Tag: book review

Hello long-lost blog!  It’s been a bit of a weird summer, and I’ll share more about it soon, but there’s been good reason why my blog has sat unattended for a couple of months.  I’m terribly far behind on book reviews, so I hope to catch up on those soon.

This book caught my eye as I’ve been wanting to read more fiction/stories over the summer.  I watched the trailer for the documentary that is coming out and found myself in tears.

I’ll Push You (affiliate link) is the true story of two friends, Patrick Gray and Justin Skeesuck, who grew up together and have stayed close through college and marriage and the early years of parenting.  Justin began to have nerve problems in his feet during high school, progressively losing mobility and control in his feet and legs.  For years doctors did tests and studies but were unable to give him a clear diagnosis.  The autoimmune neuromuscular disease acted much like ALS but wasn’t ALS.  As his disease progressed, Justin began to have less and less mobility and the Gray family decided to move closer to the Skeesucks to help and do life more together.  Patrick and Justin had enjoyed many adventures together over their years of friendship, so it was’t much of a surprise when Justin approached Patrick and told him he really wished he could do the Camino de Santiago in Spain.  The Camino de Santiago is a 500-mile trek through the mountains and rough terrain of Spain, usually done as a spiritual pilgrimage.  As soon as Justin mentioned the idea to Patrick, Patrick’s response was, “I’ll push you.”

The book chronicles their adventure, how the pieces came together, how their journey went, and all the amazing things they learned and grew in as they went.  They also share much of their story, the history of their friendship, and their faith in God in the book.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, and was maybe most impacted by the intensity, depth, and sweetness of their friendship.  Their friendship is something special and rare, and it makes me wonder if I would love my friends so sacrificially.  It makes me want to be a better friend!  I was also struck and blessed by Justin’s attitude toward his weakness and dependency.  He is peaceful and surrendered, even as his body slowly succumbs to his disease, and in my own season of weakness and dependency, it has been challenging and helpful to see his example.  I’m eager to see the documentary when it releases!

I highly recommend this sweet story.

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

These three books have been on my stack lately and I wanted to share them with you today!

Hannah’s Choice by Jan Drexler

I haven’t made much time for fiction lately so this one was a real treat!  I really enjoyed this book, set in 1842 in the Amish Pennsylvania.  The protagonist, Hannah Yoder, comes from a strict and large Amish family, finding themselves battling the lure and sway of the outside culture.  Change is in the air and all around them, and Hannah’s parents want to set out for new territory west where they can raise their children protected from the outside world.  Hannah finds herself torn between two men seeking her hand in marriage–one who offers her familiarity and home, the other seeking to adventure west.  I found myself enraptured with this family, the tragedies and losses they faced, the way they both held together and splintered over the pressures of the outside world.  What I think I enjoyed the most was knowing that the author had done extensive research on her own family’s history as some of the first Amish, Mennonite and Brethren immigrants to Pennsylvania, and that this was her imaginative retelling of their story.  I also found myself familiar with some of the Amish way of thinking, coming from somewhat of a Brethren background myself.  This is the first book in a series and I’m definitely planning on reading book 2 in the fall of this year!

*

The Gentle Art of Discipling Women by Dana Yeakley

I was drawn to this book because I’m always hungry to be both discipling younger women and be discipled by older women.  I also think this piece of our Christian faith can often be lacking.  Many times I wish I had an older woman who would walk me through my current seasons and help me wrestle through issues of faith that I can seem to surmount.  I also find myself eager to spend time with younger girls and have been missing that so much in these years with little ones at home.  I also was drawn to this book because Yeakley calls discipling a “gentle art,” which had me both curious and thankful, as “art” suggests something organic rather than something formulaic and staid.  I admit I haven’t entirely read this book, but am definitely going to finish.  Yeakley has been on staff with the Navigators for many years and also spent eleven years in Indonesia as a missionary.  I felt her words carried weight because of her life experience.  The book is structured in two larger parts, the first section grounding the Christian in their own role as a disciple of Jesus first, the second section equipping and encouraging us also to make disciples.  First we must be a genuine disciple of Jesus, then we must go and make disciples.  I appreciate her emphasis on all that Christ won for us in the first section: we are forgiven, we are safe, we have access, and we are becoming.  In the second section she answers these overarching questions: how do we create a life-giving atmosphere?  Whom do we help?  What do we share?  How does discipling one-on-one actually work?

This book comes with a leader’s guide and each chapter ends with a bible study that challenges you both as a disciple and discipler.  This makes it a great choice for a group book study maybe for a group of women who want to learn more about the art of discipleship and be equipped.  It’s also not a terribly long book, and is quite practical.  I am eager to take what I’ve learned and find someone to intentionally disciple and also someone who might be open to discipling me!

*

The Life-Giving Home: Creating a place of belonging and becoming by Sally + Sarah Clarkson

This mother/daughter co-authored book is a TREASURE.  It’s one I would want to put in the hands of every woman if I could.  This is not just written for women who are married or who have children, but for any woman who wants to create a home on purpose.

I am familiar with Sally Clarkson’s voice and have loved some of her other books, but her daughter’s writing in this one swept me off my feet!  She is an incredible writer and I found her to be a kindred spirit (even though she doesn’t know it yet).

