Book Club 2

Here are four of the last books I have read, or am in the process of reading...

Title: Twist of Faith by Ridley Barron

One Tragedy shattered his world, one choice freed him to heal.

A friend of mine popped in at work one afternoon and handed me this book. With tears in her eyes told me a little of this mans story -she had just heard him speak at a local event. I took the book home and to be honest, I was very hesitant to even open it. I had no doubt it was a great book and a great story, but sometimes entering into someone else's intensely painful journey is too hard for me, as I still am slowly plowing through my own painful journey. But, two days later, I read the last page and closed the book!

This is the true story of a pastor from Tennessee who was in a car accident with his family, which took the life of his wife, and four days later he would lose their seventeen month old son, due to a horrible hospital error. This is the story of his journey and how he chose to forgive and continue to put his trust and faith in God.

Book quote: “There were many restless nights as my soul continued to wrestle with God.  I couldn't wrap my mind around why this had happened and how it could possibly be part of God's plan.  The nights were filled with thousands and thousands of tears.  My heart would waiver between determined confidence in God and flickers of doubt.  Literally everything I had believed to this point was placed on the table to be examined... questioned... challenged.  I asked God to heal me, fix me, save me, prove Himself to me.  And sometimes I asked Him to leave me alone."

Title: The Blessed Life by Robert Morris

The simple secret of achieving guaranteed financial results.

One day at work I mentioned that we were a little behind financially and I hadn't written our offering check yet that month. I typically write it on the first day of every month. The month before was the first time in years I had waited until about three weeks in, but did finally write it. I was really wanting to skip this month, but feeling bad about it. The gal I mentioned it to told me about the book she had just read and the next day it was laying on my desk. (That's how God works quite often in my world...) To be honest, this was a hard read for me on many levels. It started with the title "Guaranteed Financial Results" - call me hard and jaded, but sorry folks, there is no such thing as "Guaranteed Financial Results" in my book of life... As I read I felt the author came off very arrogant, very black and white, and it was all about God telling him to do something, he learned the I.O. Principal (Instant Obedience Principal), he would give, and he would immediately get the money back ten-fold. I was left feeling guilty for not always tithing and giving consistent above-and-beyond financial gifts away. I thought I was making a very conscious attempt to give generously, but I have never had it returned to me ten-fold instantly after obeying. Am I not giving enough? Am I not giving with the right state of my heart? Am I not trusting God's provision enough? Don't get me wrong, I totally got the heart of this book and the authors intent and message, it just left me feeling emotional on many levels, which I'm assuming means God is at work inside me :-). And in lots of conversations about it throughout the read, I know it isn't just about the physical dollars / money going out and coming in... Some of it is the long term blessing and long term financial increase and gain that isn't a black and white tangible line in your check register right now. I did get the calculator out and really look at the percentage of what we give, making some slight changes - since both of our jobs have changed over the last year, and I'm trying to be more attentive to the I.O. Principal, and trying to give more freely and without so many questions and double checking what we currently have available in the checkbook. Finances are an area I do personally struggle with, giving of our physical financial resources is often hard for me. I feel that need for the "cushion" the "ER cash envelope" just in case (no I'm not a huge Dave Ramsey fan, I read a book of his once and just cried because we had no money and we were already doing nearly everything he was instructing people to do to get out of their debt, I was left feeling so helpless - but I do think he overall has a lot of good general spending / saving principals {that's another post another day}). I'm a big saver while my husband is a big spender, so we have struggled since day one in our marriage when it comes to money. It will be interesting to see what God has up His sleeve for us through this book!

Book quote: "We often go through trials, tests, and tribulations that are almost unbearable while we continue to be faithful to the Lord. However, we must recognize that everything we have belongs to God, and we are merely the stewards. It's pretty easy to place what belongs to somebody else in the proper areas. If, however we have the attitude of the rich fool and try to guard it, hoard it, protect it, keep it and think only of ourselves, we haven't for one moment identified with the heard of God."

Radical Hospitality by Lonni Collins Pratt with Father Daniel Homan
Benedict's way of Love 

This book was written it to help clarify what true "hospitality" is and give a window into the lives of monks and their ancient practice of fully welcoming and connecting with others, using the "Benedictine path of hospitably" as the model. (The "Rule of St Benedict" is is a document written fifteen centuries ago giving basic direction to help monks live and grow toward Christ while living together like a large family, with hospitality as the center.) We are reading it together at work and have found it to be a very fascinating read, underlining so many different areas. I'm also sharing the book with someone else, and I am enjoying seeing her notes and highlights as we read through it. It's always so neat to see how different people are affected and grabbed by the same truths, quotes, comparisons, and lessons differently. The conversations around the table are sometimes lively and enlightening, other time there's the quiet weight of this often hard reality of being openly kind and welcoming to the marginalized, forgotten, and misunderstood around us. It's about the need to open up, be authentic and transparent, taking risk, embracing the uncomfortable, overcoming the fear, accepting the messy, and just living and loving everyone well.

Book quote: "Hospitality is not optional to a well-balanced and healthy life.  It meets the most basic need of the human being to be known and to know others.  It addresses the core lonliness that we avoid with the bustle and haste of our hectic lives. There's a big loneliness at the center of every person. It is universal.  There's a reason for the loneliness.  It is meant to lead you somewhere.  Even if you are unconscious of it, the big lonely is driving you homeward."

Title: The Zack Files series by Dan Greenburg

 I read with our seven-year-old every day, usually in the morning and before bed. Sometimes he reads to me, sometimes I read to him, sometimes we take turns. I have to make work of getting the books lined up for him to read because we have a reading program in school where they have to read certain books and take online tests on them to earn points. While I think in theory it's a great program, I also am frustrated that only certain books count and others don't, completely putting a damper on any kind of "pleasure reading." My rule unfortunately is, if it's not a Reading Counts book, we aren't going to read it. We just don't have enough time in the day to spend reading anything that doesn't "count." Last year my son and I went through all the Clifford books, all the Arthur books, all the Curious George books. This year we've moved up to chapter books and we've gone through all the Junie B Jones books, the Big Nate books, and we were getting through some of the Judy Moody books, but truthfully, I couldn't do another Judy Moody book, so I went in search of something new and found The Zack Files. We are currently reading the last one I think - so we've gone through about twenty of these books in the last few weeks. They're a fairly quick read, a picture to look at every-other chapter or so and my son seems to like them. They're a little "out there" and the very first book we read was about reincarnation, so we had to have a little talk about what that was and that it isn't something real or what we believe in. There's been other things like that in each book, but it hasn't seemed to cause any major conversation issues yet. I'm not sure if this is a series I would recommend or not, but if you have a mid elementary boy who won't over-analyze things and needs some Reading Counts points... pick one up and check it out.

What's up next on my reading list? The Five Love Languages of Children and The First Born Advantage...