Reading, Writing & Pondering

  I once heard a preacher say that everyone is either in the midst of a problem, coming out of a problem or headed into a problem. I imagine Joyce Meyer could agree with that statement. Her latest book, Overcoming Every Problem , shares Bible promises that relate to forty problems that Christians might face as they walk with God. In Overcoming Every Problem , Meyer offers advice from the Bible on healing from hurts that others inflicted on you, healing from physical illness or injury, facing fear, healing from a negative mindset, and many more problems. I am not sure this book covers EVERY problem, but it does cover a good share of the ones most Christians face. I like that Meyer draws from the Bible and she also shares honestly from her own experiences. Meyer is so easy to relate to and understand. Overcoming Every Problem would be an especially good book for a new Christian as they start the Christian walk. I have heard Joyce share some of this information before in her other bo...

  Do you remember reading The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett? I do. It was an enjoyable read as a young person and I read it again while homeschooling my child a few years ago. Now Rachel Dodge has written a devotional to go along with this book.  The Secret Garden Devotional is a small hardcover book that is beautifully written and illustrated. There are 30 days worth of readings that go along with the book. (There is also a ribbon marker to keep your page so you know where you left off.) Each Day's reading includes a Bible verse, a short reading that invites the reader to see how God could be working through the book. Then there is a personal application to relate the book, the Bible and the day's reading to your own life. A prayer concludes each day's reading.  The Secret Garden Devotional is truly lovely in many ways. I like how thoughtful the readings are. Dodge clearly puts a lot of time and effort into writing a book that Christians can relate to and also...

  Your Greater is Coming is Joel Osteen's latest book. In this book, he reminds readers to keep looking ahead for good things and God isn't finished with your story. I always appreciate Osteen's positivity when I get down on myself or life. I honestly think there are times, we just need this sort of positivity. Your Greater is Coming offers a mix of positive Bible stories with other uplifting stories from Osteen's life and other people in the world today. If you have read Osteen's books before, he does share a couple of stories that he has shared in past books. If you are new to his books, then these stories are good ones to encourage you to look ahead and look to God. Your Greater Is Coming offers positivity but I don't really think it is over the top. He encourages to you to wait in the hard times, to have faith and to keep hopeful. He talks about all people going through hard times and places of suffering, but he encourages readers to not get stuck there. I...

    Are you in a place of heartache and looking for hope? Kayla Stoecklein became an unexpected widow when her husband, Andrew, who was also the pastor of their large church in California, committed suicide. Unexpectedly, Kayla became a widow and a single mom to three young boys.  In Rebuilding Beautifu l, Kayla shares her difficult journey to help others find hope and healing—and to learn to dream again. I felt this book was a good balance between learning to grow through the pain and healing from trauma, to learning to really live again in the aftermath. It is a book that could offer hope to many women who have gone through some really difficult times and a reminder that God cares for each of us in the midst of challenges. From TLC Book Tours:  In  Rebuilding Beautiful , Kayla shares the life experiences that have turned into lessons, including acknowledging the pain; making the choice to start healing; finding courage in uncertainty; embracing God’s ...

A Gift of Joy and Hope by Pope Francis offers snippets of encouragement in walking with Jesus through life from the Pope. Pope Francis shares a mix of his wisdom, thoughts and snippets of faith thoughts throughout A Gift of Joy and Hope . I think there is encouragement for both Catholics and other Christians in this book--as I am not Catholic. I was interested to see what this Pope had to say though as I have read about him. However, it was more disjointed than I expected--I am thinking maybe that comes with the language translation. I think it is sort of like a collection of the Pope's thoughts and bits of wisdom related to the topics of Faith, Joy and Hope. He shares at the beginning that he wants people to smile and that is his wish in one word. I guess, I found the book to be more simplistic than I expected and it certainly isn't too deep for most people. Everyone should be able to come away with something positive to think about from this book. The nice thing about the wa...

  Are you a creative person who likes a paper planner? Maybe bullet journaling is your thing or you want it to be your thing? Draw Near: Your Creative Spiritual Journal by Sophie Killingley is a fun, basic journal that you can use to unleash your creativity and include your spiritual life. This basic journal is blank and could be started at any time. Killingley writes in the introduction that she used to be a compulsive doodler--but that was never a part of her spiritual life. Then she reached a point where she was struggling with her mental health and had to take Scripture in much smaller bites. She used that time to connect her creativity with her spiritual life. She began lettering and doodling verses. She has since moved on from that time, but then decided to merge her creativity with bullet journaling and her spiritual life. This book is a result of that.  Draw Near does have some basic organization to get your started. It starts with a "monthly" section. Killingley en...

  Awake by Anjuli Paschall is her 2nd book. I enjoyed Stay and looked forward to this one. Her writing style is more like a series of memoir-style essays compiled together with a thread that links one to the other to make up the book. She is one of those authors that I feel like I have gotten to know over cups of tea. . .and by the end of this book, in a sense I have. Awake is Paschall's thoughts on living a full life for God by "staying awake."Throughout the book, she shares her personal stories and spiritual reflections, with some Bible verses, on living awake, rather than chasing after more and better. She talks about staying awake by seeing all the little things in a day--as well as being there for each other. She is down-to-earth and so very real that I feel like I know her and I am ready to move in to her wonderful neighborhood so I can join in to one of her fun traditions. She is also real enough to share the hard things she has gone through and how to be awake e...

