the shelves – Page 22 – everything He gives

On Friendship

July 1, 2015 MarthaKimball2 Comments

We think that making friends is a childhood difficulty, something that kids struggle with when they enter elementary school. Something they struggle with as they continue to grow up surrounded by peers, people of the same age but not necessarily the same makeup and design, personality and passion.

The reality is, making friends continues to be a challenge in each season of life. We enter life transitions and suddenly our circles of peers change, often leaving old friendships feeling unfitting, awkward, stiff. You head off to college and suddenly all of your high school friendships waver. You are the first of your friends to get married and soon find your single girlfriends distancing themselves from you. You have your first baby, caught up in all the dizzying sleepless nights, feeding difficulties, and the steep learning curve of a newborn, and find that suddenly you just need to talk to another mom who “gets it.” Your friendships seem to curve around other women who are in the same season or can at least speak to it.

I’ve found that many friendships, maybe most friendships, seem to come and go, appropriate and fitting for a season before phasing out. Most seem to drift quietly into disuse due to busyness + change. A few end abruptly with bright red aching wounds in their wake. Who of us as women (because I’m quite sure I have no idea how this whole realm works for men) doesn’t ache for something lasting? Something that endures the changes? Something that grows, evolves, adapts? A friend who you can count on in a moment’s notice? A friend who’s seen you weather many storms and happy seasons, a friendship that has years of history? A friend that is safe.

Let’s face it: our husbands can be our best friends in many ways, but we still need our girlfriends. There’s just something different about that bond, something deeply healing to have camaraderie with some girls.

I’ve had some really wonderful girl friends over the years, but two will always stand out above the rest. We have shared 11 years together, seeing one another through all manner of life changes, from changing our majors in college, to marriage, moves across country and back, many job changes for our husbands, community changes, family changes, spiritual growth, and the addition of nine babies between the three of us. We have had seasons where we’ve lived close to one another and life has afforded us more time to be together. We’ve had seasons where we don’t talk for months due to the busyness of raising young families. But always, this commitment to one another, this love for one another undergirds. We try to gather at the very least once a year and have a “girl’s weekend.” My husband laughs because we typically don’t plan much during these weekends, apart from where we are gathering, which nursing babes need to tag along, and our menu. The agenda is talking, catching up, pouring out hearts. And sleeping, too, but we usually stay up way too late for that.

I read Melanie Shankle’s Nobody’s Cuter Than You and thought of my girls, Katie + Mary. Shankle shares about her friendships over the years, the friends that came + went. The way friendships worked at different seasons, the lessons learned. Her memoir on friendship culminates in her finding “Gulley,” her friend of twenty-five years, sharing their story and the way their friendship has become one of the greatest gifts and joys of her life. It is everything a good memoir should be: engrossing, real, relatable, humorous, truth-telling, enriching, inspiring. I rarely laugh out loud reading a book, but this one had me in literal tears a few times. I finished it and immediately wanted to share it with all my favorite people, especially Katie + Mary. I also wanted to read everything else she has written. It causes you to reflect on your own friendships and to return to that old childhood longing again, the one that we think we outgrew when we became “Adults Who Don’t Have Time And Are Too Grown Up To Maintain Relationships.”

The world of women + female friendships can be hard, scary, ugly, and painful. There’s a reason I think we look around and don’t see many older women who have flourishing and enduring female friends. Women can be cruel, harsh, jealous, and unforgiving. Women can cut us to the quick with deadly words coated in saccharine sweetness. Women can go after our husbands. Women can spread our trusted secrets and betray us. Our hearts can only take so much of a beating before we barricade them and swear off any intruders and pretend we’re just fine that way. Shankle’s book made me want to be brave and fight for this precious part of life, these girl friendships. To fight to have them, to fight to be a good friend, to fight to protect my friendships, to fight to value the ladies who share their lives with me and give time to me. And it helped me remember again how important a thing a good friend is as we journey through life. Life is hard. Dang hard. We can maybe be brave and tough and try to stick it out without needing a single soul, but I think should we choose such a path, our hearts may feel “safe” but we will be unspeakably lonely.

* * * * * *

Thanks to Tyndale House Publishers for a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review! All opinions expressed are my own.

