Gravel Road Musings

A Neurosurgeon's Look at Faith, Doubt, and the Things We Think We Know. Glioblastoma has a 100% mortality rate or does it? There are those few unique cases, but mostly when Dr. Warren sees that tumor, he used to think, "I've seen the end of you." He knows how the disease is going to play out, what is going to happen and the ultimate result of that diagnosis. But now, at the end of the book, he realizes there is more to the story and maybe this is just the beginning. Dr. Warren is a Christian and a neurosurgeon and so he wrestles. How do you pray for a patient when you know the end result, when you know the prognosis is death? How do you pray with a patient when you know there's no hope? Dr. Warren is wrestling with this and then tragedy strikes him personally and he has another battle to fight. The stories were fascinating and the struggle was real. Dr. Warren had a chaplain friend he called Pastor Jon (he was an amalgam of hospital chaplains, all represen...

This is the first book I have read by Melanie Dobson and I certainly hope it isn't the last. I already have one book of hers on order from a rewards program and I already scoured the library to see what they had available to borrow. So that's high praise to start this review. I haven't read a lot of World War II historical fiction until the past few months. It's so heartbreaking to read and yet it can be so redemptive. Now, I realize that not all the actual happenings of WWII were redemptive, but I can appreciate the efforts authors make to bring those bittersweet, redemptive endings to their historical fiction. Melanie did an amazing job of bringing an aspect of World War II to life that I had no idea about. Who knew that some American businessmen had invested in the Nazi regime before and during the war? I had no idea that that had happened and it made me so sad. And yet it was encouraging to read about the many children that were rescued in Holland despite Hitl...

The Life and Legacy of Susannah Spurgeon wife of Charles H. Spurgeon I've known about Charles Spurgeon my whole life, but I have not known much about him or Susie, so this book seemed like a way to remedy that. I was sucked in at the introduction and first chapter and was sure I would fly through the book. Alas, that is not quite how it worked. I am not sure how to get my thoughts from my brain to the screen in a kind, coherent manner. I do not like to give anything less than positive reviews, but I feel a little mixed up on this one.  The content was good. Susie was an amazing woman who challenges me in a lot of ways, especially her care of Charles and her sacrifice for the sake of the Lord's work. That is not an easy thing to do. Her care of pastors, in general, was also impressive, especially considering that she suffered a lot through a great portion of her life. Her illness remains unknown, but she didn't have much of a social life for many years. I think my bi...

365 ways to improve your life, career, and relationships. "Relationships are like batteries. Both positives and negatives keep things charged."  Dean goes on to explain that the negatives, the conflicts, can bring new depth to the relationship if they are worked through. "Profanity is nothing more than a momentary lapse in creativity."  I love this quote because it can seem so true. I don't swear, but I still have my list of words I tend to repeat and I love the challenge to use different words to describe situations. "A shortcut rarely is" There are 363 more quotes like this in this book. Yes, I numbered that right because "It's always good to go beyond what others expect of you." These "shifts" as Dean calls them cover a wide range of topics from listening, to careers, to relationships, to goals and much more. Read over a week they can all start to muddle together, so I would highly recommend just reading one or tw...

I was just looking back through my blog posts and realized that May was the last time I wrote a blog post that wasn't a book review. That makes me sad because I do like writing blog posts. I write book reviews because I get free books for doing it, but I write blog posts because I enjoy the writing process. I don't count myself a professional by any means, but good grief, I won't improve if I don't practice.  In fact, I just got a book off of NetGalley that I am super excited about. It's called "My Unedited Writing Life..." You can read more of my thoughts about it  here . The reason I'm excited about it is that I want to use it to generate more blog posts that aren't book reviews and aren't just stuffy me-trying-to-fill-space posts either. I don't know yet what it will look like, but I certainly want to write more than once every 6 months. A lot has happened since I last posted. Baking season has come and gone and it was a real...

