2010 is upon us...

Here we are again at the beginning of a new year. I posted this on Facebook as my status yesterday:

"For last year's words belong to last year's language And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning." ~T.S. Eliot, "Little Gidding"

It seemed a bit "deep" at the time, but I know there are new things bubbling up in me that I haven't experienced before. Those things will require a new voice to communicate them. Of course with the events of the past year, there is a bit of trepidation in moving forward...but then again...what other option is there? I choose to keep believing God is still in control even when circumstances make it seem otherwise. I seemed to have "lost" my voice over the course of the last 4 1/2 months. I think it may be the trauma of all we've been through. Perhaps I'll find it again this year. I'm praying so.

Thanksgiving 2009

I don't really have anything to add to this post. Please watch the video and understand how grateful we are to all of our precious friends all over the world.

http://vimeo.com/7897510

"If God Is Good" Book Review

If God Is Good

by Randy Alcorn

Every one of us will experience suffering. Many of us are experiencing it now. As we have seen in recent years, evil is real in our world, present and close to each one of us.

In such difficult times, suffering and evil beg questions about God--Why would an all-good and all-powerful God create a world full of evil and suffering? And then, how can there be a God if suffering and evil exist?

These are ancient questions, but also modern ones as well. Atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and even former believers like Bart Ehrman answer the question simply: The existence of suffering and evil proves there is no God.

In this captivating new book, best-selling author Randy Alcorn challenges the logic of disbelief, and brings a fresh, realistic, and thoroughly biblical insight to the issues these important questions raise.

Alcorn offers insights from his conversations with men and women whose lives have been torn apart by suffering, and yet whose faith in God burns brighter than ever. He reveals the big picture of who God is and what God is doing in the world–now and forever. And he equips you to share your faith more clearly and genuinely in this world of pain and fear.

As he did in his best-selling book,  Heaven, Randy Alcorn delves deep into a profound subject, and through compelling stories, provocative questions and answers, and keen biblical understanding, he brings assurance and hope to all.

Randy Alcorn is the founder and director of Eternal Perspectives Ministries and a bestselling author. His novels include Deadline, Dominion, Edge of Eternity, Lord Foulgrin’s Letters, The Ishbane Conspiracy, and the Gold Medallion winner, Safely Home. He has written eighteen nonfiction books as well, including Heaven, The Treasure Principle, The Purity Principle, and The Grace and Truth Paradox. Randy and his wife, Nanci, live in Oregon and have two married daughters and four grandsons.

A Brief Encounter With Mary and Martha

Let's have a brief encounter with Mary and Martha. Luke 10:38-42

vs 40 - "But Martha was distracted with all HER preparations..." The preparations were hers, not the Lords - She's so distracted by all she's trying to do she even "fusses" at God - "Don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the work?" But Jesus looks at her with love - "Martha, Martha" (Sandi, Sandi...insert your name here). I can almost see His tender smile as He shakes His head - "You are worried and bothered about so many things - really only one thing is important. Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken from her."

Do I believe we need to take care of things around our homes and make sure our kids are fed and clothed - absolutely. Do I think our homes should be hospitable and welcoming to others - Yep, I do. But, I don't believe He wants us to be going about life frantically. A nervous wreck when things aren't "just so" or they aren't getting done (in our time frame). Is Martha necessary - yes. But remember, Jesus told her "Mary has chosen the better option". I can be as "Martha" as the next woman. I used to ask my husband to load the dishwasher and then re-do it when he wasn't looking because it wasn't loaded the "right" way.  I've often said that I'm an organized woman trapped in a messy womans body. Talk about frustration! 

Listen, if our "trying" and "busy-ness" get in the way of worshiping Jesus - it's sin. Plain and simple.

So whatever you're doing worship Him while doing it. Worship Him, knowing He's leading you to a new place of service to Him today. "To obey is better than sacrifice". He doesn't need our "work", or "trying", or "busy-ness". He wants our hearts. If our hearts are all wrapped up in the "doing" of stuff, then He doesn't really have us at all.

"Blue Like Play Dough"

I read the best book last week.  It's called "Blue Like Play Dough" by Tricia Goyer.  She is a Mom after my own heart.  Her hearts desire is to be the woman God is calling her to be, the wife God made her husband to need AND the Mom God wants her kids to see.  I think she's winning on all counts.  Her honest accounts of life struggles is liberating to those who read them.    She has passionately pursued her dreams and what she believes God has called her to do and shares openly about each success AND failure.  Wow.  Her vulnerability and frank openness encourages the reader to live life in God's grip. I will recommend this book again and again.  I will read this book again and again.

Tricia Goyer is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, includingGeneration NeXt Parenting and the Gold Medallion finalist Life Interrupted. Goyer writes for publications such as Today’s Christian Woman and Focus on the Family, speaks to women’s groups nationwide and has been a presenter at the Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) national convention. She and her husband, John, live with their family in Montana.

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781601421524

Book Blog for "The Vanishing Sculptor"

Most of this review will be from my 13 year old daughter.  She read this book and loved it, so I asked her to write a review for it.  Here it is...

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781400073399&ref=externallink_wbm_thevanishingsculptor_aeb_0427_01

I read the book The Vanishing Sculptor  by Donita K. Paul . I was pretty impressed by her ability to incorporate Biblical circumstances into a seemingly secular book. The search for truth dominates a quest that begun as a desperate attempt to save the world renown sculptor, Verrin Schope’s life.  The team who composes this questing party includes 7 people and 1 grand parrot. One character that I really like is the Wizard Fenworth. For the dominate part of the book he is portrayed as a grumpy old man who is very temperamental and kind of immature, but you see in the end that he is just a grumpy old man who is also extremely wise, talented, and just understands the importance of fun.