An Invitation to Savor

April 16, 2015April 16, 2015 MarthaKimball4 Comments

There are few people whose voice I want to hear speaking into my every day, but Shauna Niequist is one of them.

I was so thrilled to receive her latest book, which is a daily devotional called Savor: Living Abundantly Where You Are, As You Are. My introduction to Niequist was in reading her last book, Bread & Wine, which has since lived in my kitchen amongst my three most used cookbooks, and it looks like this:

Yes, as you can see, my copy of Bread & Wine is well-loved. And if you aren’t familiar with Shauna Niequist than you must know: the woman loves food, but not just for the sake of food alone, but for the gathering that happens around the table. For the way sharing a meal together cracks our hearts wide open to one another, breaks down stiff walls between each other, thaws out our awkwardness toward one another. The way opening our homes and inviting someone in says, “I see you. I want to know you. I want to give you something my hands have made. I want to share life with you.” Because of her love for good, nourishing food and the power of a meal shared with loved ones, Niequist often incorporates her favorite recipes into her writing.

Savor is no exception! Not only is the book beautifully designed, with hand-lettering by Lindsay Letters accenting the linen cover + each page, but it is also thicker than I expected and has gorgeous navy blue edged pages. Her recipes are sprinkled throughout the book, reminding you that “spiritual living happens not just when we read and pray, but also when we gather with family and friends over dinners and breakfasts and late-night snacks” (back cover), including a wide variety of recipes such as Blueberry Yogurt Breakfast Cake, Wild Rice Salad, Curried Cauliflower, Fregolotta, Thai Beef Salad, and Grilled Peach + Caramel Sundaes. I’ve already been busy cooking out of it, as you can see.

In this devotional, each day begins with a short scripture and a pertinent reflection, encouraging you to savor this life, to savor each day that God has given. Each day finishes with a question for reflection. You know an author is gifted at her craft when her words stay with you months or years afterwards, when those words rattle around in your bones and start to live and grow deep in the soil of your own heart. When that writer communicates the way she sees life so clearly that you can see it, too, and your own vision is transformed. This is how Shauna writes. She will inspire you to move beyond surviving your days to paying attention to them, slowing down, feasting, savoring.

“So read and learn and pray and cook and share. Remember to savor each day, whatever it holds: work and play, coffee and kids, meals and prayers and the good stuff and the hard stuff. Life is all about relationships, and your daily relationship with God is worth savoring in every moment.”

My only complaint is that each day’s reading leaves me wanting more! Shauna’s words are evocative, stirring, and true, and a couple paragraphs is just not enough!

* * * * *

Thanks to HarperCollins Christian Publishing for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

Catching up

March 26, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

Well, I bit off a bit more than I could chew. I’m terribly behind in posting reviews on the last few books I received so I’m going to lump them together here.

The Beauty of Grace by Dawn Camp

This book was a fun read, something easy and encouraging, a great way to wind down before bed. It is a compilation of writings on various topics such as purpose, surrender, trust, + worship, written by some of today’s most popular writers and bloggers. Some of the contributors were old favorites of mine such as Tsh Oxenreider, Ann Voskamp, Lisa-Jo Baker, Emily Freeman. Others such as Kristen Strong, Kayla Aimee, Bonnie Gray, Leeana Tankersley, Maggie Whitley, + Deidra Riggs, were new to me. There were many other contributors, each offering a short meditation or reflection on the topic, along with a scripture. Since it was a compilation of writers writing on a variety of topics, I would classify it as more inspirational rather than instructional.

Some of my favorite features are the accompanying photographs and the brevity of the chapters, as well as the fact that it’s arranged topically so you can flip through it to whatever interests you.

(Thank you to Revell Publishing for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.)

Worry Less So You Can Live More by Jane Rubietta

I was drawn to this book…. for a friend. Ha. Just kidding. Yes, I admit it: I’m a worrier. Rubietta is a new author to me, though as an author of fifteen books, she is certainly not new to the writing scene. I was initially struck and refreshed by her writing, which was poetic + depthy. She writes this book to share her own story of moving from worry to delight and encouraging readers to do the same, and yet her style is such that you are drawn in and lost in her words. It reads gently, more like a memoir than a self-help book. Probably my favorite feature is how she ends each chapter in an application section with scripture, some provoking questions, and then prayer, called Votum, and a response from God, sung back over us, a Benedictus, all written by Rubietta herself.