I think the preface that the Clarkson’s make to the importance and value of making a home and why that matters in the scope of the Kingdom is so crucial for all Christian women to read.  Here’s a snippet about it:

“One of the first obstacles I find in presenting a vision for the importance of home is the almost unconscious assumption on the part of many modern people that home is inherently a sentimental notion and that beauty is peripheral to spiritual formation.  We discount our own homesickness as a form of weakness.  We marginalize the beautiful.  We dismiss the aesthetic as second class.  We think of beautiful spaces and comforting traditions as spiritually unnecessary and underestimate the profound importance of a safe place for growing minds and souls…

We must understand homemaking not as a retreat from the fallen world, not as a retrenchment from culture, but as a profound engagement with it.  We must understand the creation of home as a work of incarnational power and creativity.  “Kingdom come” doesn’t happen on some cosmic scale; the whole point is that it invades the physical at the humblest level.  As Christ was born a tiny human child of Mary, so Christ comes again, invading the human realm in and through our ordinary love of children and friends, spouses and siblings.  His Kingdom comes in the way we celebrate, the shelter we make of our homes, the joy we put into what we cook and eat and create, our willingness to welcome strangers into our midst.  As the Holy Spirit fills us, our families and friendships and the particular physical spaces of our lives become the spaces where Christ is born again and again–growing, ordering, renewing, healing.”

See what I mean?  Incredible.  Important.  I find so many women who feel that spending time making home cozy or warm or decorated is an unspiritual activity, surely less important that discipling others or sharing the Gospel.  I love the Clarkson’s gentle help all throughout the book in seeing that our homes are the very place where we redeem a small plot of this broken, cursed soil and show the world what it looks like to live under the beautiful freedom of God’s rule.  To invite others, both strangers and kindreds, into a place that is warm, inviting and intentional, be it decorated on a dime with thrifted finds, or with a comfortable budget.

I also LOVE the way the book is organized.  The first small section focuses on building an understanding and common ground for why making a home matters, and what exactly matters about it.  Is there a biblical foundation for the value of making a home?  Is it about keeping a spotless home, or having a home that is well-ordered and intentional, but prioritizes relationship over cleanliness?  Is it about owning a home, or can one build a sense of “home” in their dorm room?  Their tiny studio apartment?  Their parent’s basement?

The second portion of the book makes up the bulk of it and is broken down by month into “seasons of the home.”  I love this aspect of it so very much!  Each chapter then talks about the theme of that month generally and then the Clarksons share how this theme was found in their own home with stories and a ton of resources and suggestions.

You will read this book and be so encouraged and inspired to make a home that truly is a space where God’s glory dwells, where love is the common language, where weary souls can find rest and comfort, where growing minds can be inspired and nurtured.  A place where strangers become family, wanderers find respite, where discipleship and worship are everyday realities.

I highly, highly recommend it!

Happy reading, friends!

*

Thanks to Tyndale Publishers + Revell for a complimentary copy of each of these books in exchange for my honest review.

Also, this post contains affiliate links.  In other words, your purchase of one of these books via my link above helps support this blog and my family at no extra cost to you!  Thank you so very much!

I don’t typically pick historical or biographical books, it seems, but when Eric Metaxas’s 7 Women: And the Secret of their Greatness came up for review, I immediately snagged it.  After reading Metaxas’s biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer last year, I knew I would enjoy pretty much anything he writes.  His way of writing is very engaging, while at the same time being rich, heady and occasionally humorous.

In the follow-up, or compliment, to his previous book on 7 Men: And the Secret of Their Greatness, this book examines the lives of seven women who changed the course of history:  Joan of Arc, Susanna Wesley, Hannah More, Maria Skobtsova, Corrie Ten Boom, Rosa Parks, and Mother Teresa.  I was familiar with a few of those women, but really digging into their lives brought a whole new level of understanding.  Each of these women were truly, in many ways, ordinary women who became extraordinary primarily by their sold-out obedience to God.  Each women faced seemingly insurmountable difficulties: armies and the brutality of war, abandonment by husbands, great poverty, loss of children, loss of family, personal attack, slander, misunderstanding, false accusation, hunger, need, disease, racism, abuse, and the list goes on.  Each woman’s life was, in its own way, extraordinarily difficult.  Yet each persevered.  Each chose to go forward in obedience to God’s call on their particular lives in faith and confidence in Him alone in spite of the difficulty + suffering that would inevitably follow.  Each woman offered open hands of surrender to her Savior.  Some received recognition + accolades in this life, though most did not and were not truly recognized as “great” until after their deaths.  Yet each made a profound impact upon their generation and the course of history.

This is such a needed reminder for us today.  I think many of us want to live lives that count, many of us want to be “great,” if we would be honest.  But not many of us are willing to suffer.  We desire to have the crown but not the cross.  We forget that the cross always precedes the crown.  We recoil from Jesus’ words: in this life you will have trouble.  But take heart!  I have overcome the world (John 16:33).

I highly recommend this read!  It is one I will share with my daughters when they are older.  It was inspiring to look at how obedience to God played out in the lives of a passionate teenager, a homeschooling mother, a prolific writer, a seamstress, a nun, a watchmaker’s daughter, and a twice-divorced poet + nun.  It spoke to me of trust in the Lord in the face of affliction.  It reminded me that the path of obedience will most likely be fraught with much adversity.  Often I assume when I encounter resistance that I must have been mistaken in choosing this path, that maybe I have misunderstood God’s will.  My natural flesh recoils at the thought of a call that might lead to my own death.  It is good for me to constantly revisit this, to see it afresh in Scripture, to see it over the course of history in the lives of the men + women of God I so admire.  I need to be reminded of these words from my Savior, especially in a day of ISIS and brutal attacks on humanity, a day where we can expect the hatred toward Christ-followers to increase:

“If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.  Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.  But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me.” (John 15:19-21)

Maybe not all great lives will involve great suffering, but all great suffering will be greatly used by a God who promises to work it all to the good of those who love Him.

If you need to remember that, if you need to preach to your own soul about the powerful work of God in a small, surrendered life, I think this book would be helpful to you!  Readable, easy to get lost in the story, engaging, convicting, encouraging.

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