Reading, Writing & Pondering

  As a young girl, I watched re-runs of old movies at my grandparents' house. Among my favorites were movies with Audrey Hepburn starring in them. The Story of Audrey Hepburn by Natasha Wing tells Audrey Hepburn's story in an interesting way for young people to read. Audrey Hepburn is considered one of the greatest female film legends of all time. If you haven't seen one of her movies, I encourage you to watch one! As the Story of Audrey Hepburn shares, she was also a great humanitarian, a fashion icon, a dancer and a wonderful person. She survived the Depression and a World War. I admire her for many reasons.  I like how The Story of Audrey Hepburn is written and designed. The timelines throughout the book make it easy to see when she lived and when she accomplished things. This book also presents the information in a straight-forward manner that makes it easy to read and to learn from. At the back of the book, there are also questions to quiz yourself, or to use with a gr...

  Take a ride-along with Sergeant Mark Tappan and his amazing K9 partner Mattis, whose heroic actions will inspire you to live courageously, serve selflessly, and love passionately because every human (and dog) has a purpose in a Dog Named Mattis: Sergeant Mark Tappan shares a unique bond with his K9 partner Mattis, one of the most decorated police K9s of all time. Mark knew from the first time they interacted that Mattis was something special. As a man of deep faith, Mark also knew that God’s most profound teaching often comes through the most unexpected sources, and he soon realized that Mattis was going to teach him about loyalty, selfless service, and so much more. In  A Dog Named Mattis , Mark shares twelve life lessons he’s learned from working with Mattis. Through these first-hand accounts of bravery and service, you will learn profound lessons, like: being willing to ‘go all in’ and work with all your heart even when things are uncertain, how persistence ...

It has been said before, and also in this book, that everybody has a story. In Before and After by Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate, the authors share the real-life stories of orphans who survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society. I was immediately drawn in to Before and After as I started the book. I struggled to put this book down just as I did Lisa Wingate's book, Before We Were Yours. Before We Were Yours is a fictionalized account of orphans similar to the real-life stories in this book. I found these stories to be fascinating. It is hard to believe that anyone could be as unkind and unfeeling as Georgia Tann who ran a black market child adoption business in Memphis through the Tennessee Children's Home Society from the 1920s until 1950. Over 5,000 orphans were cleared for adoption through her agency so literally thousands of orphans and families were affected by this corrupt agency. If you haven't read Before We Were Yours , I would encourage you to re...

John Smith, 14 years old, fell through an icy Missouri lake on a winter morning. . .For more than 60 minutes he laid lifeless. However, his mom, Joyce, was not ready to give up on him. She prayed and cried out to God to save him. . .and he did.  Miraculously his heart started beating again. However, that was just the beginning of John's recovery in Breakthrough . He still had a healing process to go through. Thanks to social media, millions of people prayed for John's complete healing, along with his family. God did answer those prayer and in the end he astounded the medical community with his recovery. Breakthrough is written from the point-of-view of John's mom. I can't imagine watching my son go through this. It truly is encouraging to read her words. Near the end, she had to convince the medical people that true healing had taken place and had to advocate for John. I could see real strength in her coming through. I would think Breakthrough would be especial...

This Life I Live is the story of Rory and Joey Feek.  As the cover says, it is about "one man's extraordinary, ordinary life and the woman who changed it forever." I really like that subtitle.  Actually the first half of This Life I Live is primarily about Rory and his life's journey up until meeting Joey. He shares details of his family life growing up and the challenges he overcame to live a life for God as a new Christian before he met Joey. It isn't all a pretty story. Like most of our stories, it is painful to read about mistakes he made, but he also shares how God has used those life experiences to grow him and, ultimately, to make him a better person. Rory shares how he believes we are all doing the best we can with what we know and he doesn't hold grudges these days. I think there is a lot of truth to that. In the second half of This Life I Live , Rory shares about how he met Joey and about their life together. He shares the facts of their lif...