She covers how to delight even in our most anxious seasons, the dailyness of God’s presence, the way worry boxes us in when God invites us to live in wide open spaces, how our tears are tools, and our difficulties are gifts that give us empathy. Truly beautiful. One not to miss.

A little excerpt for you:

“I quit reading fiction–too frivolous if people are perishing. No more cracking jokes. Somewhere along the journey I stopped laughing, lost all perspective and balance. Everything seemed overly important, everything an issue, whether it was paying two cents too much for a gallon of milk or gasoline (Good Christian Women save money, and furrow our brows while doing so) or being two minutes late for a commitment.

But all this seriousness is killing me. It’s killing my heart, probably literally, but also figuratively. Joie de vivre–joy of living, of life–is not a reality, only a fun French phrase. Isn’t the root of such dreadful seriousness…worry? And isn’t worry a misunderstanding of the God who carries the whole world in his hands?…

Forgoing delight is like an emotional vow of poverty, based on a poor understanding of God. Will God love us more if we live our devout and holy life without cracking a smile or having our heart turn somersaults over the sunset or the erratic path of a butterfly? As though God were a great big Curmudgeon in the Sky, with furrowed brows and a tight fist. This isn’t God the Abba-Daddy, this is God the judgmental, finger-pointing, shaming miser. But looking around, where’s the evidence of a God like that on this globe? Enormous generosity blossoms from the earth, drips from heaven, appears at the lip of the world every single morning and every single evening. Unfailingly generous, it seems to me, is this God we love and serve and maybe try to keep a safe distance from.”

(Thank you to Bethany House Publishers for a free copy in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.)

Own Your Life by Sally Clarkson

Oh, friends. This one is a good one! A great one. Clarkson is a trusted source of wisdom, a biblically grounded woman with a heart heavily inclined toward discipleship, a seasoned mother of adult children, a gifted and engaging writer. Sitting with this book feels much like sitting with Clarkson in a cabin in the snowy Colorado mountains over a cup of steaming tea as she reaches hands across the table and takes your hand and implores + encourages you to own your life. We live in an age of incredible distraction. All of our technology has afforded us unprecedented levels of busyness. As women, we need a call to live lives of great intention + purpose, lives grounded in scripture where we find our identity, our worth, and the very reason for our existence. Clarkson’s book is just such a siren call, reminding, encouraging, exhorting, all the while pouring out from her own deep well of lessons learned and life lived. What will your legacy be? Are you living today with your legacy in mind? Are you living carried to and fro by the whims of your circumstances? Maybe you would be helped by Clarkson’s book. I certainly have been! Rather than heaping on further guilt or a heavier burden to carry, Clarkson writes in such a way as to inspire and gently instruct and gives courage that we really can fulfill the purposes God has for us individually while we walk out our time here.

A little excerpt for you:

“My counsel to all those crying out for help: in order to move from chaos to order, we must each make plan that will move us away from a never-ending flurry of activities toward God’s design for our lives. That plan begins by identifying the drainers and sources of chaos that steal our spiritual and emotional energy. To move forward, in other words, we must first recognize what is holding us back…Often there is a subtle confusion about how life ‘got’ this way. Nonstop activity is a cultural badge of honor that supposedly means a person is making progress. Busyness falsely promises productivity. Frankly, our culture encourages us to take on more and more, and busyness and distraction can be addicting. Yet we are drifting further from the life God designed us to live. Surely this is not the abundant life God promised. Is there a better way to find purpose and satisfaction?”

(Thank you to Tyndale Publishers for a free copy of the book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.)

Happy reading, folks! As always, I love to hear from you: what you’ve been reading and enjoying lately?

