Gravel Road Musings

I have liked Lynn's books, so I was happy to get this one.  At first I thought I was going to be a bit disappointed as the book felt a little disjointed as it hopped back and forth between two people, both of which were written in first-person and then also one person's younger years. So it felt like three stories going on together. But in the end, it turned out to be one of the best fiction books I've read in awhile. I like a good chick flick, but sometimes I feel almost silly writing about them because I can feel shallow and silly for spending my time reading things like that. But I still read them because sometimes it's nice to just escape for awhile and get lost in a story that you know is all going to turn out good in the end. And yes, there is a whole line of thought about the horrors of reading what's called romance novels. Anyway that doesn't have anything to do with this book. This book is good. This is not your happily ever after story. It does hav...

The story is familiar, but short. A man who's tired and weary with the constant vigilance required to keep his son safe and alive. "Imagine the pain of the father. Other dads could watch their children grow and mature; he could only watch his suffer. While others were teaching their sons an occupation, he was just trying to keep his son alive.... "He was desperate and tired, and his prayer reflects both. "'If you can do anything for him, please have pity on us and help us.' Listen to that prayer. Does it sound courageous? Confident? Strong? Hardly." -Max Lucado from He Still Moves Stones I needed this story this morning. The other day I was discussing this thing called faith with a friend. What is faith? I know the Hebrews definition, "substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.". That sounds good, but how does it convert down to practicality in the hearts that have been struggling, the prayers that have seemingl...

Text and illustrations from Scandinavia Publishing House This is a beautiful glossy hardback board book. Each double page has a few sentences telling the story of the birth of Jesus in very simple form on one side. The rest of that page contains pictures of objects you are supposed to find on the other side of the double page spread. I hope that makes sense. It basically is a spot the object book, with the birth of Jesus as the story. Okay, before I make you all more confused than ever, let me just move on from the explanation. The book is beautiful. The pages have tabs that stick out featuring main characters of the story. Amber immediately wanted to look at the book. The book is geared to young readers and I would agree. Upon looking at the book, I thought it would be perfect for Amber, it's a board book, sturdy, and a nice small size. But the objects can be pretty hard to find. Things like a bag or a rake or a water pitcher, etc. take a little looking. She can find some ...

So I was thinking sometime I am going to do this nice little post of random things in my life complete with pictures and snappy little captions and everything. Well it turns out I really don't like taking pictures off my camera nor am I big fan of uploading pictures to my blog. It takes time and patience and the pictures don't always cooperate on here like I like them to, so that post will continue its meanderings through the endless maze of brainwaves until either it dies a sad, forgotten death or it comes to life beneath my fingertips. Which will it be? It's unknown at this point. Beings I really do need to upload my pictures to my computer, having small child and taking lots of pictures and things, there's a chance it may happen. But until then.... I am signing of for today. My brain space is at an all time low. It's been taken over by thoughts on mothering and friends and why we need mom friends and other things from the book study this morning.

I'm not sure what size I was expecting, but this is a pretty good size heavy Bible. While I realized my daughter was too young for it yet, I was imagining a Bible that she could maybe start taking to church in the next year or so. This Bible is too big for that. I would say she will need to be closer to 4 or 5 before she will be ready to take this to church. The back of the Bible does say for kids 6-10 and I would find that age to be very appropriate. This is nice hardcover Bible, but it is pretty thick and of pretty good size. Like I said in the title, this is the King James Version. That is what our church uses for the majority of Scripture reading in church so that is why I chose this version. The pictures are nice, though as you can tell from the front cover, not very realistic at all. The font is of a decent size, but I will be honest. When I opened it up, it struck me immediately as being hard to read. It's not actually hard to read, but I think it's the font an...

Transform Your Relationship Through God's Amazing Design. This book is really not like any others I have ever read on marriage and I enjoy reading books on marriage. It was good. It was not a list of dos and dont's and how to love your wife and respect your husband, etc. Al approached it in a completely different way than I have ever thought about marriage and God, etc. He viewed that story in Genesis where God made the covenant with Abraham where He walked through the animals as God marriage to us. And then approached the book as looking at how God loved Israel and how He did relationships with them to how we should do marriage. It was an interesting approach. About every other chapter was a vignette either from an angel's perspective or a Biblical marriage or a modern take on a Biblical story to emphasize the point he wanted to bring out. I think the biggest takeaway for me from this book is marriage is not about my happiness. It's about my husband and I doing...

Rachel is a relatively new-to-me author that I have discovered. The first two books I read by her were The Wedding Chapel and The Wedding Shop and they were hands down some really good books. That's saying a lot because they were written in a style that normally doesn't appeal to me. So I was excited when I saw she had another book coming out. This was the fourth in a series, so I got the first two from the library and am still waiting on the third one. I think I'm 9th on the waiting list the last time I checked, so it will be awhile. Anyway, this is the final book in a series of American girl meeting Brighton (think like England) royalty and falling in love. I enjoy the whole prince, king, fairy tale aspect of the stories and think Rachel did a good job at writing them. To me, they aren't as good as the other books I have read from her, but they were still an interesting read. I will say that having four books in this series that are basically the same premise is...