For some time now, I have been wanting to do more purposeful writing. While I don't consider myself a professional at all, I do enjoy the craft of writing and trying to put words to my thoughts. This book looks like a great opportunity to practice my writing skills along with helping me to think outside of the box in what I'm writing about. I have not read the entire book. To me, this is not the kind of book you sit down and read from cover to cover. I think that might drown whatever spark of creativity you had when you started if you were to read all 365 invitations at once. I plan to keep this book close and use it on a regular basis in 2020 and maybe even beyond. Some of the creative invitations included in this book are: "Write a permission slip for yourself to do something, to be something, or to create something you've held back from pursuing." or "Turn your attention to a secondhand object. Write about its journey or about an imagined previous ow...

Have you ever wondered what inspired Stuart Hamblen to write "This Ole House?" Actually, if you're like me, your first question would have been who wrote "This Ole House" in the first place. The answer is curiosity. He spotted an old, abandoned-looking house and had to see what it was. He found an old dog and a man who had passed away in the last week or so. Fascinating isn't it? This book is filled with stories like this. Okay, I don't think anyone else stumbled across a body, but you get the idea. The inspiration for these songs came from all kinds of places and were written by all kinds of authors. I knew a fair amount of the songs, but there were also quite a few that were new to me. "Victory in Jesus", "I'll Fly Away", "Roll, Jordan, Roll" and many more are talked about in this book. There's a short chapter for each song and, if possible, the song is written there as well. Another thing going for this bo...

How to Recognize and Respond to Sexual Danger. "Love protects. It does not violate." "Trust is the oil that greases the gears of abuse. Without trust, most abuse could never happen."  Isn't that not an oxymoron? We think trust is what we need, when in reality most abuse happens by people we know and trust. They know how to worm their way into our families, our hearts and our children's lives and then they take advantage. This book was eye-opening, thought-provoking and downright scary. I've always been a bit terrified of one of my children being sexually abused and this book makes me want to never let my children out of sight. I am left grappling with how to take this information and make informed, conscious decisions while also not allowing it to cripple my life to the point that I am not allowing my children to grow and develop. One of the things that is stressed in this book is creating in your child a warrior heart, a heart that is brave, n...

The Simple, Powerful Path to a Loving Marriage "But I had yet to learn that meeting the right guy is one thing - and loving him year after year is quite another." So says Lisa in her introduction. And I think she is so right. So what are those 100 ways and is Lisa really qualified to talk about them? Well, she has been married for 25 years; that definitely adds credibility to her words, in my opinion at least. She and her husband, Matt, have eight children, one with severe brain damage. Raising eight children, at least one with special needs, and still loving her husband through it all, also increases her credibility. This book is a fast read, I think it took me around an hour to read it. It is basically a numbered list, one per page, of ways to love your husband. Most items have a paragraph or so expounding on it, some have only a sentence and a few have a two or three-page story to go with it. Most are just common sense items that we think, of course, and yet I needed...

I don't often post my NetGalley books on my blog, but this one feels like it's worth it. I have been reading a lot of light fiction lately in an effort to catch up on my review books and I have realized that I am not a big fan of heavier reading on my phone, so I read fiction. And when possible I still get those books from the library and then there are deadlines. So I've been frantically reading and getting a little burned out by the lightness of the reading, but I also want to get caught back up. So all that to say, this book was so good. Yes, there's a bit of romance, but the deeper themes throughout the book drew me in. I wanted to know what happened and how redemption occurred. It was just so good. And only a couple more library books and then I will return to some deeper reading after we move. As I closed this book after reading the last sentence, I sat back and said, "Wow."  This was Amanda Dykes debut novel and I want to know when her next novel wi...

For the first time, I think I understand why people say they want other people to read a book so they can talk about it. That is how I feel about this book. I have mixed feelings about it and I'm not sure where I come out at. This is Erin's second book and I will continue to be happy to read anything she writes. She does a really good job. I will say though that this book has left me a bit confused and a bit unsure of what I really think. The words we write are there. Once you send that letter or email, you can't pull it back and undo it. It's there to be read and reread and thought about. In this book, Robin expresses herself in poetry written as payment for Peter lending her books. While she captures the essence of the book in the poem, she is also desperate to be understood herself. She doesn't have a pretty background and she is running and hiding and yet wants to be known. Does that not define us all? At some point in our lives, do we not all try to hide ...

