The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe

"The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe" by Mary Simses

This was a fun summer read.  Light and funny but with depth.   A beloved grandmother dies and her dying wish is for her granddaughter to deliver a letter.  The granddaughter, Ellen, discovers things she never knew of her grandmother and in turn finds truths about herself.  A little town where her grandmother grew up is where she feels her again and she will not leave until her task is done but  what else might she discover.  I really enjoyed this book.  It had just a touch of humor sprinkled throughout its pages.  "Sometimes people don't realize they can slow down until they do it."  We live in such a fast paced, instant world that we don't even know how to slow down.  Someitmes we have to leave it all behind and just enjoy the breeze, or a simple sunset to remember to slow down and enjoy whats right in front of us.  This was a fun feel good story that I really enjoyed.

The Priority List

"The Priority List" by David Menasche

This was a great book.  I recommned teachers and anyone who deals with teens to read this book.  It was inspirational and informative.  It is a true story about a high school teacher who inspires his students to learn.  He earns their respect and respects them in return.  He finds out he has a brain tumor and continues to teach through his treatment.  When he can no longer teach he decides to take a cross country trip to visit his past students.  He finds out what they have gone on to accomplish and what he meant to them.  "'The mediocre teacher tells.  The good teacher explains.  The superior teacher demonstrates.  The great teacher insires,' the author and scholar William Arthur Ward wrote. I wanted to be a great teacher.  The best they'd ever had."  David wanted to be the best and he strove for it and many lives were changed because of him.  We should all strive to inspire those around us, to not just teach but inspire.  It's a rare person that can do that.  "Cancer had taken my past and would take my future, but it wouldn't take my present."  Cancer had started to affect his memories and it would eventually take his life but he was determined that he would live and enjoy what he had right now.  Living in the present is something we all need to do more of.  We live in the past and the hurts that have happened or look to what will come in the future for us and forget that right now is a gift, a gift that won't come again.  "But when you really know you're going to die, when you're prepared for death, that's when you learn how to live.  It's a bittersweet lesson.  Just when you learn how to live, you die.  But there's so much beauty in it.  All of a sudden, the sun in the sky is a reason to rejoice, flowers come alive, a gentle breeze on your face feels almost spiritual.  Who you are is defined no longer by what you do but by what you give and how you love.  To me, that felt like a good death."  And it's a good life too.  Learning to appreciate the little things of the every day.  "For my entire life, I had been so intent on never needing anyone that I'd never learned to trust people enough to allow myself to depend on them."  We are here for each other, we need each other.  We can't do this thing called life alone, God designed us for community.  "If I can rejoice in your victories, I have to share in your defeats."  It is easy to rejoice with others but it is often hard to share in their sorrow or defeats but this is what real relationships look like.  We can't just be there in the good, we need to share the sadness too.  

The Last Best Cure

"The Last Best Cure-My Quest to Awaken the Healing Parts of My Brain and Get Back My Body, My Joy, and My Life" by Donna Jackson Nakazawa

I am always looking to learn something.  This book was a more difficult read as it has a lot of medical science in it but it was a good read and I learned a lot.  The author was very sick with numerous chronic diseases.  She had tried every medical drug and procedure but was still feeling terrible and in turn emotionally drained.  She was in her thirties with two teenage children and did not want to continue to live with the chronic pain and fear and emotional stuff she was dealing with.  She decided to take a totally different route and was completly surprised by the results.  She sought out yoga, meditation, and acupuncture.  She learned that with being able to change your mind you become healthier emotionally and then your body starts to heal, that there is a connection between our minds and our bodies.  It was intruging information.  Her father died suddenly when she was 12 and she learned how that early childhood trauma affected her body and may have played a part in why she was chronically sick.  I really found the information fascinating.  If you have chronic pain or childhood trauma this is a good book to read.  I have gained some tools to help me calm my breathing when anxious, and things to put on repeat in my brain to retrain it.  I also like that the author is skeptical every step of the way but is often surprised at her results.  And since she is a medical science writer she always explains everything which I appreciate.  "I don't want my Pain Channel to become the childhood pain that keeps them from the Life Channel-now, or twenty years from today.  There has to be a better way."  Donna knew that her illness was having a profound effect on her children and she didn't want to continue the path that they were on.  "A human mind is a wandering mind, and a wandering mind is an unhappy mind."  Meaning we spend so much time not being present, we think about the past or what is to come.  If we could spend more time just being in the moment we would find more joy.  "We don't have to react to the thoughts and feelings inside our mind as if they are true."  Emotions come and go and instead of spending precious thoughts on what we are feeling it is better to name the emotion and move on and find truth.  "It's as if we're all just waiting for everyone else to smile first."  A smile can change your day, be the first to smile at others and you might be surprised at the uplifing it will bring to your day.  "...that by healing women one by one she'll help each to become more influential and powerful in her family and community-and from there, more women's healing energy will help to heal the world."  Sometimes it just takes one, one healthy person to change the world.  "It's never too late, as long as you're willing to ask the question of what might be getting in the way of creating the joyful life you want to live now."  Healing and wholeness are never too late to achieve.  God is the one who brings the complete healing but He does give us means to acheieving it.

