Long Time No Blog

It's been so long since I have written and posted.  I have started many entries, mostly to sort through my thoughts and feelings.  However, it has been way too long since I have written anything that is worth publishing.  Where does the time go?

We just finished celebrating the twins' 9th birthday.  I can't believe my sweet Prince and Princess are 9 years old!!  If you have read my blog much, you know this is a difficult time for me. I want to celebrate the blessings God has given with two healthy children, but I also struggle with remembering the circumstances of their birth and all we went through to get to this point.  This year was no different.  Hubby and I both struggled as we thought about the life and death stuff we have come through. 

You can read about their birth story Here and the follow up Here. 

We've come a long way, Baby!

 

Earlier this week I was talking to a friend who has had a difficult time lately with some health issues he has been facing.  He said that he has been struggling and asking God why and then he feels guilty because of the long life and the blessings God has already given Him.  This resonated with me because I have felt the same way.  I know I should be thankful for what I have.  I know that God has worked things out for His good and His greater purpose.  I know that I must sound like the spoiled little kid who wants things her way and wants them to come without a price.  I still struggle, but I would like to think that as I wrestle with the questions, I am growing through it.  God is big enough to handle my questions and I may never understand why, but when I ask those questions I like to think that God is drawing me closer to Him and asking me to just trust Him.   

 



I look forward to the day that July 14th comes and I am fully in the present and the promise that the future holds, not dwelling on hurts from the past.  However, it is from the past that I have learned what it truly means to trust in God's perfect plan. 

These miracles are truly a gift from God and they teach me so much about my relationship with God and who I want to be when I grow up

Prayer Warrior Mom Book Review

 



I am so glad I requested a review copy of Prayer Warrior Mom.  God has entrusted parents with a huge responsibility and He has also given us an amazing gift.  We want to be the parents God has called us to be, but we don't always know how to intercede for our precious children. In her book, Marla Alupoaicei gives wonderful insight into exactly how we should pray.  It includes scriptural references that tell the how and why. 
This book includes fifteen chapters with titles such as:
Pray Scripture, Stand in the Gap, Pray with Power and Authority, Fast for Spiritual Breakthrough, Hold Your Children Loosely...

At the conclusion of each chapter is Today's Prayer followed by a page called Sword of the Spirit with more scripture relating to the chapter.  Also, there are small group discussion questions to follow each chapter.  This book could be done in a group of moms who come together to support and discuss or it could be done alone as you prayer and seek discernment in your own prayer life for your kids.  I think it would be neat to go through this book and keep a journal of ways the Holy Spirit touches your heart through this book and then to journal the prayers you pray for your children after having read it. 

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.  I am not obligated to give it a positive review.  However, I think this book is a fabulous resource and plan to keep it at arm's reach so I can refer back to it.

In Broken Places Book Review

Shelby’s life isn’t glamorous, but it is predictable—and that’s the way she likes it. A survivor of her father’s violence, she has spent a lifetime creating a safe existence devoid of dependence. But her carefully managed world begins to break when, under staggering circumstances, she becomes a single mother to four-year-old Shayla. In a drastic attempt to escape her childhood’s influence, Shelby moves to Germany, but she quickly discovers how intimately linked memory and healing are—and how honestly she must scrutinize her past in order to aspire to a richer future. As she juggles a new job, a new culture, a new daughter, and the attention of an enterprising man, Shelby’s fresh start becomes a quest for the courage to be not only a survivor, but someone who prevails.

I really wanted to like this book.  I enjoyed the character development and thought the plot was a good one.  I found it difficult to read because the story kept jumping in time from present day to a few months earlier to flashbacks from Shelby's own childhood.  I just found it disjointed and a bit difficult to stay with. 

I received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Days Like These ~ Book Review