I barely want to post a picture of the book because it looks like seriously cheesy romance, but since this is my standard practice for book reviews, I will post the picture. This is the first in a series called the Restoring Heritage series. I don't know how many will be in the series, but at least one more is in the works. This is Tari's debut novel and when I first started reading it, I was intrigued. I thought it was going to have some twist and turns in it that you don't always find in these kinds of books. In that respect, I was a bit disappointed. There were twists and turns, but in the end, it came out exactly as you figured it would after reading the first couple of chapters. However, the writing was done very well, the story was intriguing and there were some real thought-provoking lines in the book. "Heritage isn't bound to the genetic code. It's what we give the next generation, whether by birth, adoption, or mentoring a kid in the community. I...

This poor blog sits neglected and forlorn, a pretty direct correlation to my reading life right now. I knew the summer would be busy, I had no idea it would be this busy and I would have so little time to read. I am so far behind on my book reviews and it makes me quite sad and a little anxious even. But fall is coming and hopefully I'll be able to read just a bit more then. But I did get this book read and am posting my review only one day late. Yours Truly, Thomas was a quick fun read based on an unusual premise. A clerk, Penny, at the Dead Letter Office in DC finds a letter from a heartbroken man out west and is determined to help him. You can already guess the ending of that story, but there's a few things to mine out of the story as well. Penny's attitude is one thing that stands out here. She was raised as a rich man's daughter, but after her father died, something happened and she had to go to work to support herself and her mother and that is how she wound...

Ann has written a few books on the Shaker community and this is her latest one. I don't know much about who the Shakers were and so I found this very interesting. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the descriptions though I know the whole celibate lifestyle was definitely true, which I found very intriguing as to how they thought their community would continue to grow if there were no more children born. But that's beside the point, I guess. Into this community, Darcie and Walter had come for refuge from the cholera plague. They, of course, weren't going to stay forever, they just wanted safety. Well, safety is an illusion, as Darcie discovered when her husband was killed. This is not a spoiler, it's in the first paragraph. And so Darcie feels stuck now, with no way to support herself if she leaves. She's having a baby and Shaker tradition is that all are sisters and brothers and so Darcie would be unable to raise her baby. The baby would go to the Children...

"One thing I know for sure, you either get bitter or better by what life throws at you." This is my takeaway quote from this book. And it is so true, but something I forget way too easily. This is a nice breezy summer read. Set on an island, the feel is warm and sunshiny. I mean what can go wrong on an island? But wait, there's the missing lobster, the painters who don't show up, the mayor who's a real character and then there's Peg, who you just have to love. But, none of these are the main characters, the three sisters who are here to help their dad out, to help restore a long-held dream. And, of course, there's romance. I mean it's a nice summer read after all, isn't that what you would expect? I will say this romance is fairly understated, things go wrong and things go very right, but not necessarily as you would guess. There's not a defined ending, but I'm guessing there are more books coming. There are three sisters after all ...

Building Traditions that Breathe Life into Your Home "Traditions are a planned determination to remember, celebrate, and value what is important." "Traditions offer security. Traditions provide comforting memories. Traditions make life sparkle. Traditions remind us what matters. Traditions connect us to others. Traditions shower love. Traditions are worth it." I debated getting this book because it just felt like another to-do list, another reminder of how much I fail as a mom to make life fun and interesting for my children. But I'm also a sucker for books like this that are brimming with ideas and to-do lists, so I got it. Jessica has some really good things to say. She understands the busy mom who doesn't have a lot of margin in her day.  She doesn't ask every mom to go out and plan a big five-course dinner every night of the week because that is what your children will remember. She does stress the importance of food in a child's ...