Let There Be Light

March 5, 2015March 5, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

This little board book for children is absolutely LOVELY. I’m always looking for ways to teach my children God’s Word and to bring Scripture to life for them. The illustrations are truly stunning, and this book has been lying around the house for a few weeks now, with the kids constantly poring back over the magical yet life-like drawings. This book aims to break down the story of Creation found in Genesis 1-2, illustrating how God formed all that we see from nothing, culminating in His creation of mankind, the crowning glory of His creative work. The artwork and text is engaging for young readers (intended for ages 4-8) and also agrees with the biblical account, which is, of course, important to us! I love the way the illustrator imaginatively depicted God’s person in each of the pictures, whether as a form of light or as a hand hidden within the illustration, displaying Him as intimately involved with the work of creating.

A boardbook edition of the popular Let There Be Light, the story of Creation from Nobel Peace Prize winner, bestselling author, and cultural icon Archbishop Desmond Tutu paired with Nancy Tillman, the phenomenally successful New York Times bestselling children’s author/illustrator of On the Night You Were Born.

I would highly recommend it as a delightful read, and as a tool for teaching the concept of Creation in an easy-to-break-down and understand way to your children! To pick up a copy of your own, click HERE.

* * * * *

I received a complimentary copy of this book from HarperCollins Christian Publishing in exchange for my honest review. All opinions expressed are my own.

The Fringe Hours

February 17, 2015February 17, 2015 MarthaKimball3 Comments

“The glory of God is man fully alive.”
St. Irenaeus

It was the first hike we’d been on in awhile and it was fresh air to my soul. I had had a hard labor with my second born and also a very slow recovery. I was fully wrapped up in my newfound role as “Mommy” to my two precious little ones, and the days were full. But on that hike, I remember hearing a quiet whisper in my soul, like the whistling whisper in the pines: “Remember who you are.”

I snapped a picture of our chacos, my husband and I, to remember. We met leading backpacking trips for an outdoor program, but we had spent little time nurturing that part of our hearts since having kids.

Fast forward a few months…

It was “that” time of day again. You know what I’m talking about, if you have little ones. The bewitching hour, the 5 o’clock melt down. I was hurrying to get dinner on the table, while my three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son squabbled and whined around my feet. I was pregnant with our third, and it had been a long day. One of those days where you are literally counting the minutes until your husband gets home. And banking on the fact that when he walks in the door, you are beelining it to the bathroom for a quiet moment. Or twenty.

Hot steam from the oven rising in my face, waves of nausea rolling over me as my body was telling me dinner needed to be ready soon, and of course, the phone rings. My husband calling, saying he would be late again. The realization sinks in that I’ll be wrangling these two wild ones into the bath and pajamas and bed on my own again, another night. In that moment, it’s hard to hold back the tears. But I surrender to the inevitable and get back to work.

A few hours later when my husband is finally home and we’re catching up about the day, he’s asking me if he can go on a sailing trip that weekend with his dad and that’s when I sort of have a break down. Alone again with the kids? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I adore my children! But the hard thing sometimes about being a mother is your job doesn’t end at 5pm. You don’t get to leave the office and come home. You are always on-call. Even in my sleep, there’s a part of me that’s listening for anything out of the ordinary, listening for that child who might need me.

That’s when I had a break down of sorts. That’s when I realized things were just sort of out of balance. With my husband training for a marathon, he was leaving for long runs early in the morning, sometimes as early as 4 am, and then sometimes not getting home until the kids were already in bed. I felt like a single parent some days. But as soon as I felt the words, “I need a break!” rising like a scream in my soul, I felt something even stronger rise up: guilt. A break from my kids? What kind of mother says that?

I didn’t begrudge my husband for what he needed to do and for the responsibilities he was juggling. I just began to realize I needed to start protecting a little bit of time for myself to get away and turn off the constant “ON” button in my brain.

When all this began pouring out in a hot mess of tears, my sweet husband was more than happy to accommodate. He agreed, it was important for me to have some time to step away and just do what would reenergize me. We began working some things into our schedule, and he was persistent in asking me if I needed some getaway time on the weekends. At first, I continued to feel guilty taking this time, whether it was just to grocery shopping without the kids, or go out for a cup of coffee with a friend.

I couldn’t shake this sense that I really needed to be there for everything. Like it was wrong for me to not be there every night to tuck them into bed, or to not be there when they got up from their naps. I couldn’t shake the sense that I felt like I needed to “please everyone to the point of emptiness” (Fringe Hours, p. 41). But we pressed on.

