Reading, Writing & Pondering

  Are you a Christian who struggles with diets and eating? Fully Nourished by Brandice Lardner may be a book that you would find helpful. I like to read health-related books so I have read a lot of them. I point that out because I didn't learn a lot from this book for that reason. I thought the book was well-thought-out and the steps the author included could be helpful to the person who has these struggles. I am not that target audience though. I haven't struggled through diets. I grew up in an era when it was "in" to be skinny but I was already skinny and active so not really an issue for me at that time. However, having gone through menopause, I can say that I had to change how I then had to change how I ate to maintain the weight I wanted but it wasn't a real struggle. The author of this book has struggled with weight and body image throughout her life. She then became a health coach and personal trainer who has lived what she teaches. She is also a Christian...

    I absolutely love the new The Message Women's Devotional Bible ! This Bible is a good size to carry along in my book bag if I want to do devotions on the go. It is also great on my nightstand or desk to read at home. The print is not real big but it is dark and I am able to read it easily.  I also like the devotions in this Bible that are aimed at a variety of women of all walks and ages. I haven't read through the whole Bible in a year for awhile but this one makes me want to do that again. I would use a journal with it if I want to take notes as the margins are not very big. It also doesn't have any space for those who art journal, so again, a separate journal would be good if you want to use this Bible and continue to do that while reading through the Bible.   The Message of the Bible by Women , for Women The Scriptures are meant for us, to draw near to God and discover God’s vision for us.  The Message Women ’s Devotional Bible  invites women of...

    Do you ever feel lonely? I imagine many of us have those moments when we feel lonely from time to time. The New Loneliness by Cindy McMenamin is a book designed to "nurture meaningful connections when you feel isolated." The New Loneliness is divided into three parts: The first part is Reconnecting with God. This section focuses on realizing that God is always with you, that He always loves you, and the you are created for a purpose. The second part is Reconnecting with Your Heart. This section is all about having a better mindset. It encourages the reader not to enter into comparison, to make time and space for friends and not strive for busyness, learning to be yourself and more transparent to others, and learning to love again after you have been hurt by others.  The third section is Reconnecting with Others. This section is encouraging Real Life connections with other people and less on-line connections. The author definitely shows this book is up-to-date for ou...

  Tired of trying to be enough? The truth is you were never meant to be, no matter what culture might tell you. Christian women today are bombarded with confusing messaging–they are supposed to do and be it all but also die to themselves. They are supposed to believe that women can do anything and also surrender everything to God. Adding to that pressure, many women feel stuck in their current reality–spinning on the hamster wheel of life. They scroll past images that tell them everyone else has it together and is experiencing a purpose-filled, adventurous, fun, loving, and God-honoring life. Overwhelmed and at a loss, most women go one of two places: defeat or self-help empowerment, even Christian self-help. In Becky Kiser’s  But God Can , women realize this truth: on their own, she was never meant to be enough—that is the gospel message, that is why Jesus came.  But God Can  get her unstuck and find a purpose she has never known! She will identify the li...

  Are you a creative person but feel like it is hard to find the time to do "your thing" as a mom? Create Anyway: The Joy of Pursuing Creativity in the Margins of Motherhood by Ashlee Gadd is a book that needs to be on your radar. Create Anyway is the book that I wish I had had when my son was little. I like how the book is written in bite-sized chunks, like busy moms need. It is full of encouraging stories and prompts for moms who want to incorporate creative pursuits into their lives while they work to be the best moms they can be. Gadd shares a lot about using bits of time here and there. I think that sounds realistic. I know I made a collage in a half hour one day and my creative bucket was full for a week. We all have those things we like to do and sometimes we need to squeeze in the time to do them.  Create Anyway has 19 chapters in it. Each chapter shares ideas and stories to encourage women to make time for their creative pursuits. Then at the end of each chapter th...

  Heirlooms by Sandra Byrd is a split time story with both the modern-day story and the story from the late 1950s showing the value of friendship. Navy Widow Helen Devries received a call from Choi Eunhee, also a widow, who needed help after her husband passed away. Eunhee is a Korean woman who married an American. Together, they learn and grow through both life's challenges and everyday adventures.  Cassidy Quinn's mother passed away when she was a young girl. After she passed, Cassidy spent the summers with her grandmother, Helen, at her farmhouse and finds her passion for flowers and gardening. When Helen passes away, Cassidy inherits her home and garden--along with a task Helen asks her to do with Grace Kim, Eunhee's granddaughter and her friend. Together, the girls discover some of their grandmothers' secrets. Both women also have love interests and challenges in their own modern lives that they can help each other through. Heirlooms is a character-driven novel. ...