  I think a lot of us are facing or have face some real life challenges in the past couple of years along with the pandemic. Aggressively Happy by Joy Marie Clarkson sounded like just the book that I needed to help me see things differently--and it doesn't disappoint.  In Agressively Happy , Clarkson shares stories of both joy and sadness from her own life. She also shares stories from the Bible and other prominent Christians from years past as this is a Christian based book. Each chapter reads like you are visiting with an old friend. Then in between the chapters, Clarkson has pages that list ideas for you to read, to watch and to ponder. I especially liked those pages and the recommendations that she made. Some of them I was familiar with and some of them made me curious enough to check them out. I would recommend this book to both new Christians and those who have been following Christ for awhile. There is something to learned for nearly everyone in Aggressively Happy . ...

  The Power of Thank You: Discover the Joy of Gratitude by Joyce Meyer is a relatively short and easy to read book with a powerful message and reminder to be grateful for the things in your life.  In The  Power of Thank You , Meyer shares both personal stories and stories from the Bible to encourage readers to be grateful for both the little things and the big things in their lives. Even when life isn't going the way that you hoped, Meyer encourages readers to find something to be thankful for. This book is easy to read and understand. While I didn't really learn anything new in this book, it was a good reminder to me to be thankful for so many things. I think it would be an especially good book to give a new Christian that is struggling. One of the features I especially liked about this book is the appendix that has thirty days of things to thank God for based on various Scriptures throughout the Bible. I like to use a gratitude journal every day.  Along with this ...

    Revived and Renovated: Real Life Conversations on the intersection of Home, Faith and Everything in Between by Victoria Duerstock and Paige Rien uses home renovation words to describe work both in our houses and in our personal faith lives. Revived and Renovated is written as a conversation between Victoria and Paige. At first it took a few pages to get in to the rhythm of their conversation but once I did, it was easy to understand and follow. These two women both work with houses in real life. They are also are Christian women who can easily relate all of the words used to make houses better and apply them to their Christian lives as they seek to revive, renovate, restore , repurpose and recover with some other re words in between.  I thought Paige and Victoria did a good job of both sharing the information related to making our houses and our home life better and making our spiritual lives better. Both women come from different spiritual backgrounds so most reade...

  The sub-title of Just Ask by J. D. Greear is "The Joy of Confident, Bold, Patient, Relentless, Shameless, Dependent, Grateful, Powerful, Expectant Prayer." Wow! That is a lot of adjectives and a lot of expectations. Along with that great sub-title, I was drawn to this book on prayer by the fact that the forward was written by Paul E. Miller. I took a class on prayer based on Miller's book a few years ago at my church and was thoroughly drawn in to pray more because of it. Then the last couple of years, with all of the changes in the world, my habits changed. Just Ask has once again reminded me of the importance of prayer in my life at a time when I haven't felt like I have made much of a difference with it. Just Ask is divided in to two parts: Why We don't Pray and How to Pray. I like how easy this book was to read. Greear writes in such a way that I find him easy to understand and he is almost conversational through the book. At the same time, I confess that I ...

  Win the Day is a book that is both uplifting and encouraging. Mark Batterson always leaves me feeling like with God I REALLY can do more than I ever imagined. He shares personal stories and stories from Scripture that remind me that God does care and that God can do big things when we put our faith and trust in Him. At the same time, we have to put one foot forward every day to start the process for change. One of the questions that he encourage the reader to ask themselves is Can you do it for a day? With this question and making changes a day at a time, people can often reach goals that they thought were impossible. This is are the basic habits that the book is divided in to: 1. Flip the Script: If you want to change your life, start by changing your story. 2. Kiss the Wave: The obstacle is not the enemy; the obstacle is the way. 3. Eat the Frog: If you want God to do the super, you’ve got to do the natural. 4. Fly the Kite: How you do anything is how you’ll do everyth...

  Deeper Still: Finding clear minds and full hearts through biblical meditation by Linda Allcock is a short, practical book with wisdom on how to spent time with God each day.  Deeper Still is divided in to three sections: Still Your Mind, Fill Your Heart and Feed Day and Night. The book is easy to read and think through the concepts that Allcock presents. However, she is English so I had to think about a few of the phrases she used and what they meant to me as an American. This wasn't really the book that I was expecting to read but I think it was a good reminder of how to spend time with God in His Word and just why that is so important. It would be an especially good book for a new Christian who was just learning to put habits in to place. As I said, though, Deeper Still was a good refresher for me. She draws from Scripture--especially the 119th Psalm. She also uses some practical examples that are easy to relate to and were helpful to me in putting her ideas together.She...