Kristian Anderson fought a brave battle with bowel cancer.  He began a blog to keep family and friends updated on his condition.  Days Like These includes the blog of his journey along with passages written by his wife, Rachel.  Kristian had a strong faith and believed in his heart he was going to beat cancer.  At times I became extremely emotional as I already knew that he died from cancer.  However, this book is also inspiring.  It encouraged me in my faith journey as Kristian shares his heart with complete honesty. 
He says:
"And always in the back of my mind is the thought, 'What if?...'  What if I don't make it?  What if I croak and let everybody down?  Some might say that's not having faith, that I shouldn't think that kind of thing.  I don't know.  I'm a human being, and my mortality is something that I have become acutely aware of.  Ignoring the medical point of view as presented by my oncologist is not exercising faith;  it's being irresponsible.  Exercising faith would be trusting God's promises even when the statistics lean in cancer's favor.  I tend to believe that faith is not psyching yourself up or the power of positive suggestion.  I tend to see it as something far deeper and far less tangible, something not of the mind but of the soul  That place inside you that you know exists but you can't quite put your finger on.  I feel like faith comes from my belly, not my head.  It's something planted deep within me, and it has deep roots.  So when my humanity kicks in and I worry that maybe I won't be able to go the distance, my faith is there to reassure me that not only will I go the distance but  Iwill do it well.  I won't limp over the finish line.  I will finish strong."

There are many other passages that struck me but as I read, I just thought, this is true faith.  It is believing that God will keep His promises in spite of your circumstances.  It is facing that uncertainty knowing who holds your future in the palm of His hands.  Even when the miracle doesn't come, or when God doesn't answer our prayers in the way we hope, we have hope in Him. 

This is an amazing story of an amazing, godly man.  Kristian Anderson became famous when a youtube video he posted for wife's birthday went viral.  He and his wife appeared on Oprah after she became aware of the video and his story. 

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Book Sneeze in exchange for a fair and honest review.  I am not obligated to give this book a positive review. 

Freefall to Fly ~ A Breathtaking Journey Toward a Life of Meaning

I was excited to receive "Freefall to Fly" because it sounded like a book I could relate to.  Rebekah Lyons did not disappiont.  Lyons describes her journey as a woman, a wife and a mother and the struggles and triumphs that go along with it.  I appreciate her transparency and honesty as life didn't turn out the way she thought it would.  Isn't that true of so many of us?  We have big fairy tale dreams as young women, we want to have it all, we think we can have it all and yet the very things we thought we wanted, don't make us happy.  Why is that?

Lyons suffered with debilitating panic attacks and depression and couldn't figure out why or how to make it all stop.  She would think she had it under control for a while, but when she least expected it, she would have another panic attack.  Many of the points she brought up, I find interesting:

"Women are 70% more likely than men to experience depression.  One in four women will suffer some form of depression in her lifetime...We aren't depressed because we are getting old; we are depressed in the prime of our lives.  During the years when we ought to be making some of our greatest contributions to others and to the world, we are stuck.  Caught in the quagmire of confusion, hardly able to put one foot in front of the other.."

"I'm no medical doctor, and I have no degrees in psychology, but I do love to listen to the stories of women.  Women who are in the sweet spot of this demographic who are fighting to make sense of their lives.  I hear the stories, unpack their pain, and consistently flind a common perpetrator.  We don't know who we are.  We all feel this self-doubt.  The nagging sense that we don't quite have what it takes.  The loss of clarity over why on earth we exist.  The demands of life are piled on us from every direction - from ambitious husbands with amped-up libidos to screaming kids wanting the crusts cut off their PB and J sandwiches to in-laws demanding their fair share of holiday celebrations. Each of these things in isolation, no big deal.  All combined, the weight is too much to bear. 

This is the story many of us live with.  But it's not the life we want to live or the legacy we want to follow us for generations.  In the still moments we cling to the hope that there must be a better way.  A way to live out the purposes God has for each of us.  Yet that way is lost on us."

While I haven't been clinically depressed, I do struggle with knowing who I am and what God is calling me to do. I do struggle with those outside pressures and with wanting things to be just so.  I want to make everyone happy and at times make myself miserable in the process.  This book was validation for me that we are all in the same boat.  Even though women put on a happy face and may look like they have it all together, we share in the same struggles. 

I found Lyons' honesty refreshing and enjoyed this book so incredibly much.  I highly recommend this to any woman who needs to stop trying to control all of the details in her life and give up that control to the God who loves us and has plans of each of us. 

I received this book free from Handlebar Publishing in exchange for an honest review.  I don't have to give it a favorable review, but I am because I really liked it!

Bread and Wine ~ finding community and life around the table

I enjoy reading cookbooks and imagining all of the possibilities new recipes bring.  Like everyone, I sometimes get in a food rut and need inspiration.  Bread and Wine ~ finding community and life around the table, is no ordinary cookbook.  In fact, while it has recipes in it, Shauna Niequist says it isn't really a cookbook at all.  She shares some of her favorite recipes and the stories and people behind those recipes.  In fact, she admits that many of these recipes came from other sources but I enjoyed the stories and memories stirred by the food she cooks. 

In her introduction, Niequist says,
        "It's not, actually, strictly, about food for me.  It's about what happens when we come together, slow down, open our homes, look into one another's faces, listen to one another's stories.  It happens when we leave the office and get a sitter and skip our workouts every so often to celebrate a birthday or an accomplishment or a wedding or a birth, when we break out of the normal clockwork of daily life and pop the champagne on a cold, gray Wednesday fore no other reason than the fact that the faces we love are gathered around our table.  It happens when we enter the joy and the sorrow of the people we love, and we join together at the table to feed one another and be fed, and while it's not strictly about food, it doesn't happen without it.  Food is the starting point, the common ground, the thing to hold and handle, the currency we offer to one another."

Because I come from a southern family, food is a large part of our family traditions. The food we share around our table feeds not only our bodies, but our souls too.  Whether it is the four of us sitting at the dining room table at night or Sunday dinner with extended family, our mealtime is a sacred space for sharing life together.  I identify with Niequist when she says,

        "What happens around the table doesn't matter to a lot of people.  But it matters more and more to me.  Life at the table is life at its best to me, and the spiritual significance of what and how we eat, and with whom and where, is new and profound to me every day.  I believe God is here among us, present and working.  I believe all of life is shot through with God's presence, and that part of the gift of walking with him is seeing his fingerprints in all sorts of unexpected ways...When you
eat, I want you to think of God, of the holiness of hands that feed us, of the provision we are given every time we eat.  When you eat bread and you drink wine, I want you to think about the body and the blood every time, not just when the bread an dwine show up in church, but when they show up anywhere - on a picnic table or a hardwood floor or a beach."

Niequist has inspired me to cook, to invite friends and family in and to make it about more than whether my house is perfect, but about the intimacy and love that is shared around the table. 
"This is what I want you to do: I want you to tell someone you love them, and dinner's at six.  I want you to throw open your front door and welcome the people you love into the inevitable mess with hugs and laughter.  I want you to light a burner on the stove, to chop and stir and season with love and abandon.  Begin with an onion and a drizzle of olive oil, and go from therrem, any one of a million different meals.  Gather the people you love around your table and feed them with love and honestly and creativity.  Fed them with your hands and the flavors and smells that remind you of home and beauty and the best stories you've ever heard, the best stories you've ever lived."

If you love food and you love spending time with your family and friends, I recommend this book.  If you are in a food rut and need some inspiration, I recommend this book.  After reading this book, I felt good about the times we are already spending around our table and feel inspired to create more experiences with family,old friends, and friends we've yet to make.

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review and the opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

One Perfect Life - The Complete Story of the Lord Jesus

 One Perfect Life is more than just a harmony of the New Testament Gospels.  It tells the complete story of Christ, weaving together prophesies from the Old Testament as well as the New Testament Gospels.  Dr. John MacArthur was able to put together something I have never seen before and I am so excited that this book is now a part of my resource library.  Not only does it read as a narrative, combining pieces of scripture from different books of the Bible, it allows the reader to more fully understand the life of Christ in a more linear fashion.  I especially enjoyed reading the footnotes provided, as they provided explanation and details that I hadn't thought about before. 

As a life-long Christian and someone who has studied the Bible for many years, I appreciate the easy format of this book.  Unlike Parallel Bibles, which present different accounts in a column format, this book weaves the accounts together into a complete story.  It shows how the different accounts fit together. 

MacArthur begins with the Creation of the World with Jesus Christ - the Preexistent Creator and Savior.  He continues with the Fall of the Human Race Into Sin and through Old Testament prophesies which fortell of the Messiah's birth.  It demonstrates how everything in the Bible was put together to tell the story of Christ, from the beginning of Creation and through the Gospels. 

When I first received this book I was excited to dig right in and wanted to read it cover to cover.  What I found was that I really want to take some time and read the footnotes and really ponder and understand what was happening and how the accounts came together.  I learned so much while reading and I know I will refer to this valuable reference tool again and again. 

This book would be beneficial to those wanting to read straight through the narrative, as well as others who want to take time to read and understand footnotes, savoring each piece of the story.  I highly recommend this addition to your reference library. 

I received this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review and the opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”