With practice came more freedom. It became easier to let go, to see that my kids really enjoy having some time alone just with Daddy. It was amazing to see how a little time away refreshed and reenergized me to jump back in to my tasks at home. It felt like I was coming alive again, enjoying my family more instead of being irritated at everyone for always asking for more.

You see, I believe Jesus teaches us that we are to serve from a place of overflow, not emptiness. We are to be so filled up in Him first, and then from that place, we pour out to others what He has given to us (Luke 6:45, John 4:14). Even Jesus, in His perfection, pulled away frequently from all others to a quiet place alone with His Father for refreshment. If the Son of God needed to refresh Himself in order to best serve the world, how much more do we?

This is why I think Jessica Turner’s book, The Fringe Hours will be a wonderful help to many women who find themselves worn down, weary, never making time for themselves, and often drowning beneath the effort to please everyone to the point of emptiness.

I can’t tell you how many friends have talked with me about this particular struggle, the struggle to find time to do the things they love. Many believe that we simply have to forego those hobbies or passions during this season of motherhood, and while I agree that different seasons of life allow for different freedoms, “we must not confuse the command to love with the disease to please” (Fringe Hours, p. 45). I think sometimes we wrongly assume that Christ’s call for us to serve others means we should be haggard, depleted, always giving and never resting. I think sometimes we think the more worn out we are, the holier we must be, and we wear our exhaustion like a badge. God made us whole people, with a body, a mind, a heart, a soul. We are to tend to these aspects of our being out of reverence to Him and as part of worship to Him (Romans 12:1).

What are we teaching our daughters? I look at my now 4-year old girl and I wonder what her mother looks like in her young eyes. Does she look like an empty shell of a woman, always bedraggled, wearing yoga pants, exhausted, and slaving away over chores or running the kids around to various activities? Or does she see a woman who is enjoying life while being a momma? A woman who is still herself, still loves the things she always loved, makes time to play guitar, to hang out with girlfriends, to pursue creativity, making things with her hands? Does she see a woman who is bubbling over with life? A woman who is fully invested as her mom, but still has passions and ambitions? Or does she just see a tired, irritable woman?

Jessica Turner, the lovely lady behind the popular lifestyle blog The Mom Creative, didn’t just write this book from her own intuitions about women and how they use their time. She surveyed over 2,000 women and conducted research, and then drew from her findings to write this book. The Fringe Hours is meant to help women take back pockets of time that they already have and utilize them in order to pursue the things they love.

This book is super practical with tons of tips and ideas for how to better manage your time and also to discover creative ways to fit your passions into your day. For example, research shows that every person waits on average 45-60 minutes per day. Jessica discusses ideas like planning ahead and keeping a book with you, a needlework project you’re working on for a friend, or notecards to write encouraging words to a loved one while you wait. She discusses barriers to self-care such as guilt, comparison, and self-imposed pressures. She helps you identify some of your old passions and gives many ideas to encourage you to continue pursuing those things, even if it looks entirely different in your current season of life. She also discusses ways we can identify areas in our lives that need more attention

One of my favorite features of the book was that it was interactive with journaling sections peppered throughout each chapter, causing me to respond and record my reactions and goals as I read.

If you find yourself sort of drowning beneath the waves of busyness in your life, this book will be a great help and advocate for you to spend your time well and invest in what truly matters so that, ultimately, you can better glorify God.

Here’s a little trailer from Jessica! Also, you can find out more about the book + read the first chapter HERE.

My Fringe Hours

February 13, 2015February 13, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

I’m so excited to be a part of Jessica Turner‘s launch team for her forthcoming book (February 17th, you guys!!) The Fringe Hours.

According to Jessica,

“Fringe hours are those little pockets of time throughout the day that often go underused or are wasted altogether… Literally a limited or appointed piece of time that is found in the margins of a day.”

“Activities and passions pursued during the fringe hours make a life more beautiful and the participant feel more alive and more uniquely herself.”

