer real-life enco...

Psalm 91 for Mothers  is a book I wish I had read when my son was born. My son is 11 now and I am ready to start praying this psalm over him as a result of reading this helpful book. Peggy Joyce Ruth and her daughter, Angelaa Ruth Schum, share how mothers can pray Psalm 91 for their children. Each chapter in the book relates to a verse and explains in detail how and why you would pray that verse for your son/daughter. The authors also give several real life examples where praying this psalm helped their children to escape from harm or to be helped from some challenge they faced. The authors tell us that Psalm 91 is the one place in the Bible where all of the protection promises of God are brought together. The principles of this psalm can actually be applied to anyone and any situation in your life. . .not just in your children's life. I was encouraged by this book to start memorizing this psalm. I already knew Psalm 91:11-12 but I want to learn all of the verses. This book...

 Robert Gelinas says that Lord Have Mercy is the most prayed prayer in the Bible. He also says this is a request that God always grants. I just had to read this little book for just those reasons and I was not disappointed. I found it to be easy to understand, yet the message was profound throughout the book. Much of the book deals with why we should pray the mercy prayer and in chapter 3 he challenges the reader to pray this prayer at bedtime: Lord, Son of Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me. He recommends praying it in tune with your heartbeat as you fall asleep and you will remember God's mercy whenever you wake up. He also encourages the reader to have mercy on those around them. Someone once told me I have the gift of giving mercy (another reason I had to read the book). As Gelinas says in the book, we have been forgiven much, so we want to forgive if we can see how big of sinners we are. At the same time, he shares the story of Jesus cleansing the 10 lepers. Only one ...