  Stand All the Way Up by Sophie Hudson is a collection of essays, or stories if you will, that reveal what God was saying to Sophie as she was going through a hard stretch in her life. I think this is a book that many of us could relate to this year as many of us have gone through a hard stretch of some sort or another. In Stand All the Way Up , Hudson shares stories from being a mid-life woman. She shares about how difficult it was to walk with her siblings and her family through her mother's passing from this life into the next. She shares struggles she had with her weight and body changes as a mid-life woman. She shares her struggles with anger at things going on around her in society today. While those topics were a little heavier, she shares them with her trademark humor and wit. She also shares some lighter topics in some chapters such as what she thinks should be a mid-life woman's capsule wardrobe. Throughout the book, she also relates many of her stories to stories i...

  In this day and age, fear seems to run rampant. People are afraid of the virus in the pandemic, worried about their finances, and struggling to get along with people on opposite political party lines. In Joyce Meyer's new book, Do It Afraid , she shares how faith in God can help readers deal with many of their fears.  At the start of the book, Meyer reminds readers that fear has been around a very long time and it affects everyone. However, she urges readers not to let fear "push them around." Instead she starts out the book in the first section by helping readers understand fear. She then goes on to help them confront fear and to have the courage they need to do that. The third part of the book offers advice on the mindsets to have to walk in freedom from fear. Like all of Joyce Meyer's books, Do It Afraid is clear and easy to understand and relate to. She writes in such a way so the reader is reminded of the Scriptures that relate to each topic while including st...

When God Says Go: A Devotional Thought Journal by Elizabeth Laing Thompson is a well-bound hardcover journal with a ribbon marker. Each short thought-provoking reading has both a Bible verse and a reading with a lot of room to write. As I write this, we are in a pandemic and no one is going anywhere so that feels a little ironic. However, I think this could be a helpful journal as you think about what God is calling you to do--even if it is to continue to stay home and that is different from your old "normal." This book has a lot of good questions to think about and several of those deal with fear. There was one I especially liked about brainstorming to use your gifts to honor God to those around you. That could certainly be done anytime and anywhere. When God Says Go would be a good journal to use whenever you have your quiet time with God. I received a complimentary copy of this book from Barbour Publishing and was under no obligation to post a review.

Chances are pretty good that in one way or another that right now you are facing a storm of some sort in your life as we navigate the corona virus challenges in our world. Peace in the Storms of Life by Julie Rayburn is an uplifting devotional full of readings that can help keep your mind on God during this challenging time. Peace in the Storms of Life contains 125 devotional readings. Each devotional starts with a Bible verse, moves on to a short reading, and concludes with a few questions to ask yourself for the day. Purple and green are two of my very favorite colors and as you can see from this cover picture, this devotional is covered in gorgeous wisteria and vines. However, it is even better that each devotional continues this gorgeous color picture throughout the book. Peace in the Storms of Life is truly full of encouraging words for women. I just love the beauty combined with the short readings. I have heard several people say that they are struggling to focus and re...

Deron Spoo says there are 10 words in the Bible that can sum up God's plan. His new book, The Bible in 10 Words , reveals those words.  The Bible in 10 Words is divided in to chapters that mostly contain the 10 words that Spoo talks about along with an introduction and a conclusion. I can tell you the 10 words but you are going to want to read the book to find out why they are important: Light, Dust, Breath, Garden, River, Eat, Alone, Naked, Afraid, and Sweat. Spoo shares why each word is important by beginning each chapter with a Bible verse and a quote about the word. He concludes each chapter with a prayer, questions to ask yourself or others in a group setting and more verses to think about relating to each word. At first glance, The Bible in 10 Words may not sound like a very interesting book. However, Spoo is both  an interesting writer and a great communicator. He shares some fascinating stories about each word and really brings the Bible to life through this b...

I don't know about you but some days I feel invisible to both people and God. In Holy Guacamole by Carrie Stephens she reminds us that God sees as someone special like a bowl of guacamole at a restaurant instead of the mandatory side of beans and rice that many people leave on their plate. Stephens writes twelve chapters in Holy Guacamole that are part essay and part autobiographical with some solid Biblical advice throughout the book.  She reminds women that lots of followers on social media don't save us. Perfectionism can't save us. Buying more stuff and having all the things we want can't save us. Worldly success doesn't save us.  Competing with the other women around us being the best doesn't save us. Jesus and looking forward to our heavenly home is really all that will fulfill our empty hearts. I enjoyed Holy Guacamole . Stephens has a good sense of humor and it shows in her writing. She writes as a friend talking to another friend. She is vulnera...

It is a rare treat to read a marriage book that captivates me as much as Confessions of a Happily Married Man by Joshua L. Rogers. I read much of this book in one day. In Confessions of a Happily Married Man , Rogers shares much of the story of his marriage coming from his heart. After the introduction, written by Greg Smalley from Focus on the Family, Rogers shares how he met his wife, Raquel, fell in love and were married within 9 months. Throughout the book, Rogers shares story after story of how God worked in their relationship to grow them both up to be more like Jesus to each other. Interestingly enough, with God, they had started working on each other shortly after Rogers proposed and his future wife accepted the proposal. Rogers candidly shares about how the couple worked out their issues around mundane things such as chores to how they worked out much bigger challenges such as in-law challenges, health issues, having children and a cross-country move. At the end of this b...