 I think that this book is well-balanced, meaning that it gives good descriptions, but Donita did not waste time with over-flowery sentences. She would have done better to develop the characters in the beginning of the book. I didn’t feel like I knew the characters very well until the end of the book.

This is definitely a series that I would like to read more of. I look forward to seeing how Donita K. Paul grows as a writer.

Here is the summary sent by the book publisher:

Donita K. Paul’s 250,000-plus-selling DragonKeeper Chronicles series has attracted a wide spectrum of dedicated fans–and they’re sure to fall in love with the new characters and adventures in her latest superbly crafted fiction novel for all ages. It’s a mind-boggling fantasy that inhabits the same world as the DragonKeeper Chronicles, but in a different country and an earlier time, where the people know little of Wulder and nothing of Paladin.
In The Vanishing Sculptor, readers will meet Tipper, a young emerlindian who’s responsible for the upkeep of her family’s estate during her sculptor father’s absence. Tipper soon discovers that her actions have unbalanced the whole foundation of her world, and she must act quickly to undo the calamitous threat. But how can she save her father and her world on her own? The task is too huge for one person, so she gathers the help of some unlikely companions–including the nearly five-foot tall parrot Beccaroon–and eventually witnesses the loving care and miraculous resources of Wulder. Through Tipper’s breathtaking story, readers will discover the beauty of knowing and serving God.

Book Blog for Three New Books...

I didn't get to read all three of the books as planned.  I did finish "Sir Dalton and the Shadow Heart" by Chuck Black and would be interested in reading other books in that series.  I think it's more of an early teen book for boys, but it was an interesting way to illustrate how our lives need to be rooted and grounded in the Word so we may be able to stand strong against a very dark enemy.

I started "The Disappearance of God" by R. Albert Mohler, Jr. but have not finished it.  I must admit, it's going to be a book I write in the margins and underline a lot of passages in.  I do think it's going to take me some time to get through it and really have read it thoroughly. 

I did not read "Eyes Wide Open", by Jud Wilhite.  Of all three of the books, it's the one I most looked forward to reading and didn't even start.  Just reading the back cover of this book opened "old" places in my heart that I have struggled with all my life.

Below, you will find the information sent to me by Multnomah Press for each of the books.

“The Disappearance of God” by R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781601420817

 

More faulty information about God swirls around us today than ever before. No wonder so many followers of Christ are unsure of what they really believe in the face of the new spiritual openness attempting to alter unchanging truth.
For centuries the church has taught and guarded the core Christian beliefs that make up the essential foundations of the faith. But in our postmodern age, sloppy teaching and outright lies create rampant confusion, and many Christians are free-falling for “feel-good” theology. 

We need to know the truth to save ourselves from errors that will derail our faith. 
As biblical scholar, author, and president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Albert Mohler, writes, “The entire structure of Christian truth is now under attack.” With wit and wisdom he tackles the most important aspects of these modern issues: 

Is God changing His mind about sin?
Why is hell off limits for many pastors?
What’s good or bad about the “dangerous” emergent movement? 
Have Christians stopped seeing God as God? Is the social justice movement misguided?
Could the role of beauty be critical to our theology?
Is liberal faith any less destructive than atheism?
Are churches pandering to their members to survive?

In the age-old battle to preserve the foundations of faith, it's up to a new generation to confront and disarm the contemporary shams and fight for the truth. Dr. Mohler provides the scriptural answers to show you how.

“Eyes Wide Open: See and Live the Real You”  by Jud Wilhite 

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781601420725

 I had it all backwards. The main thing was not my love for God, but his love for me. And from that love I respond to God as one deeply flawed, yet loved. I’m not looking to prove my worth. I’m not searching for acceptance. I’m living out of the worth God already declares I have. I’m embracing his view of me and in the process discovering the person he created me to be.

In Eyes Wide Open, Jud Wilhite invites you to discover the real you. Not the you who pretends to be perfect to satisfy everyone’s expectations. Not the you who always feels guilty before God. Not the you who secretly feels God forgives everyone else but only tolerates you. Not the you who looks in the mirror and sees a failure. The real you, loved and forgiven by God, living out of your identity in Christ.

A travel guide through real spirituality from one incomplete person to another, Eyes Wide Open is a book of stories about following God in the messes of life, about broken pasts and our lifelong need for grace. It is a book about seeing ourselves and God with new eyes–eyes wide open to a God of love.

“Sir Dalton and the Shadow Heart”  by Chuck Black

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9781601421265

Sir Dalton, a knight in training, seems to have everything going for him.  Young, well-liked, and a natural leader, he has earned the respect and admiration of his fellow knights, and especially the beautiful Lady Brynn.  But something is amiss at the training camp.  Their new trainer is popular but lacks the passion to inspire them to true service to the King and the Prince.  Besides this, the knights are too busy enjoying a season of good times to be concerned with a disturbing report that many of their fellow Knights have mysteriously vanished.

When Sir Dalton is sent on a mission, he encounters strange attacks, especially when he is alone.  As his commitment wanes, the attacks grow in intensity until he is captured by Lord Drox, a massive Shadow Warrior.  Bruised and beaten, Dalton refuses to submit to evil and initiates a daring escape with only one of two outcomes - life or death.  But what will become of the hundreds of knights he'll leave behind?  In a kingdom of peril, Dalton thinks he is on his own, but two faithful friends have not abandoned him, and neither has a strange old hermit who seems to know much about the Prince.  But can Dalton face the evil Shadow Warrior again and survive?