Gravel Road Musings

7 ways to find calm in the chaos "I wonder what would happen if we begged God to change us with the same desperation we ask him to change someone else?"  Okay, with quotes like that, my toes are thoroughly stomped on. The purpose of this book is to help us learn to live in REST, to rely on God completely and learn to bask in His presence all the time. If I have it right, it's to live in the eye of the tornado, where chaos is swirling around us, but we are not upset or frustrated by it. The concept is good, I think a lot of the points are spot on and made me say wow, that is good.  I think someone who is living on the edge and frustrated and grasping would gain a lot of benefit from it. I would say for myself, it wasn't necessarily the right season. It's wintertime, life is a bit slower for me right now, I don't feel fully caught in the chaos of life. I can certainly go there, I do feel like right in this immediate timeframe there is a lot of stuff go

Ah, Julie has done it again with a lovely novel that is on the thicker side and makes you want to sink down into a comfy chair with a cup of tea and a scone and read all afternoon. This one had a taste of mystery in it, who really did commit the murder? This is not a big spoiler because the murder happens within the first chapter, I believe and the rest of the book is built on finding the killer. But the book doesn't evolve like you would expect and I found myself leafing ahead so I could discover the murderer and I was surprised. And books like that are good. The island sounds lovely and quaint. I mean who wouldn't want to live on a whole island with a bridge that reaches over to the mainland? How fun does that sound? Panic/anxiety attacks are real and need to be treated with respect and care, but it does seem like more could have been done for them, but then again, considering the doctor...well you will have to read the book. One of the verses that stuck out to me

An Unforgettable Story of Profound Brokenness and Breathtaking Grace Wow!!  I'm not really sure what else to say about this book. I want to talk about it, but the concepts are a little hard to explain, so I kind of want to just say, read the book. And yet, I know that not everyone is going to like it, but I just thought it was so good and healing even for me to read. I know that might sound weird, but let me see if I can explain a bit without totally messing up the storyline. Terry had a tough, tough childhood. Raised by parents who carried a boatload of hurt and brokenness into their marriage and parenting, Terry never knew if he was going to be loved or beaten. The stories he told of his childhood are heartbreaking. I don't want to give a lot of details, because I don't want to give away the story, but here's one example: enemas whenever he was sick. It didn't matter what kind of illness, an enema with the bathroom door wide open was the consequence. Ridicul

I have no idea why I waited so long to get this book read. Have you ever looked forward to reading a book and almost didn't want to start because you were afraid that the hype might not prove worth it? I think this was that kind of book for me. I believe I have read the last 4, now 5, books that Terri Blackstock has written and they have been excellent. But I wasn't sure about this one, maybe it would let me down and so I put off reading it or at least that is the mind game I think that I subconsciously played. It just wasn't pulling me in. But then.... I picked up this book on Sunday and I finished it this morning, two days later. It did not disappoint at all and I will definitely have my eyes out for the next book by Terri Blackstock. A murder and a fire take center stage as the underlying themes of the book, but there are so many facets of the story that streak out from that central theme.  A few things I came away with is that community can be hurtful or it can be

How can it be six years already? Six years since our hearts received a Nicole-shaped hole that no one else can fill. Six years and I remain amazed at how those feelings, those emotions are still so very real. I can still feel the ache in my bones as infection stole the life of my baby, the pain as the ultrasound probe pressed down trying to get a good picture, the fog that hung over my head through the long afternoon and evening, and the instant clarity, tears and yet joy that came after Nicole was born. I can still feel the emotions as we knelt in our living room sealing that casket that contained our precious baby. I can hear the thud of that first shovelful of dirt being placed on her grave and thinking about how I cannot possibly watch and yet not being able to look away. Most of the time, I don't think about what we are missing. Our lives are full, we are so blessed and time does heal or as Ravi Zacharias says, "Time is a revealer of how God does the healing." And