    Do you feel content with where you are in life? Maybe you do or maybe you are feeling stuck in a difficult season? Satisfied by Alyssa Joy Bethke is a simply gorgeous book full of encouragement, faithful Bible verses and colorful pictures--all put together to remind you that wherever you are, you are loved by God. Satisfied is divided in to three sections. In each one, Bethke shares stories from her heart and soul about how God has met her where she is to help her through various challenges such as moving and a miscarriage. She also reminds us that if we are searching for a community, that we should not give up. She shares how it took her time to build that community after they moved. She also shares many encouraging stories about mothering and being a marriage partner. There are a lot of good Bible verses and quotes from other books woven in. All in all, with the pictures of the Bethke family, their house and gatherings of friends, it just feels like the reader is welco...

  Have you reached a place where you are feeling a bit anxious about getting older? How to Age Without Getting Old by Joyce Meyer offers some solid advice and encouragement about getting older to make the most of every age.  Throughout How to age Without Getting Old , Meyer shares her stories, as well as a few stories from other people, about how she handling aging. She doesn't shy away from sharing ways she wished she had handled things better and she honestly shares things she has done that have helped her grow older with grace. She talks about how important faith is as we grow older. She also talks about taking care of the bodies as best we can through the years by exercising, socializing, managing stress, eating healthfully, taking time to rest, and managing our mental outlook.  I enjoyed How to Age Without Getting Old . I found Meyer to be uplifting and down-to-earth as always. I like how she shares things that are both practical and spiritual. I also think she is ...

  Do you struggle to entertain? I have to admit that I struggle with it. Of course, right now we aren't entertaining due to Covid, but I hope one day that will all change again for most of us. Reach Out, Gather In by Karen Ehman is her new interactive 40-day journal written to help women learn to open their hearts and homes more easily to others. Reach Out, Gather In starts out with an introduction by the author where she shares how much it meant to her when someone reached out to her as a young woman, invited her in and changed her life by sharing the love of Jesus with her. The book is divided in to five day interactive journal sections: Why Welcome?, Family First, but Not family only,  Find Me Somebody to Love, Discovering Your Niche, Meet Their Needs and Refresh Their Souls. Then through each day on the 40 day journey, Ehman shares a mixture of her story and Bible verses to help the reader reflect on how they best want to open their hearts and houses as they go forward. ...

  Women throughout history have been turning to prayer to change to world. When Women Pray by T. D. Jakes focuses on 10 women of the Bible who changed the world through prayer. From lesser known women like Rhoda and the shunammite woman to Mary and Esther, Jakes shares how each of these women used prayer to make a difference. He also relates each of these women and their situations to the world today. I found When Women Pray to be an interesting book. I learned some things about Bible women that I did not previously know and was also reminded of some that I did know. At the same time, Jakes wrote this book this year and shares his thoughts about writing during the Covid-19 pandemic, which I found especially interesting. Jakes is also a black preacher and he shares some things from his perspective as a black man that helped me as a white woman see things a little differently. I found the book to be easy to read and understand. I think it is a book that would speak to young Christi...

  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...

I could relate well to the introduction from Inspired Mama by Sez Kristiansen. In this part of the book she shares how she is tired and worn out from trying to keep up with demands and be a mama while putting herself last. It was a wake-up call and she realizes she needs to make some changes in order for her to enjoy life and to be who she really is at her core. Inspired Mama is divided into three parts: Freedom of Mind, Freedom of Life, and Freedom of Comfort Zones. In each section she shares exercises to live a more inspired intentional life through journaling, meditating, mindfulness, living according to your purpose and more. It is a book best used alongside a journal as she encourages readers to do. Kristiansen expects readers to take and make notes of their thoughts and things they have learned through exercises she offers in the book. Many of the exercises involve deep thinking, intuition and subconscious thought processes. For me, Inspired Mama offered some interesting...

Working Moms, stay-at-home moms, praying moms, Aunties, sisters neighbor women, church grandmas, all kinds of women play roles that A Mother's Love is written for. It is book "celebrating every kind of mom." A Mother's Love is divided in to five parts: Love That Breaks the Mold, Love While Holding Them Close, Love and Laundry, Love While Letting Them Fly and Love around the Table. Along with celebrating all types of moms, this is a book for women of all ages and types. Each section includes several chapters written by different types of women. Throughout the book, there is also a journaling page for reflection on your own life and thoughts. A Mother's Love is truly a beautiful gift book with a ribbon page marker and pretty illustrations. It is about the size as most of my other writing journals and would be easy to carry along with a Bible or alone for your quiet time reading. The writing is superb and is a mix of personal stories, reflection thoughts...