Fifteen Minutes

"Fifteen Minutes" by Karen Kingsbury

This book is taken from modern day.  A young boy having grown up on a horse ranch loves to sing.  He decides to try out on a reality tv show.  His family is struggling finacially and he hopes that if he wins he can help save the ranch.  His long time girlfriend and also his grandfather worry how fame might change him but he insists that his faith is grounded and nothing will ever change that.  He believes that what he is doing is for the glory of God but he encounters fame quickly and looses sight of his One true love.  Will he be able to hold on to his faith or will he loose everything he once loved?  This is another great read by Karen Kingsbury.  Her books always captivate me and keep me reading.  "Good Lord gave me another day.  Got nothing to complain about."  That right there is a gift, waking up to another day.  Sometimes we forget that and find too much to complain about.  "The person you are-the one you really are inside-is lost right now.  But God is chasing you, Kelly.  I've prayed that the world you're choosing will let you down.  And once it does that you will see that God never has."  Sometimes we lose who we are amidst the trials of this life but God is always after us.  The world doesn't have what we are looking for, our wholeness, our peace can only come from the One who created us.  "Sometimes God's voice is hard to hear over the world."  We listen to teachers, parents, spouses, friends but sometimes we just need to listen to what God is trying to tell us.  A good book of the testing of faith and holding strong to what you believe in.

The Invisible Girls

"The Invisible Girls" by Sarah Thebarge

This was such a good book.  Sarah, the author, had her life planned until she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of twenty seven.  All her plans came to a screeching halt.  She came very near death and decided to start new across the country.  She was going to take a year to get her life together and then move back and pick up where she left off.  God had other plans and one day she ran into a a Somali refugee woman and her five girls.  Sarah's heart was broken for them and she decided to help.  This memoir is about Sarah's journey through her cancer and how God put her back together when she gave to another broken person.  Sarah felt invisible in a world of breast cancer and hospitals and the Somali family was also invisible to the people around them.  She knew what it felt like to be lost and she was determined to help this family.  Through her giving spirit she found new meaning for her life and wholeness again.  It is a powerful story of how when we reach out to others, even in our darkest moments, God redeems.  We find God when we are willing to open our hearts to others.  "I began to see God as both my Father and the Great Physician.  He was the infinitely loving, infinitely wise parent standing against the Procedure Room wall of life, watching me suffer as tears wellled up in His eyes.  He was waiting for the moment when the trial had finished its work in my life, ready to pick me up the second it was done and carry me home."  That last sentence is so powerful to me.  It helps put trials and pain on this earth into perspective.  God hasn't left us when we go through hard times, not at all.  He is there right beside us, hurting with us.  Just like a parent watches their child struggle, wanting to step in but knowing we can't because a lesson is being learned.  God wants us to grow and we can't do that without a trail or two.  "God, I always thought I was going to be the beautiful, fragrant rose that bloomed for You in the middle of a prominent centerpiece.  But now I see that I may only ever be a crocus in the corner of Your garden.  And I just want to tell You if that's what You have planned for me, if I am meant to be an obscure flower in the corner of the expansive garden, I will live there and I will love You and I will bloom just for You-only, always, ever."  Our lives rarely pan out the way we thought, they often take turns we never saw coming.  But God has us right where He wants us, all we have to do is bask in that and bloom, bloom right where He planted us because it is right where we need to be.  I highly recommend this book.

The Duet

"The Duet" by Robert Elmer

If you know Dutch people then this is the book for you.  I grew up with many Dutch kids at my school, two of whom are still my bestest friends.  I didn't know when I got the book that it was going to be about a Dutch town but when I was reading I had to laugh at all the Dutch talk.  The book took a while to get into and wasn't the best but it was a fun read with a good ending.  It is about a widowed dairy farmer and a widowed city piano instructor who find a very unlikely attraction. The story is told from their perspectives and the Dutch dairy farmer is quite funny.  This is a fun book with a story of love in unlikely places and second chances.  

Love Lifted Me

"Love Lifted Me" by Sara Evans with Rachel Hauck

Sara Evans is a favorite country singer of mine so this book caught my eye.  I'm not sure how much she contributed to this book but I liked it.  Max and Jade have a marraige that has been tested by infidelity, drugs and a blended family.  They decide to take a risk and have a fresh start in a new town.  Believing that the trouble is behind them and they are stronger for it.  They didn't know that there was one more test coming.  Will they be able to sustian their love and faith in God through yet another trial?  

I really did enjoy this book.  It is real with the trials of this life but has a happy ending.  Don't we all want a happy ending?  I love a book that shows God's faithfulness through trials.  We all have them and we all need to be reminded that He is with us and will see us through, exchanging beauty for ashes.