Gravel Road Musings

A memoir of loss and love. This is the story of a mother's journey through grief after her 12 year old son went out to play on a rainy Thursday evening and never came back.  He got caught in a creek that was normally almost non-existent, but because of the extensive rainfall had become a raging torrent. To be honest, I really have no idea what to say about this book.  I finished it with very mixed emotions.  The writing style is not really my style at all.  Everything is written present tense with some past tense mixed in for the things that happened before the accident. Otherwise, it is present tense whether it happened the day of the accident or 2 years later and so it was hard for me to tell exactly when some of the things happened. One thing I have learned as I've gone through my own journey(s) of grief and walked with others through theirs is that everyone grieves differently. There is no right way to grieve.  I have learned that it is best to get do...

I really, really like Max Lucado's books.  They are filled with stories, lighter reading, but deep truths. I like how he will often emphasize points with multiple one liner sentences like: "When you lost your job...When your marriage went south. When your business went broke." etc.  His writings get me every time and this book was no exception. The premise of the book is: are we living in glory days?  He uses Canaan is our metaphor for a victorious Christian life.  The Israelites got to Canaan and had entered their Promised Land, not heaven, but the land of victory.  I was only going to quote from about one chapter, but let me add a few things from the first chapter to let you get a feel for where the book is taking you.  It's basically a book study on the Book of Joshua. "Our Promised Land isn't a physical territory; it is a spiritual reality. It's not real estate but a real state of the heart and mind. " A Promised Land life in which 'w...

I should or I could be napping right now.  My eyes feel weighted down by a load of bricks; my coffee is growing lukewarm and my fattening pick me up pumpkin pie bar is gone. (You should really make these, by the way. They are delicious. I'll come back to that.) And so I sit here on my computer, prying the eyelids open and wondering why I don't follow D's suggestion and just lay back and take a nap. I'll explain a little: Amber's naptime is my time to get stuff done.  I work on transcribing. I hula hoop. I wash dishes (only if absolutely necessary). I work on my hobbies. I try to be productive. Obviously, also I can waste time on the internet. I was going to transcribe, but the people were talking too quiet, it was too hard for me too hear and therefore required too much work and effort. Naps also make me feel lazy and can make me feel grumpy.  Though, I tried to take a nap on Saturday.  It resulted in a conversation with God in which I felt told to get over myse...

Ah, I might have a weakness for one year devotional books like this or any kind of daily devotionals. I like to have them, but I can struggle to stay caught up and it really is hard to find a good one, one that speaks to me.  I also recognize that there is no way one human author can write a devotional that will speak to me every day of the year.  But still, I continue to collect and I think one of these days I should have a purging party of my various books.  I'm not sure how many I have, but quite a few. Okay, I went to go look and count.  I came up with 15 of them: not all of these are for a whole year, but they are devotionals of some sort. I think Dave might have had one or two of them too when we got married.  I have devotional for married couples, for wives, for moms, for women, and just unspecified for everyone.  And now, I have a Home and Garden one.  And I like it. It's a nice, bigger soft cover book. I wasn't sure when I first opened it...

So, the thing with blogs and Facebook and all other forms of social media is you can hide.  You only post the pretty pictures, the nicely arranged living room, the meal that turned out as you meant it to, etc. etc.  You only tell the happy stories, the stories of triumph and you keep the dirty little secrets all carefully hoarded to yourself. This hiding thing has the potential to cause a lot of jealousy and loss of self-worth and feelings of inadequacy to develop in the readers.  To be a good mom, do I have to let my child play in the oatmeal/flour/water mixture and get it all over their hands and face? Is that the only way they can explore textures and tastes?  Am I a bad mom if I give my baby a bottle while reading book? Am I hindering bonding time by not looking into their eyes as they drink their bottle?  Amber closes her eyes most of the time while she drinks her bottle so I figure she's not too interested in the bonding thing anyway. So, what are the ...

I was tickled to see this book available for reviewing.  The last book in this series, "Halfway to Forever" was the first Karen Kingsbury book I had ever bought.  I had read the first two books later, but now I have been able to get both books for myself through my blog review program.  That makes me happy. This book did not disappoint.  The story of Jade and Tanner: they were playmates as children, spent a memorable summer together in which they failed to listen to the Holy Spirit's warnings and Jade winds up pregnant.  Tanner's mother determines to keep them apart and spins a big yarn about Tanner's infidelity, etc.  Jade immediately marries to provide her child with a two-parent stable home. She misses one important detail: making sure her husband is a Christian.  She is a strong devoted Christian who goes to bat for morality.  This irritates her husband who eventually divorces her and sues for full custody of the child.  The judge giv...

This completed the Wild at Heart Series, I think so anyway.  That is the main reason I went with this book was to have the complete series.  It's the story of the oldest Wilde sister, Bailey.  It's a fairly predictable story.  Bailey is pretending to be a man so she can homestead her claim in the West.  She homesteads over the mouth of a canyon that has excellent grazing fields because this gives her cattle a good spot to graze.  This causes fights with Gage Coulter who owns the canyon, but can't access it without going over Bailey's property.  He finds another way in, yada yada.  Anyway, they marry because he needs a wife and eventually find love together. It's an interesting enough story, but there is zero depth. God is mentioned a few times, but almost like an after thought. "Wait, this is supposed to be a Christian book. I better mention God and prayer quick here at the end before I finish the book."  It almost would have been better ...

Do I really claim the love of God for myself and do I allow it to pour out of my life into the people around me?  Alex says we are not silos to be filled with God's love and keep it for ourselves, but we are conduits to pass that love on to others who need to know God's love. A few quotes that stuck out to me: Jesus comes to us face-to-face with honest eyes, open hands, and a willing heart to touch the deepest human wounds with the healing balm of God's presence. A covenant agreement says, "I am committed to your good  no matter how many times you break my heart, and I will lovingly abide with you through my unmet expectations." That's God's heart toward his people. When Jesus looks at you, both in your greatest strength and most profound weaknesses, his gut wrenches with love. He finishes the book by saying we need to be careful how we talk about the church.  It is Jesus' bride and as such should be treated with respect.  If we think there...

So this is more of a boring post probably, but it will have pictures anyway.  I talked about the book "The Nesting Place" here on my blog a few weeks ago.  It has inspired me to think differently about decorating. It has inspired me to actually decorate even if we are living in a rental and it has challenged me to do it any way even if my style isn't the latest in fashion or my decor isn't perfect. If I like it, what else matters? I am coming to believe it is better to try and have a failure than be too scared to try.  For instance, in my kitchen is a piece of plywood off of my dad's scrap/burn pile.  I spray painted it off-white and painted, in brown, the words: "Coffee & Friends make the perfect blend".  D told me it was so homemade looking, it was almost cool.  I like it and so it hangs on my kitchen wall at least until I try round 2 and find I like that one better. The same goes for the living room.  The loveseat and couch are kind of squishe...