How Encountering Heaven Changed My Life I got this book by mistake, I clicked the wrong button when I was requesting my review books. When I got the book, I read the back and thought, oh this might have been a good mistake. This looks intriguing. Listen: "Kay had spent most of his adult years as a devout agnostic. Then one day, after an accident that ended his life, he met the One he had sought to disprove. From that time, though many challenges lay ahead, his sense of emptiness was transformed into genuine joy." In reality, that is not what the book is about, Kay was an agnostic until, I would guess, his mid-20's. While an agnostic, he did have an accident that should have killed him, but he walked away unscathed and still an agnostic. There was no accident that resulted in him nearly dying. It was a medical condition. His near-death experience is fascinating and plausible, but I struggled to make sense of what happened before the experience and what happened a

So a few weeks ago, I reviewed a book called "My Unedited Writing Year". It is a book filled with writing prompts, I think 366 of them or so and I am going through the book and following the prompts and seeing what happens. I have no grand visions of writing a book or becoming a blogger with thousands of followers. I am simply wanting to expand a hobby of mine. And don't worry, I won't post all of them here. For instance, the finishing of the story of the poodle wearing a scroll? That is classified information there. But think about it, what would you do if a poodle showed up with a sticky note on its forehead that said, "Read me" and had a scroll attached to its collar? This could happen to you, or not. So today's project is not to post a gif on your blog, in case you're wondering. I don't really do gifs but I wanted some kind of picture to go along with this post so this is what I found. And let's face it, I liked it when I found it, bu

Susan May Warren really redeemed herself in this book. The first books I read from her were based on the Christiansen family in Deep Haven and I loved the family thread that ran through the books. Then I read a few others of her and I just wasn't that impressed. And I'm not really sure what made me try another one, but I requested this one and it was worth it. Yes, there is romance, but to me, it is more understated than in some of her books. Each character has so much baggage to work through and that is more the part that shines through. I did decide after reading this that I will not be doing any mountain climbing anytime in the near future. I didn't understand half the terms involved with attempting to climb Mount Denali, but I do understand terms like "Falling" and know that I don't want to be using such vocabulary when there is nothing beneath my feet. She also ends the book on a cliff hanger and then to really add to it, includes the first chapte

The year is 1843, the year is 1944, the year is present-day, the lady is Elizabeth or Amelia or Keira, the man is Keaton or Wyatt or Emory. Take your pick on which characters you want to root for or if you want to root for all of them. Yes, this book jumps back and forth between three different timeframes and, of course, three different sets of people. Because of this, I think, it took me a while before the story pulled me in. You have to read a lot more of the book before you get a handle on each character and what is happening, but when the story pulled me in, I was hooked. Often in these kinds of books that flip back and forth between time periods, I really am interested in only one story and endure the others. And I thought this would be the case again: what interest was I really going to have in 1843, but I was so very wrong. By the time, the book was done, I was interested in all three time periods and really, really wanted to know what happened to each character. And the endi

Anybody who knows me really well probably knows that I like goals and lists and books and ideas. I love clean slates and open pages that are waiting for me to fill them up. And a New Year is no exception. I work on my goals during the month of December and come up with a rather long list of things I want to accomplish in the next year.  I generally don't actually get that many accomplished, but it never deters me from making another list the next year. This past Sunday in church we were challenged to only try to change 1%. Don't go for huge drastic changes in your life, you are setting yourself up for failure, but make small changes in several areas and see how successful you can be. And while my list may not look like small changes, I feel like, in some ways, that is what it is. I don't think I set resolutions, I set goals. And I try to make them measurable, but what tends to happen for me, is I set a whole year at a time, carefully write them out and then put them awa

Secrets to a Lifelong Romance There are 13 secrets that Dr. Leman exposes in this book, 13 tips that can lead you to that intimate connection you crave with your spouse. Secrets like: "For your spouse to truly hear you, you have to talk in a way that encourages them to listen" or "Feelings pull you together, judgments push you apart." or "Acts of love create an unbreakable bond. If you want to change your spouse, try changing yourself first." Basically, I will read anything Dr. Kevin Leman writes. I've read a couple of his books over the past couple of years and have one more on my shelf to read and I enjoy every one of them. He has a way of writing that drives the point home clearly. Add to that the stories and humor he throws in and the books will hold your attention and make you want to read more. This book was no exception. I enjoyed reading it. I had started it early summer and got sidetracked by business and came back to read it all throu