My Heart, Ever His by Barbara Rainey is a beautiful collection of prayers for women. What I especially love about this book is that it is beautiful to look at and the prayers are beautiful--but they are real too. My Heart, Ever His has 40 prayers in this book that are written to encourage women to talk to God honestly and openly. These prayers are transparent and so down-to-earth. I could relate to so much of what she was saying in them. In the introduction, Rainey invites the reader to think of these prayers as being in the same style as the psalms. Many times, the psalmists prayed honestly and openly baring their whole hearts. While the prayers are not all "happy-life-is-great prayers," they do include praises for God even though she stars some of them out honestly. It took her years to realize that God is not offended by our honest feelings and complaints but instead He knows our feelings anyway. However, she notes that the psalms almost always end in words of prais...

Are you a middle-aged woman thinking you will never love again? Wedding Bells After Fifty by Autumn Marie is a small book full of big stories about women who found true love as an older woman. Autumn Marie shares the stories of ten different older woman who got married later in life. Each of the woman are very different and the stories of how they met and got married is very different. Yet, in each of these stories the women found someone that clicked with their personality. I am actually not the target audience of this book in that I am a middle-aged woman but I am already happily married to my husband for nearly twenty years. The stories in this book are encouraging but they also offer things to think about in merging families and personalities that an older woman should consider. Since most of my blog readers are people of faith I would mention that while they talk about faith in some of the stories, in several of them, the couples often live together before marriage and don...

After having children, I think it is easy for a lot of women to lose who they are. When she started feeling lost, Sheri Hunter joined a group of women from her church to find a support system. What Hunter found is much more than a group of friends--she found a group of sisters who called themselves the Dare Divas who challenged her to live life to the fullest. She tells her story in Daring to Live . A few years after the Dare Divas started challenging each other to live with courage and face their fears, Hunter faced one of the biggest challenges of her life. Her husband, Mannard, passed away at just 50 years old. Hunter struggled to face that challenge and at times turned to crutches like alcohol for a time to numb the pain. But she faced that challenge too, found an accountability partner and conquered that. Through the years, the Dare Divas supported each other with love and prayer--and challenges to do some big adventures together--like whitewater rafting, zip lining, and even...

In Want and Plenty by Meredith McDaniel is a beautiful book--both in content and in design. Drawing from the book of Exodus and other Scriptures, McDaniel shares her heart and Scripture woven together to speak to Christians today. Each reading shares some encouraging words and Scripture for the reader to think about.  There are some questions also throughout the reading along with a set of questions at the end of the reading. In Want and In Plenty is designed to use alongside your journal in order to get the most out of it--in fact part of it is intended to be guided journaling. The questions at the end of the chapter are ones that truly provoke you to think about how things are in your own life. At the very end, McDaniel includes a song to listen to that goes along with the chapter. I like how In Want and In Plenty is designed. I like the gentle illustrations between the chapters. I like the questions that make me think. I like the song at the end that further helps me t...

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...

Are there days where you wonder, 'Is God really there?' Do you sometimes struggle in your faith? If you answered 'yes' to either of these questions, Robin Dance wants you to know you are not alone. In her new book, For all Who Wander, Dance shares her story of struggling with her faith. For All Who Wande r is part memoir and part spiritual encouragement book. Dance tells her story from the time she was young and her mother died of cancer while the family was attending a small town church until her later years when she started struggling more with her faith in her 40s. It was at that point that she felt her most honest prayer was that of father in Mark 9:14-25, "Lord I believe; Help my unbelief." They had also moved around that time and were struggling in their new church home. If you struggle with faith, church, and feel like that could be your prayer too, then For All Who Wander is likely to leave you feeling like you have found a kindred spirit. Fo...

I have been getting (In)Courage readings since they began and have often been inspired and encouraged by these on-line posts. While they are good to read, I am a huge fan of books (obviously) and it is so nice to have readings in a book form with the new Women of Courage forty day devotional . This new Women of Courage devotional book does have forty days worth of devotionals in it. Each one starts with a brief Bible passage, followed by a heartfelt reading, and concludes with a prayer for the day. What I especially love about this book is that each reading features a woman from the Bible--both Old and New Testaments. Some have names like Leah, Ruth, Dorcas, and Esther, while we don't know the names of others like The Bleeding Woman or the Woman Caught in Adultery. Yet, each woman teaches us something about courageous living for God each day. The Women of Courage Forty Day Devotional also groups each of the readings into topical sections so you can just be encouraged by wome...