I’ll write more on the book soon, but for now, I just wanted to share some of what I’ve been enjoying in my fringe hours! It’s been a really great reminder to me that we have to take care of ourselves + our own souls before we have much to give to anyone else. I’ve been way more intentional lately in my fringe hours (or moments) each day to think about choosing what will most refresh me. Somedays that has been staying up late to read or to write. Some days it has been getting outside and going for a trail run in the brisk cold air. Some days it’s taking time to snap + edit pics of my sweet babes.

What do you do in your fringe hours? Do you make a point to refresh and rest your soul by doing what you love and what makes you come alive?

Also, if you’re interested in winning a free + signed copy of Jessica Turner’s book, check out this giveaway on her blog!

Favorite Reads of 2014

January 23, 2015January 23, 2015 MarthaKimball4 Comments

Some of my favorite reads from this past year. This stack is missing a few that greatly impacted me this past year, such as Eric Metaxes’ “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prohpet, Spy,” and Jerry Bridges “Transforming Grace.”

I sheepishly admit that I have historically been careful not to venture too far in my book choices into places that would disagree with my firmly held convictions. I have begun to challenge myself to read some things that might intrigue, provoke, and even irritate me. To read some things that I think I will probably disagree with. I have been afraid to do this in the past, not trusting my mind + heart to weed out truth from lie. As my favorite professor from school once counseled me, we can engage in content that may make us squirm because we can trust that God will separate what is wheat from what is chaff.

The longer I walk with the Lord, the more I see that He continually leads us into more spacious places. He always leads us on to greater freedom (2 Cor. 3:17), and that He will increase our awareness of the great freedom already won for us in Christ Jesus.

Some books that made me squirm and were out of my comfort zone to read were Sarah Bessey’s “Jesus Feminist” and also Barbara Brown Taylor’s “An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith” (not pictured above). I have to tell you: I am SO GLAD I picked those two up. I’m not sure I can tell you that I agree with everything written therein, but I can tell you that I am better off for having read and engaged in those two books. Well worth the journey and the squirming. I think I’m finding that when I read things that are outside of my comfort zone, I am reminded of how much bigger God is than I can possibly wrap my arms (or mind) around. I am reminded that it is in the diversity of the body of Christ that His incredible, unfathomable largeness and otherness is expressed. No one denomination has a corner on all Truth, and we are wise to remember that. I am reminded that Christ’s final prayer with His disciples centered around pleading for them to be ONE (John 17).

I have a big stack already waiting for me to dig into in 2015:

And since I am now reviewing books for fun (pushes nerd glasses up bridge of nose) this stack will definitely grow over the year. Of course, I will share the best with you here, as I firmly believe in sharing good resources and in reading, reading, reading. Not just to stuff our heads with knowledge, but because we want to learn, to change, to have a conversation with the community of brothers and sisters of our faith both in the current day and in times past. What a beautiful privilege that is!

This season of being a mother to little ones has taught me that the best things in life must be fought for. The path of least resistance is not the way of Jesus. I have so little time as a momma for reading, and yet I’m passionate about squeezing it in. There is so much I want to learn and have yet to learn! This year I am convicted afresh that my focus needs to be on my marriage and my children. So I’m hoping to fill my shelves (figuratively speaking) with words that build up and strengthen my marriage and my calling as momma first and foremost.

Of course, I’m hoping to squeeze in some fiction as well. Sometimes a momma just needs to get lost in a good story.

What are you hoping to read this year? What books would you recommend?

Longing For More

January 22, 2015January 22, 2015 MarthaKimball2 Comments

A brand new year unfolds before us. How many of us find ourselves restless, longing for more? The holidays are behind us now, and we are tired of all the activity, the rushing, the memory-making + merry-making, the feasting and the getting.

Now we start again, we re-set, we look into what is both ordinary and fresh at the same time. We’re back to our usual work. Laundry piles, dishes stack, children squabble, bills accrue again. How can we enter into the sameness and the ordinary and yet become different?

What are we so restless for?

Timothy Willard offers us companionship in our restlessness and offers a soul-remedy: God.

The month of January is a clean start, a time when many of us are thinking about change, the changes we want to make to become more of who we desire to be. We go into a new year and bring our old selves into it; but how can we be changed? How can we be transformed?

