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God Will Help You–overcoming the hard times
God Will Help You
by Max Lucado
Even in the best of times, we all have troubles, difficulties to face. In this pandemic, many are overwhelmed by the chaos, the darkness, the isolation of lockdowns. For some, the depths of despair have led to suicide, but Max Lucado has a better answer for this “winter of our discontent”….God. In God Will Help You, Lucado says “No matter the challenge or the question, by God’s grace you can face it. He is up to the task. And he will help you.”
Lucado is, by nature, a storyteller, and he uses stories, both from the Bible and from encounters he has had with others, to demonstrate some of the ways God can intervene in our stories. In each chapter, he addresses a different issue and then provides questions for reflection and Bible verses to remind you of God’s help. He closes each chapter with a prayer that you can pray in those circumstances, because sometimes we are so overwhelmed that we just don’t even know how to frame our petitions. Lucado has a way with words. In talking, for example, about God’s grace, he says we have been “doused” with it. What a perfect description!
So, if you’re feeling anxious, fearful, stuck in your circumstances, lonely, sick, or filled with grief, Max Lucado can’t fix those problems, but he can direct you to Jesus. You see, God already knows about your unsolved problems and your struggles to negotiate everyday life. He sees your heart and understands your needs. He is there to give you guidance. In his book God Will Help You, Lucado shows how God will come alongside you each and every day.
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Christian, Self-Help, Inspirational
Notes: Having gone through a lot of changes in my life, especially in the last twelve years, I found this statement particularly meaningful: “So make friends with whatever’s next. Embrace it. Accept it. Don’t resist it. Change is not only a part of life; change is a necessary part of God’s strategy. To use us to change the world, he alters our assignments.”
Publication: December 29, 2020—Thomas Nelson
Memorable Lines:
The presence of anxiety is unavoidable, but the prison of anxiety is optional. Anxiety is not a sin; it is an emotion. (So don’t be anxious about feeling anxious.)
…celebrate his goodness, faithfulness, and forgiveness. These characteristics of God remain true no matter what you are going through.
But if you see your troubles as opportunities to trust God and his ability to multiply what you give him, then even the smallest incidents take on significance.
Had Jesus chosen to do so, he could have proclaimed a cloud of healing blessings to fall upon the crowd. But he is not a one size-fits-all Savior. He placed his hands on each one, individually, personally. Perceiving unique needs, he issued unique blessings.
A Severe Mercy–love and the struggles of life
A Severe Mercy
by Sheldon Vanauken
Sometimes good books, even nonfiction, can be a rollercoaster ride, and A Severe Mercy falls into that category for me. Sheldon Vanauken is a very good writer with a special devotion to words. His subject in this work is actually two-fold—marriage and Christianity. In the first part of the book, he focuses on the “pagan” love he and his wife Davy share and the commitment they make to be completely and solely taken up with each other. He tells of their conversion to Christianity and how their new relationship to God affects their lives and their union as a couple. They are both adventurous and intellectual. In their pursuit of God they begin a friendship with C.S. Lewis that proves to be very important in their daily walk with Christ, especially during a health crisis that confronts them.
My opinion of Vanauken as a person changes several times in the course of the events recounted in A Severe Mercy as he changes and grows as a person. It is not light nor easy reading as it mines the depths of their efforts to achieve a perfect union, to talk everything through, and to glory in Beauty. In making decisions, they always choose based on what would be best for their love. Vanauken describes their two different paths to Christianity: Davy through her need for absolution from sin and Sheldon through a yearning for the Jesus he learned about as he studied the New Testament. Vanauken has lengthy discussions on believing despite doubts, the “Oxford experience” of intellectual friendships, and the difficulties of readjusting to life in the United States. He devotes a chapter to Davy’s illness and another to his grief at her death. It is in these chapters that his love for her shines most clearly and that his writing takes the more theological bent as he tries to reconcile his devastation with his belief in God. He examines these events in the light of human views on time and eternity. Included are eighteen letters from C.S. Lewis with whom he shared a special bond as Lewis also suffered through the illness and death of his wife Joy. The letters from Lewis are clear, straightforward and understandable, mincing no words.
