Friday, April 27, 2012

One True Love

"One True Love" by Barbara Freethy
Here is another freebie on my Kindle.  It was a good one, not too bad for free.  Warning though, it did have some sexual content.  It is about a woman named Lisa who gets a frantic call from her best friend that she needs her to come watch her kids for the weekend.  Lisa then finds herself face to face with her ex-husband, her past and her present collide.  It is a story of how love wins and overcomes.  This was a feel good book.  "You're not failing.  You're just being human."  So often we feel like failures but isn't good to know that we are just human like everyone else?  "Don't you get it, Lisa?  I love you no matter who your father is, no matter what your mother does, and no matter what you do.  I'm never going to leave you.  So you better get used to having me around for the next fifty years.  You and I-we're bound for life."  Oh how we need this kind of commitment in our world today.  "I know now that I took everything out on you.  I didn't know how to deal with my emotions, my anger.  I wanted to break something, to hit someone, and you were the closest one."  Why do we always hurt the ones we love, because they are the closest.  "Because you don't believe does not make it false."  So true, so true.  "Because in order to survive, you had to leave, you had to forget.  The only way I could survive was to face the memories head-on every day, to think about her, to remember her.  Otherwise, I felt like she would have died for nothing."  Grief takes many forms and we all have to deal with it differently.  It's hard not to judge when others deal with it differently than we do.  "She realized that when she turned her back on her life with him, she'd locked away not just the bad memories but the good ones as well."  "That's the hardest part about being a parent, accepting that you can't protect your children from getting hurt.  You can take all the precautions in the world and worry yourself like crazy, but each individual comes to this world with a life to live, no matter how long or how good or how scary it might be.  We give out children life, but sometimes we forget that they're the ones who actually have to live that life."

Not In The Heart

"Not in the Heart" by Chris Fabry
This was a great book!  I really enjoyed this book and mostly because it had such great dry humor in it.  It was funny yet griping at the same time.  It is a book you won't want to put down.  It is about a man who is a writer, a famous writer who is out of work.  His family is also falling apart and his sons heart is failing.  Then he gets a story of a lifetime, a death row inmate willing to donate his heart, to his son.  As he investigates the story he finds that the inmate might not be guilty at all but if he stops the execution his son will surely die.  Truman must make a choice.  (Bet you wanna read it now huh?)  "He's doing something good from the heart, making sense out of the bad.  Your son is just the recipient of the grace of God."  Gifts we don't deserve, grace.  "He just wasn't able to get the drawbridge of his heart down far enough to get across."  Sometimes we need help getting that drawbridge down, or the wall to crumble.  "His words left a bad taste in my mouth, like one of those energy bars that are supposed to give you the nutrients that you need but just leave you feeling full of oats."  That gives you a taste of the authors writing, witty and funny throughout you just have to laugh out loud.  "I try to project the image that I'm together, but underneath there is always a need to escape, to rush to some other place where the pain and trouble aren't rising like a tide, ready to engulf."  How many of us are trying to project the image that we have it all together?  I would bet every last one of us.  So why can't we be the messes that we are and let God handle the rest?  I think we all need to be a little more honest with ourselves and each other and show a little more grace too while we are at it. 

Unplanned Journey

"Unplanned Journey" by Tanya Unkovich
I picked this book up in a bargain bin at the bookstore, I just can't help myself from a tragic story.  It is a true story of a women who finds herself in a life she never planned, a life where her beloved husband is dying of cancer.  The book was written from journals that both her and her husband kept through his battle.  It is raw and honest and beautiful.  "So don't let the written word from a doctor upset you.  The only written word that we have to check is from the Bible.  He is the great and divine healer, end of story, and I believe totally in Him."  These words were from her husband trying to bring comfort after they got news of the cancer.  And I love them because yes we go to doctors for help but God has the ultimate say and often in the most trying times His word is what we have to hold on to.  "In the face of emotion, don't move, welcome it."  So often we try and get out from under what we are feeling or stuff it.  Tanya learns that the best things to do is feel it, whatever it is, and then and only then will you get through it.  "Carry the cross with grace and strength."  We all have our own crosses to carry and I pray that I carry mine with the grace and strength of Jesus.  "I am thinking about how hard it is being alone.  God made Aden and Eve for a reason!"  I love this line.  I think God made us for community and being alone is never easy.  We were made to be with one another.  "It is such a relief to actually know and experience that no matter how bad you feel, these feelings do pass and all you have to do is go through them.  Attempts to escape them one way or another leads to more pain.  Just sit and be with these feelings and get up and just do it."  Again, feelings do pass, thankfully, we just have to move through them.  "Experience is not just the best teacher, it is the only teacher.  As we look back at our trials and hardships, we realize that, rather than being tragic and destructive, our difficulties have given us endurance, resilience, and patience.  This is the direct outcome of going through trials.  This is where hope comes from."

The Silent Gift

"The Silent Gift" by Michael Landon Jr. and Cindy Kelley            
This story is about a single mother with a disabled child struggling to make it but devoted to love and protect the gift she has been given in her son.  Then she finds out that her disabled son has a gift of his own to offer.  Can his gift bring hope to their life full of struggles?  This was a unique book written very well.  It exemplifies what it means to truly hope and have faith despite the circumstances.  And I love that it ended happily ever after.  "I ask right now, Lord, that those who see little Jack here will see God.  Those that touch him, come in contact with him, will realize that he is special.  A gift."  Don't we all want this, for others to see God in us and especially in our children?  I pray every day that He shines through me so my girls will see Jesus and want to be like Him.  I pray the places they go that He will shine through them and Jesus' love will pour out of them. I pray that others will see the gift that they truly are.   


Wednesday, April 18, 2012

The Bailey Flanigan Series

"Leaving"; "Learning"; "Longing" and "Loving" by Karen Kingsbury

This was a four book series and if you like Karen Kingsbury you won't be disappointed. These books are about Bailey, a daughter who has grown up and is now looking for the path God has for her. In the first book she is leaving home and spreading her wings. The second book she goes through some trials, searches for God in those trials and learns from them. The third book she longs for the promises God has given her and the final book is the fulfillment of those promises. I enjoy Karen's writing because it is so real and current. Also throughout all her books are the truths of God woven so beautifully in her stories. The final book didn't turn out quite like I had thought but it was true to life that sometimes how we see things are not what God has for us.