Scripture tells us we can be transformed by “renewing our minds” (Rom. 12:2). We renew our minds by immersing them in the Truth and abandoning the lies that have taken root there. Willard’s book is just one more weapon in our arsenal to immerse our minds in truth and meditate on it.

In his book, Willard offers us companionship throughout the year with daily readings organized into 52 weeks, each week offering 5 meditations on scripture and short prayers. The readings are fairly concise, leaving you often hungry for further exploration on your own into the scriptures. The weeks are arranged topically, giving you the option of either following allow chronologically or using the book topically as it suits you. The topics are things such as love, joy, confession, family, worship, beauty, forgiveness, faithfulness, etc. Willard arranged the book around the natural rhythms of life, understanding that we experience and relate to God in the ordinary and often mundane activities of our days.

Originally, the readings began as a series of emails written over the course of two years to fellows in an entrepreneurial incubator program for founders of social justice organizations called Praxis. Willard says, “I wrote weekly devotional emails crafted to inspire, challenge, and engender transparency among those in the program. I wanted the writing to reflect the rhythms of daily life but also point to the heavens, to God…Why God rhythms? Because life is anything but formulaic. Though I try to implement systems to help organize my time and relationships, these life buckets tend to mix and gel, clash and explode. I experience life like you do, in the whirlwind of reality’s rhythms. But I do not despise the whirlwind. Instead, I look to its creator, the author of life, the poet of the universe who holds the ebbing and flowing of life like a valley holds its rivers and streams and trees: in the beautiful cadence of balance. The storms interrupt, the rains nourish, the sunlight quickens, the fires purge, and the seasons create of cycle of anticipation. We are always looking to the daffodils, to the picnics, to the harvest parties, to the Christmas trees.”

Willard’s writes as a fellow-sojourner and the readings carry the sense of the dailyness of life, symbiotic with my own feeble heart each day. His writings stir up my affections for Jesus and always leave me longing to dig deeper into God’s Word and to linger in His presence.

Pick up your own copy HERE and visit Timothy Willard’s website HERE.

* * * * *

I received a complimentary copy of this book from Bethany House Publishers in exchange for my honest review. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.

Every Bitter Thing is Sweet

December 30, 2014January 2, 2015 MarthaKimballLeave a comment

The book drew me, beckoned to me, really, from the bookshelves at Barnes + Noble. I was looking for a gift for my sister, and it wasn’t what I was searching for. But something about it spoke to me. Maybe because the title and theme speaks to something I continue to struggle with and seem to learn over and over again with God: Every Bitter Thing is Sweet.

How can every bitter thing be sweet? Truly, can we say every bitter thing? Can we really taste the goodness of God in our darkest of days and trials? Will God hold up under the weight of that, under the weight of our darkest questions and scrutiny?

Sara Hagerty is familiar with bitter trial and circumstance. In this precious book, she explains some of her story, her struggles in early marriage, her struggles for many years with infertility. Her struggle with a God who spoke to her and gave her a vision of a child toddling across her bedspread, and then closed her womb to this possiblity. The struggles through multiple foreign adoptions and the seemingly endless setbacks and disappointments. And all the way, she traces the glory of God shining brilliant in these darkest moments.

In her book she reveals how God took her, a child who believed in a God whose love was best displayed in blessing, and transformed her into a desperately hungry soul. She writes her story of encountering a God who cares to carve out spaces in the soul, empty, hungering spaces that He can fill.

“A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb,
But to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.”
{Proverbs 27:7}

What if our places of discontent and brokenheartedness, what if we discovered that these places are the very holy + sacred ground of God’s deepest riches, the “treasure of darkness” that Isaiah 45:3 talks about?

Here’s a little excerpt from the first chapter:

“The Bible resting on my chair showed wear–how could it not? My friend, my best friend in this hour, was the Author. The book I’d once used to plan youth ministry talks, the book I’d once used to quote pithy sayings and to confirm opinions I’d already formed, that book had found its way into my deep.

The God behind it was proving Himself to be fundamentally different than what I’d supposed for at least a decade, maybe more. But I was finding Him. In the places I had feared most and spent a lifetime avoiding, He was meeting me. My worst, my very worst moments were getting rewritten without circumstances changing. I was getting acquainted with the kind of deep satisfaction that bad news can’t shake. He was showing me Himself as strong enough. He was letting me hide in Him, letting me find a safe place.