I needed a tissue during the chapter recounting Davy’s struggles with her sickness. I didn’t always like Sheldon. It was, however, his story to tell, and he told it from his viewpoint with soul searching honesty. I am glad that I read A Severe Mercy. It is the love story of Sheldon and Davy, and also of their love for Christ.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Memoir, Christian, Nonfiction
Publication: May 26, 2009—Harper One (first published January 1, 1977)
Memorable Lines:
He stood there in the stillness, looking. A tiny breeze touched his face like a brief caress. He closed his eyes for a second or two, fancying as always that she was in the wind. “Davy?” he murmured. “Dearling?”
If one of us likes anything, there must be something to like in it—and the other one must find it. Every single thing that either of us likes. That way we shall create a thousand strands, great and small, that will link us together. Then we shall be so close that it would be impossible—unthinkable—for either of us to suppose that we could ever recreate such closeness with anyone else.
The grim and almost fierce will to do all and be all for Davy that I had held before me like a sword for half a year became now, upon her death, tired though I was, a no less resolute will to face the whole meaning of loss, to drink the cup of grief to the lees.
I MISSED YOU!
Dear Virtual Friends and Book Lovers,
I have been absent for months during a huge transitional time in my life. For years we had traveled back and forth between the temperate mountains of Mexico and a cabin in the colder mountains of the Southwest. About two years ago, we pulled the plug on Mexico and bought a home in the Four Corners area, a mere two and a half hour trip between houses. The plan worked perfectly as we loved our home, our church, our friends, and our new town. Unfortunately, the state governor destroyed the economy of our town along with the rest of the state and the spirit of the people during one of the worst state lockdown regimes in the U.S. Our response has been the selling of our home, moving our goods into storage, and exploring states that value freedom and individual rights as found in the U.S. constitution. We have retreated to our cabin, made an offer on a house, and are going through the next steps.
For anyone exploring the current status of the real estate market in the U.S., you will realize what a miracle it is that we were able to get this far in purchasing a new home. In many areas, homes are selling within 24 hours of being listed and for above the asking price. My sense is that God held this particular home for a few days for us. I rely on God to guide me, and therefore my prayers are that He will not allow the deal to go to completion if it is not the right home or location. I know things will get complicated again for me personally, but right now I am enjoying a cup of tea as I watch a gentle rain outside my windows. Through God’s grace I survived a bear encounter (not attack!) yesterday while walking my dogs. Last night I worked through all my emails executing mass deletes regarding posts by fellow bloggers. I hated doing that just as I have hated not being able to keep up with your blogs. I have not accomplished much reading during this crazy time, but I have been writing reviews as I finish books and will hopefully post them in the coming days and weeks.
Happy Spring! I look forward to reading your posts and interacting as we discuss books and life!
Desde mi cabaña en las montañas hasta tu casa, ¡Feliz primavera!
The Screwtape Letters–twisting good into evil
The Screwtape Letters
by C.S. Lewis
Welcome to the inside-out, topsy turvy world of The Screwtape Letters, correspondence supposedly written by Screwtape, an experienced devil who is mentoring his nephew Wormwood, a junior tempter, in the process of keeping the human assigned to him from becoming a Christian and making good choices. The human is considered a “patient.” God is called “the Enemy,” and Satan is referred to as “Our Father Below.” As you can imagine, this short book is not a quick read as you have to turn familiar designations of God and Satan, as well as your whole thought process, around so that the book will make sense.
First published in serial form in a newspaper, it is divided into chapters which are letters generally focused around one topic such as gluttony or humility and gives advice on how to twist things that God has created in beauty and purity into something that will draw the patient away from God and onto sinful paths.
I am glad I read this book, but I didn’t enjoy it in the same way I would an entertaining mystery or a gentle romance. It is quite witty with tongue-in-cheek humor throughout. It challenged my mind and spirit as I tried to decipher C.S. Lewis’ message. Reading The Screwtape Letters is rather like looking into a mirror. Beware! As you see a reflection of yourself in some of the passages, you may be inspired to make changes in your own life that will result in your reflecting God’s image rather than the one Satan would appreciate. With much food for thought, The Screwtape Letters could be read and studied many times, especially over the course of a lifetime, deriving a new depth of meaning applicable to you personally with each reading.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Christian, Fiction
Notes: C.S. Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the 20th century. He is the noted author of many works of fiction and nonfiction including The Chronicles of Narnia and Mere Christianity. The Screwtape Letters was originally published in 1942.
Publication: 1959—Macmillan Publishing Co.
Memorable Lines:
All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, “By jove! I’m being humble,” and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear.
Music and silence…how I detest them both!…Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile—Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires.
And since we cannot deceive the whole human race all the time, it is most important thus to cut every generation off from all others; for where learning makes a free commerce between the ages there is always the danger that the characteristic errors of one may be corrected by the characteristic truths of another.
Stay: Discovering Grace, Freedom, and Wholeness Where You Never Imagined Looking
Stay: Discovering Grace, Freedom, and Wholeness Where You Never Imagined Looking
by Anjuli Paschall
A spiritual journey is such a personal adventure. Anjuli Paschall shares hers in the book Stay. She also reaches out to other women encouraging them to lean into God through the irritations of daily life and the times of actual trauma and to stay with the pain of hard places because you’ll find God there. She suggests that, instead of building up walls of protection and withdrawing from the fray or working harder to force things to happen, we need to stay with Jesus and “drink life-giving water.” With intriguing chapter titles like “The Guard Shack: An Invitation to Make Mistakes” and “Old Spaghetti Factory: An Invitation to Hold On,” this book is filled with anecdotes and Paschall’s descriptions of how God led her to grow spiritually.
Paschal is a good writer and very effective at drawing the reader into her frame of mind as she navigates the various circumstances in her life. I highlighted many passages and agreed with most of the things she said. I am amazed at the number of turns in her life journey. She is the mother of five, wife of a pastor, photographer, founder of a social media site that helps other moms in truly desperate straits, and a spiritual counselor. Now add writer to that list.
Realizing that I am isolating statements that come from a rich context, I feel I must point out what I perceive to be a major conflict. Towards the end of the book, the author states “My one and only purpose in life is to be loved by God.” I disagree with that and she does too as earlier in the book she states: “We all have one calling. One deep, right, true, foundational calling in life—to love God and to love others.” That philosophy is found in the Bible in Matthew 22 in the New Testament and in Exodus 20 and Leviticus 19 in the Old Testament. Although, I have a few points of disagreement, in general I find this book to be refreshing in the author’s honesty and transparency. She doesn’t try to appear to have it all together. She shares her fears and vulnerabilities as she also shares her hopes and dreams. She encourages women to abandon shame over never being enough and stay the course resting and trusting in Jesus.
I would like to extend my thanks to NetGalley and to Bethany House for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Christian, Self-Help
Notes: Discussion questions are included.
Publication: March 31, 2020—Bethany House
Memorable Lines:
I’m learning to be okay with my mistakes. They don’t define me or determine my worth, but simply direct me to God.
I believe we all can be placeholders of heaven for others. We can create a seat at a table, offer a single cup of coffee, leave bread on a doorstep, or clear an hour in our schedule. God will continually bring us people who are desperately in need of home. If we can embrace each other’s differences, move toward the disabled, welcome the foreigner, laugh with a child, talk with the elderly, all kinds of heaven can burst open like a flower in bloom here on earth. Even the tiniest spaces can become a place for others to taste eternity.
No amount of getting, accomplishing, or achieving will ever satisfy the soul. The soul focused on gaining power, influence, and admiration will only grow hungrier.
Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World
Anxious for Nothing: Finding Calm in a Chaotic World
by Max Lucado
Written and published three years before the Corona Virus pandemic, Anxious for Nothing reads like it was penned for these desperate times. Author Max Lucado, by his own admission, is not perfect; he has experienced many of the same problems you have. You will enjoy his writing style which is simultaneously down to earth and exquisite in his turn of phrase. This book is filled with Scriptures that will encourage you during life’s difficult times. In it you will find examples from Lucado’s life and encounters with others in the form of anecdotes that illustrate Biblical principles. There are many references to the wisdom and guidance found in the book of Philippians in the New Testament, but Max’s wording makes them easy to remember. He shares them as practical steps that will lead to a life with more calm and less chaos.