So I'm sitting here on a quiet Sunday afternoon putting my thoughts out on screen. Later I will likely reread and then post, but for now it's a dumping session that may or may not be edited. This is the second such post today and both posts feel like they have potential to make me vulnerable and be somewhat personal. I'm not sure if I'm okay with that or not. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I went to the lake for a few hours with some friends from church. This going to the lake is a regular occurrence in the summer time around here and I've been meaning to go since we moved up, so finally at the end of the third summer of living here, I made it to a lake day. It was a nice day, a bit chilly and breezy, but in the sun it was nice. There was a nice playground for the kids and of course, the lake. Just before I left, the conversation shifted to everyone sharing if they were introverted or extroverted. I thought this was a good time to leave and prepared to depart. They ma...

I don't think I really need to give a synopsis of this book. It's your typical torn away from the one you love, reunited, but one has made some mistakes and decides he needs to pull away for awhile, but then it all works out. Of course, there's generally someone who makes a little trouble, etc. etc. I think the story fits right in with your typical inspirational romance. I do like Tracie as an author though and do read quite a few of her books. There were some very good points she made in this book, especially in the beginning that I want to bring out. When the male main character, Curtis, is working through some of his past mistakes and regrets, the lady of the house where he was living  had some keen insights. Let me see if I can pull this together succinctly to where it makes sense. Curtis was angry at God and felt like God had let all the bad stuff happen to him, his parents died, the woman he loved, Clara, was taken away from him, and then he let himself turn t...

Oh my, can you say beautiful? I am so excited about this Bible. It's an NIV Bible with lots of journaling lines and verses to color. The Bible passages are written on two-thirds of the page toward the binding and the rest is either lines for journaling or a verse to color. The pages are a little thicker than to accommodate the coloring, but I would still stick to colored pencils rather than markers just in case. I haven't tried it out, but I plan to use it as my Study Bible for next year. One thing I don't like, is it's rather smallish as far as size maybe 6 by 8, that's just a rough guess, but then it's pretty thick. I would rather it was a little bigger like your typical study Bibles and then it wouldn't be as thick, but then there wouldn't be as many verses to color either. A few verses take up a whole page, like the fruit of the Spirit they have all spread out on a page or John 3:16  . A lot of the verses are meaningful ones that you could re...

Because You're Not Meant to Mom Alone This book is not strictly for mothers. I think any lady looking to deepen friendships, find new friendships, or just learn how to be a better friend can benefit from this book. Yes, you might have to come up with a few of your own ideas instead of following all the ones in this book, but I think it has some really good advice for all us who want friends and want to be a good friend. Jill and Ann are a mother/daughter team. It is written in Jill's voice, but Anne does add a few parts here and there. I think in some ways I could have related to Anne more simply because she is in more the stage of motherhood I am in, but I think Jill did a really good job of writing. The are several key areas that moms can "mom" together: learning together, helping together, caring together, sharing together, praying together, forgiving together, and encouraging together. There were a lot of good practical examples and ideas given for how to b...

This post has been sludging around in my brain for the last few weeks, mostly in the hidden parts buried deep, but occasionally nudging itself to the surface where I think about it for a bit and then it disappears again into a dark hole. So today I'm pulling it out to write some thoughts down and see where it goes. Now when I say rainbow child, I am referring to a living child born after a pregnancy loss or still born, etc. I am not referring to the other meaning of rainbow that floats around out there in the world and that makes me so sad to think about. After Nicole was born and before Amber filled my arms, I had a lot of preconceived ideas about motherhood and none of them included exhaustion, feelings of being inadequate, feelings of being overwhelmed with toddler needs, loneliness and yet wanting some alone time etc. etc. etc. In fact, to my shame and embarrassment I would have looked with annoyance and frustration at any mom who would dare to complain about their child an...

More Lessons from Less-Than-Perfect Women Eight women: the witch at Endor, Jael, the women "taken in adultery", Athaliah, Herodias, Tamar, The women with the "issue of blood", and Bathsheba.  A lot of these women aren't mentioned much in the Bible except for their one "claim to fame" act, but each women has some lessons we can learn from them. I did enjoy the book. Liz starts out each chapter with a modern day story of the Biblical one, so of course, it isn't always true-to-life for today, but it does make it more real. However, she can get a bit graphic, so I would probably exercise some caution in letting too young of girls read the book. But it was good to see how we can learn lessons from even the most wicked women like Athaliah and Herodias. At the end of every chapter she had a list of three or so things, along with Bible verses,  we could learn from these women and their stories. I want to share one point per chapter to give you an i...