Monday, December 24, 2012

Out with the Old in with the New

As I close this year, I am finally able to post on this blog. Computer problems, of course. I am looking forward to a new year of wonderful reading, and Lord willing, posting.

I was able to log 37 books in my reading journal this year. How did you do? Some of those were read-alouds to my little one. I seem to have a huge pile of books I want to get to this year. And I am really looking forward to that!

Here were a few great reads from this last year.

PP Bliss Songwriter by William Guest (*Favorite of the year)
52 Things Kids Need from a Mom by Angela Thomas
The Unselfishness of God by Hannah Whitall Smith
A Love that Multiplies by JimBob and Michelle Duggar
Beach Dreams by Trish Perry
Raising a Daughter After God's Own Heart by Elizabeth George
With Daring Faith: Amy Carmichael by Rebecca H. Davis
Canary Island Song by Robin Jones Gunn

I love to mix up fiction, biography, Christian living, and parenting/marriage altogether in the year. I hope you will be challenged to expand your reading horizons. Keep it uplifting and acceptable to the Lord, but challenge yourself to read from a genre you haven't lately. My reading tastes changed once I became a parent. Now after several years they are changing again.

Have a wonderful year.
Enjoy!

Friday, March 23, 2012

Sweet Violet

I've been so busy but I apologize for the long break here. We have had interruptions throughout this semester and I'm trying to do a little catch up work.

Saw a great saying on FB over the last week.

"You can't buy happiness, but you can buy books and that's kind of the same thing." 

A few weeks ago I finished a good book called Sweet Violet by Catherine Palmer. The story is set in India during the time of William Carey. (He has a minor role in this novel.) I love mission stories. I especially liked that this one was set in India. We know several wonderful national ministry couples in that country. This fictional book, though set back about 150 years ago, gives you a good flavor for the land there. I'm not sure that it has truly changed much in the rural areas. God has been doing some wonderful things in that country since the days of Bro. Carey.

If you get a chance I suggest Sweet Violet, missionary biographies, and stories of great men and women of faith.

May I suggest a few names?
Charles Spurgeon
Robert Murray McCheyne
George Mueller
David Brainard
Jim Elliot
Amy Carmichael
Eric Liddell
Gladys Aylward
William Carey
Adonirum Judson
Hudson Taylor

Sorry, that was more than a few. I have read about many of these wonderful people. They were just regular people who were completely surrendered to the Lord. Each will leave you with a challenge!

Enjoy!

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Words to Remember

Patches of Godlight by Jan Karon is a book of quotations collected by the title character of her Mitford Series, the Reverend Timothy Kavanagh. Below I share a few gems from this collection. All are beautiful examples of the power of words.

"I cannot live without books."   - Thomas Jefferson

"The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good, and the best book for regulating the concerns of men. The man, therefore, who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be accessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer."           - Peter Marshall, 1902-1949

"The best thing about the future is that it comes only one day at a time."    -Abraham Lincoln

"By words the mind is winged."  -Aristophanes

"Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?"  -Henry Ward Beecher, 1815-1887

"If you cannot read all your books, at any rate...peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hand, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them be your acquaintances."      -Winston Churchill, 1874-1965

"Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire."   -William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939

"The world does not need more Christian writers - it needs more good writers and composers who are Christians."     -C.S. Lewis


Have a great New Year!
Enjoy!