If I had to choose one book I would encourage everyone to read this year, it would be Anxious for Nothing. I usually include in my blog posts three memorable lines from the books I review. Never have I had a harder time including only three. Having heard Lucado’s online video study of this book, I can mentally hear him patiently, enthusiastically, and with understanding encouraging his readers. I can see the twinkle in his eyes as he shares one of his “secrets”: “God’s anxiety therapy includes a large, delightful dollop of gratitude.” I am grateful for the opportunity to share this book with you.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Christian, Nonfiction, Self-Help
Notes: Included at the end of the book are “Questions for Reflection” which could be used for individual or group study. There is also a useful guide that includes, by chapter, the Scriptures that are referenced by Lucado in the text. It would be very handy to use it to bring to mind God’s promises and truths as you are working through your personal times of chaos and daily struggles.
Publication: September 12, 2017—Thomas Nelson
Memorable Lines:
The Lord is near! You are not alone. You may feel alone. You may think you are alone. But there is never a moment in which you face life without help. God is near.
Find a promise that fits your problem, and build your prayer around it. These prayers of faith touch the heart of God and activate the angels of heaven. Miracles are set into motion.
No more “if only.” It is the petri dish in which anxiety thrives. Replace your “if only” with “already.” Look what you already have. Treat each anxious thought with a grateful one, and prepare yourself for a new day of joy.
Empty Nest, Full Life: Discovering God’s Best for Your Nest
Empty Nest, Full Life: Discovering God’s Best for Your Nest
by Jill Savage
Parents, but mothers in particular, spend almost twenty years preparing their children to fly out of the nest and into the world of adulthood. It turns out that the releasing can be as hard as the preparation. There are issues of control, especially if you have boomerang kids. Mothers are good at piling guilt on themselves when things don’t work out perfectly or as expected for their kids. Grandkids are a blessing, but they come with their own set of issues. The list goes on and on.
Jill Savage, a speaker and teacher of the Bible, who has endured her own personal trials, shares Biblical wisdom and personal anecdotes to illustrate her viewpoints on various subjects related to the “empty nest” in Empty Nest, Full Life. The first half of the book is entitled “Let Go!” and discusses the problems encountered during the empty nest season. It speaks of letting go of expectations, guilt, opinions, traditions, your child’s problems, and your own idols (the things that steal your attention away from God, the things you use to identify yourself). Part Two is called “Hold On!” and within that section lie ideas for what to actually do during that season of the empty nest. Savage encourages you to grab hold of a new mission field, passions, and friendships. She encourages you to revitalize your marriage and your relationship with God.
Each chapter closes with a truth from the Bible, an action step, and a prayer. The book itself ends with encouragement for the next season, a list of questions to help you identify current or past baggage that has affected your marriage, reference notes, and a discussion guide for a leader to use in a small group setting.
My personal nest has been empty for a number of years so I am not approaching or in the middle of an empty nest crisis. I would imagine, however, that this book would be helpful for those wondering how to deal with their new found “freedom.”
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Moody Publishing for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 4/5
Category: Christian, Parenting and Family
Publication: August 6, 2019—Moody Publishers
Memorable Lines:
Expectations will get us in trouble every time. They set us up for disappointment and leave us feeling disconnected.
Studies indicate the brain isn’t fully developed until the age of twenty-five. Yes, that means that our kids are now setting their own priorities when they’re not actually fully equipped to do so.
My friend Becky says that when she’s tempted to address something with her adult son, she tries to think of how she would address it with a friend. Most of the time she realizes she wouldn’t address it with a friend at all! This helps her find self-control and pray instead.
Just in Case You Ever Wonder–created by God
Just in Case You Ever Wonder
by Max Lucado
illustrated by Eve Tharlet
A gifted storyteller for both adults and children and known as “America’s Pastor,” Max Lucado has a way with words and thoughts. In Just in Case You Ever Wonder, Lucado has captured some of the most important truths of reassurance in the Bible in a book he wrote for and dedicated to his daughters many years ago. In this newly published version, Eve Tharlet created soft and welcoming illustrations that feature bears as the characters instead of people. I am enchanted by this book that talks about God’s love and the parent’s love for his child. It provides reassurance for a child that both God and the parent will always support and love the child through good times and bad. The bad times are age appropriate—monsters in the dark, bullies, and bad days at school. It skirts the issue of death while describing the promises of heaven. I think every home with small children should have a copy: it will indeed be a favorite bedtime story.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Thomas Nelson for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Christian, Children’s Nonfiction
Publication: August 6, 2019—Thomas Nelson
Memorable Lines:
The same hands that made the trees and the moon and the sun made you. That’s why you are so special. God made you.
If you looked all over the world—in every city, in every house—there would be no one else like you…
I knew in my heart God had sent someone very wonderful for me to take care of.
The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God’s Goodness Around You
The Ministry of Ordinary Places: Waking Up to God’s Goodness Around You
by Shannan Martin
Where is a Christian’s mission field? You know, the ordinary person who has not been called to go to another country? Shannan Martin in The Ministry of Ordinary Places says it is wherever God has placed you. She doesn’t advocate passing out pamphlets, cornering people, or pushing invitations to come to church. Instead, we are to love people, listen to them, invite them into our homes, be available to them and to the opportunities to help them as God presents them to us.
As a rural introvert, Martin has had to change a lot in opening her heart, time, and home to her neighbors in a multicultural setting. She had to “choose the comfort of the past or the struggle of moving forward.” She learned that hospitality is not perfection in entertainment; it is extending invitations willy nilly, throwing together some tacos, and letting God take it from there. She has learned to receive kindness from others, understanding the cost of that kindness from someone who is down and out.
Martin’s story is engaging, and her writing style is excellent from the humorous “Go with God, good middle school bus driver. You are a rose among loud, hormonal, Hot-Cheetos-for-breakfast-eating, lanyard-flipping thorns” to sharp edged descriptions such as “She has known the desolate landscape of struggle. Hunger and wanting blow through her life like gale-force winds through a thin cotton jacket.” There is magic for the reader in words like these.
Martin does not believe in pushing Jesus down anyone’s throat; she makes her own heart accessible and invites others into her life where they not only see, but feel, the impact of Jesus on individual lives.
I would like to extend my thanks to netgalley.com and to Thomas Nelson for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Christian
Publication: October 9, 2018—Thomas Nelson
Memorable Lines:
Only as we engage in the hidden practice of listening do we learn about the struggles of others, gaining empathy where we one cast judgement.
It’s so easy to tip into judgment when we view the world through an us-them dichotomy. Sitting face-to-face, the problems loom larger and we have to contend with the sticky fact that there is simply always more to the story.
…we are all longing to be part of something bigger than ourselves. Sometimes we get so hung up on doing something great, we forget the best thing is often the smallest.
The Secrets of Paper and Ink–God’s working it out
The Secrets of Paper and Ink
by Lindsay Harrell
The lives of three women cross in Lindsay Harrell’s novel The Secrets of Paper and Ink. Sophia is a women’s therapist in Arizona who finds herself in the need of therapy. Ginny is a formerly rich American who abandoned that life to follow her husband to Cornwall, England, to open a bookstore. Their lives cross when Sophia, who needs more healing time, answers Ginny’s ad for a vacation rental. They find a notebook with the story of Emily Fairfax, a woman who lived in the mid 1800’s. Sophia becomes obsessed with learning more about Emily.
Each of the three main characters has to deal with a problem particular to women—abuse, abandonment, and discrimination. The author handles all of these issues with respect. The plot pops back and forth with each chapter focusing on one character, but with Ginny and Sophia’s stories overlapping in real time. Both ladies are impacted by Emily’s story, and there is a delightful surprise ending. Readers who delight in all things bookish will particularly relish this book as it includes a wonderful bookstore, journaling, and a female author in a time period when that was unacceptable. Readers who enjoy a good Christian romance will take pleasure in the gentle ways in which the characters’ interest in God is reawakened. Lastly, historical fiction buffs will appreciate the inclusion of Emily’s story.
I received a complimentary copy of this book from Thomas Nelson through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Rating: 5/5
Category: Romance, Women’s Fiction, Christian Fiction
Publication: February 26, 2019—Thomas Nelson
Memorable Lines:
But no matter what she felt, she knew deep down that her story did matter. She had to fight against the lie that it didn’t. And if she didn’t protect her own story or have the courage to write it down, no one else would. No one else could.
My senses rang with the cacophony of the muffin man’s bell, the clamor of the clarinet player on the corner, and the clickety-clack of the pattens on ladies’ feet.
Someone had finally noticed me drowning and offered to point me in the direction of the shore. Now it was up to me to keep stroking through the water until I reached the sandy beach beyond.
education pathways 