And so I cradled my midnight questions while mamas cradled their babies, and I let God’s psalms tell me He cradled the answer in Himself. I felt forgotten, but I heard God speak that He had not left me. I felt weak, but I heard Him promise an overshadowing. I felt anxious that my constant fumblings would annoy Him, but I heard Him say He delighted in me.

And I felt hungry.

I wasn’t this hungry when God was a distant coach, forcing me to perform.
I wasn’t this hungry when I had a life easily explained, easily predicted.
I wasn’t this hungry when everyone understood me.

Pain had created space. Space to want more. Space to taste a sense of being alive. An alive that would grow to be my favorite kind of alive: secret, hidden to all eyes but mine and those nearest to me.

This had to be the hope of a lifetime, Him and Him alone.”

If you’ve ever wondered about this God, this mysterious God who both gives and takes away, and how anyone can love a God who gives the strange gifts of hardship and hunger at times, you would be helped to read Sara’s story.

If you’ve ever battled fiercely with hard circumstances and painful seasons and have wondered how to make sense of it all, you would be helped to read Sara’s story.

Essentially, if you’ve ever lived the human experience, you would find sweet company in Sara’s poetic prose.

Triumphant, encouraging, beautifully crafted. Sara Hagerty not only shares with you her journey to a deeper hunger for God, she stirs up your own hunger, too. I highly recommend it!

* * * * *

Book Look Bloggers sent me a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I am not required to give a favorable review and the opinions expressed are my own.

How to Turn a Bent Soul

October 27, 2014October 27, 2014 MarthaKimball1 Comment

If anyone needs to pray, a momma needs to pray! But the weary days.. the discouraging days.. the days when your brain is so fried trying to multitask 173 different things at once and answer the children’s incessant questions. Kindly.

How to pray? What to pray? Often throughout the day, many of us shoot up our thoughts, our ramblings, our pleadings, our worries to the Lord, talking with Him over everything. And we know He gladly hears + receives these prayers, as we know He tells us in Psalm 62:8 to pour out our hearts before Him because our God is a refuge for us.

Maybe like me, many of you struggle with prayer. You can find time to fit other disciplines into your day, but taking time just to sit and do nothing but talk over specific needs and desires with the Father? It feels like an unjustifiable luxury (especially in light of the dishes waiting to be washed, the laundry that needs folding). It is hard to quiet our busy souls, our busy minds, and to feel allowed to sit before Him in stillness and pour out our hearts.

But sometimes we need help. Sometimes we don’t know what to pray. Sometimes we don’t have a lot of time to pray, just minutes squeezed in while we wait in the school pick-up line, or the line at the grocery store, for pete’s sake! It’s times like these that we can learn to lean on the prayers of others, the words of others that may give expression to the groaning of our own souls.

This little book is a sweet companion for mothers. It is small (and light) enough to fit easily in your purse and have with you or simply to keep it tucked in a spot where you can turn to it daily for help and encouragement. There is a topical prayer for each day, ending with scripture, enabling you to journey through the prayers each day of the year. Or you can flip through the topical index in the back to find words for the particular struggle or need, with topics such as fear, anger, conflict, comparison, marriage, money, guilt, regret, worship, etc. I have found it to help me to pray more specifically for myself and for my children. I am also finding myself turning to it at a particular time each day when my soul is most distracted, and turning my thoughts and words back onto the Lord. Maybe I’m the only one, but I find my soul naturally bends away from God in the course of the day. Prayer is such a mystery to me, how it works, even (dare I say it) if it works, or if “working” is even the goal of prayer. But maybe “turning” is what prayer is about. Turning again to the Lord. Turning back to Him. Turning over to Him what we are wringing our hands over. Turning back what has bent away. Re-turning.

“For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” {Isaiah 30:15}

I would highly recommend it to all the mommas looking for a small and simple prayer help! It would also make a lovely gift for a new momma.

“Therefore let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace whenever we need help.” {Hebrews 4:!6}

* * * * *
*Tyndale House Publishers has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. I am not required to present a favorable review of the book and the opinions expressed are my own.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: