Reading, Writing & Pondering

The NIV Holy  Bible for Girls Journal Edition has a beautiful turquoise cover design with a pink band. It is also currently available in a pink colored design that is like the turquoise cover. The cover slip say this Bible is designed to let you "reflect on God's Word and add your own thoughts, art, and color to favorite verses." It encourages girls (and women) to "curl up in a cozy spot and spend time with the Word." Besides the beautiful cover, I like the dark print and heavy paper of this Bible. When I was a younger person, we weren't encouraged to write in books and I didn't know you could really write in your Bible until I got older. I like that this Bible encourages young women to spend time in the Bible, underlining verses, and writing out thoughts. Today, I like that we also encourage art work in the margins of Bibles. As a creative person, I just get excited about creating with God and His Word. Again, I wish this was something that was enco...

Between Us is a beautiful 52-week devotional journal book for mom and daughters to use together. The cover and the whole book is quite nice and is larger than I expected. It is nicely bound and the format is well done. There is plenty of space to write a do the activities for each week in a book that could become a special keepsake down the road. Doing one devotional a week seems do-able in our busy world today. Between Us has a Bible reading, a devotional reading for both Moms and daughters to read, questions to ask moms, questions to ask daughters related to the reading for the week and a small activity that is different every week but related to do the reading that concludes the week's work. There is also a plan of salvation in the back of the book. The weekly readings relate the Bible verses to something both moms and daughters can relate to--having confidence but not boasting, praying and how God answers prayer, sharing salvation with others, what has lasting value in o...

Not long after I became a Christian believer, I heard a representative from Jews for Jesus share about the Passover meal and what each part of the meal represents. I found it fascinating. Since then, I have been to a recreation of the Passover meal with explanation of each part and a few more Jews for Jesus events. Each time I have felt my own faith in Christ was enriched. For that reason, I was excited to receive a copy of The Complete Jewish Study Bible . The Complete Jewish Study Bible is absolutely beautiful in many ways. The hardcover is a gorgeous, rich blue with a bit of an old Jewish look to it. From the back of the cover this Bible "pairs the newly updated text of the bestselling Complete Jewish Bible with detailed notes and comprehensive study material to help both Jewish and Christian readers understand and connect with the essence of their faith--God's redemptive plan for his people." During the time I spent reading through this Bible and using it t...

This week, Tyndale released a line of colorable stickers to use for journaling, scrapbooking or any other craft where you might see a use for these. I like the idea of colorable stickers. These designs are quite nice, as are the words on the stickers. I will use them in my journaling Bible or my journal. My only complaint is that I wish the designs were larger to color. At the least, I wish a few of the designs had larger areas to color. I needed to use my fineliner markers or especially sharp colored pencils to color the designs. Someone with especially good eye sight and better skills than I have may have no problems. I understand they are stickers so need to be smaller than a coloring book page but I think the lettering could have been a little larger for me. Still, I love the designs and the words so I would recommend them but  you do need to keep in mind the designs are quite small. I see the stickers are available at most places that carry Tyndale products: Amazon, C...

Everything Beautiful:A Coloring Book for Inspiration and Reflection is an exceptionally beautiful adult coloring book. This book is designed for coloring and meditation to remind the user that there is beauty in every day and our Savior is with us, no matter what our circumstances are. Waterbrook also has an Everything Beautiful playlist on Spotify to play while you are coloring. . .or anytime that you would like to be uplifted with this beautiful selection of songs based on this coloring book theme. Thick pages, front side only, perforated for easy removal, and a variety of both verses and quotes make this book exceptional in quality. Everything Beautiful contains original designs from nine different artists and is 96 pages long. There is a wide variety of subject matter in the designs which I especially liked. I also liked that the designs were ones that didn't have a lot of tiny spaces to color, which I prefer. I also appreciate that there is the complete words to a song...

The Domino Effect is definitely one of the more fast paced and intriguing books that I have read by Davis Bunn. It isn't my usual cup of tea. . .but I do think it was well done and if you like financial thrillers, it could be a good read for you. Esther Larsen is a top risk analyst at one of the country's largest banks. Unfortunately her job is a stressful one and she has also uncovered some banking issues that add even more stress to her life. At first she bottles everything up. . .but gradually she opens up to some of her friends from church. From there, she has some of the support she needs to stand up and do something to help the global market situation. Esther is just one person. Can she make a difference?  You'll have to read this book to find out as I don't want to give away too much of the plot. I don't usually read books that cover this type of subject matter. . .I usually read more relaxing fiction books because I like to read fiction to re...

A Bird, A Girl, and a Rescue by J A Myhre kept me on the edge of my seat throughout the book. . .and I think it will you too. A Bird, A Girl and a Rescue is the story of eleven year old Kiisa and her adventures during her first year of boarding school in Africa. Kiisa is young and misses her family but her father sends her a special bird to keep her company, Njili. Njili keeps Kiisa updated with news from home and guides her as she learns to make decisions on her own. Kiisa faces some exciting adventures as she deals with African rebels and sets out on her own rescue mission. Myrhe writes an exciting story that is the second in her Rwendigo Tales series. The first book is about a boy, entitled, A Chameleon, A Boy, and a Quest . I just learned about this series so we have not read that book but I plan to purchase it and use both books for our homeschooling. I like that these books teach about life in Africa in a way that is interesting and will draw my child in to learn....

If you are feeling discouraged and starting to tell yourself negative things, there is on one better to help turn your thoughts around then Joel Osteen. Osteen's new book, Think Better Live Better is an uplifting book that can do just that. Think Better Live Bette r's sub-title is " A Victorious Life Begins in Your Mind ." Osteen shares many stories from his life, his family's life, church members and the Bible to help the reader see how powerful God with continuous faith in what God can do. Osteen helps us remember that God has done important things for all of us in the past. We need to keep our minds on those things when we are in disappointing or discouraging circumstances and to remember that He has a way out of them that will bring Him glory and honor if we keep our faith steady. While I have watched Joel Osteen on TV, I have never read one of his books. I honestly don't know who couldn't use this message at one time or another in their life. ...

One of my new favorite ways to relax is with adult coloring books and Bible art journaling. Zondervan's new NIV Beautiful Word Coloring Bible is a hardcover Bible illustrated with "hundreds of verses to color" and "lined, wide margins for notes, reflections and art." The NIV Beautiful Word Coloring Bible does have many great verses to color in. Most of them are in the side margins but a few of them take up a page or two and are especially gorgeous like this one: If you also enjoy art and writing in the margins of your Bible, this would be a great Bible for you to consider. Zondervan has made the white paper a little thicker for less bleed through. Although I would still encourage you to use colored pencils over markers. Some of the pictures have finer detail so you would also want those pencils to be well-sharpened. I think the print is nice and dark in the words of this Bible text. However, as I get older and my eyesight isn't quite as good, ...

Debbie Lindell is a women's speaker who serves alongside her husband John, Lead pastor, at James River Church in Springfield, MO. Lindell has a down-to-earth approach to sharing God's Word and how to live the Christian life to uplift women of all ages. She Believes is uplifting and offers a lot of advice and encouragement to women wanting to live the life God created them to live. This book is divided into 5 sections: Believing you were designed on purpose, Believing changes your heart, Believing affects your mind and spirit, believing makes being together even better and believing is for your future. In each of these areas, Lindell shares wonderfully uplifting stories from her life, the lives of other Christian women she knows and the Bible. In that mix, she shares from her heart how God has spoken to her and used her. Through her shared stories, I felt uplifted and encouraged. When I read She Believes , I feel like God can use me--and you too. Lindell helps women beli...

Kissing Father Christmas by Robin Jones Gunn was one of those books that I could have easily read in one sitting--because I didn't want to put it down until I reached the ending. Both the story and the setting kept me enthralled until I read the last words. . .and left me wanting more. In this third installment in the Father Christmas series, Anna visits England to attend her cousin Miranda's wedding (to Ian) in Kissing Father Christmas . While she was there, one of the groomsman caught her eye. A few months later, Anna returned to visit her English family and to, hopefully, spend some time with Peter. However, when Anna sees Peter again, she isn't so sure what his intentions are. In Kissing Father Christmas , the story of Peter and Anna was an especially sweet story to me. Gunn weaves their spiritual lives in so effortlessly and I was encouraged by this beautiful story of love and grace. I enjoyed all of the books in the series but this one might be my favorite ...

A V ery Blessed Christmas Coloring Book is full of beautiful illustrations to color. This book has over 85 heavy-weight illustrated pages to color. The print is dark and the designs are ea sy on the eyes to color without being too small , but are challenging enough for the adult. I colored two s ample pages using Crayola Twist ables colored pencils. I didn't try markers on this book but the pages may be heavy enough to handle it.  The last few pages of A Very Blessed Christmas Coloring Book have creative craft cutouts to color. The author s uggest that they could be used as gift tags, ornaments, bookmarks or whatever you fancy. Rob in Mead also suggest that you could use other materials to decorate the designs such as ribbon, beads glitter pen or whatever you im agine. These pa ges are done quite well with blank pages behind the desi gns so that you can be crafty in many ways.  Overall, I just think this is quite a nice ly bound book wit...