Karen Kingsbury does it again. Only four chapters in and I was wiping my tears. I haven't read a lot of Karen's books in the last couple of years, but this is the second one this year and I am really wanting to go back and start at the beginning and read all of her backlists. This book is once again about the Baxter's, a lovely close-knit family that Karen has devoted many books to. The main character is Cole, an 18-year-old son of Ashley Baxter Blake. He is mature for his age, compassionate and completely sold out for God. Elise, the other main character, is also 18 and one semester of bad choices has led to a teen pregnancy. This is the journey of first love, hard choices, redemption, and lasts. And I hope it's not the last we will hear of Cole and Elise. I want to know how their story ends. This book gripped me. I couldn't read it fast enough and yet I didn't want it to end. I think there were a few reasons for this, one was in the early pages of the bo...

 The day stretched out in front of me as I sat on the couch sipping another cup of coffee and contemplating my quiet time. Without warning, the tears started falling and my mind struggled to grasp what was going on? Why now? Why am I fighting against life now? It was going relatively smoothly and so why this uprising in my spirit? A scream punctuates the relative quiet of two children playing, "It's mine, he took my toy." I once again began my mantra, "What are you supposed to do when that happens?" "What is the right choice to make?" "You may not scream."  And the normal response came back to me, "But he started the fussing or the fight or whatever name the event was dubbed that time" And my mind wants to shut down and flee the scene. I feel ambivalent about it all. Can you guys just settle your own fights for once? Or better yet, how about you play nicely for once? There's a novel idea. An hour later, I am blissfully cl...

The Atlanta Cotton Exposition of 1895 is the historical event this book is built around. Laurel, the main female character, has been bossed by her five older siblings and told she may not leave their widowed mother to get married, that it is her responsibility to provide care to her in her dotage. Her mother, at this point in time, is perfectly able to care for herself, but the siblings laid down the law. Now Laurel thinks that snagging a rich man would be the answer to her problems. And that is about all the plot specifics I am planning to give. But what about character? This book flips point of view from Laurel to the potential rich suitor to a poor, honest, hard-working young man to a black man and it shows the growth of character throughout the book. Laurel discovers that racial prejudice and social classes are very much alive and thriving in 1895 and she must choose how this all will affect her life. I thought Kim Vogel Sawyer did an excellent job at developing the character...

A Journey of Letting Go, Hanging on and Finding a Peace You Almost Forgot Was Possible The first thing I have to say about this book is just Go Read It!!  I really want to shout it at you in all caps, but I have the sense to realize that just because the book hit me between the eyes and I highlighted extensively on my Kindle version (I don't think I could highlight a paper copy), does not mean it will hit everyone the same way. I was reading this book at a time in my life when I really needed to surrender control, to be obedient to God's call, and to also be willing to accept help. These are all things that Jennifer talks about in this book. Jennifer was a news reporter and loved it until God kept pulling on her control strings and asking her to give up that job, then she taught news reporting until God asked for that job too. Now she writes about the greatest story of all: Jesus and following Him and does an amazing job of it as well. I think this is the first book I hav...

The ringing phone interrupted me as I stood by my car on a sunny Tuesday afternoon four years ago. Stopped in the middle of a conversation about my dad's looming heart surgery, I was jolted, stunned and changed by the news that a very good friend had died in childbirth. So out of our control. Nearly three years later, another ringing phone jolted us from our normal Monday evening activities. I was cleaning up the kitchen from supper when the call came telling us that D's mom and dad were in an accident and it didn't look good for Mom. Another phone call later and our worst fears were confirmed, Mom had passed away, killed instantly. Again, out of our control And now exactly four years later, on a Friday evening, we sat at the kitchen table eating a snack when the phone rang again. Again, it was a phone call we were not expecting, but a phone call that irrevocably changed our lives. No nobody had died, as D kept repeating throughout the weekend, but our lives will ...

Hope for Today from 12 Women of the Bible Eve, Noah's wife, Sarai, Rebekah, Hagar, Lot's wife, Rachel, Leah, Dinah, Potiphar's wife, Tamar, Zipporah, all women with dreams I am sure, visions of how they thought life would turn out, all disappointed. I guess we could look at this list and say Eve started it all and really she did, but it's pretty pointless to go there. Sin happened and now we are left to deal with the results of living in a broken world. And since our world is broken, we will get hurt and we will hurt others. Look at Rachel and Leah. Rachel and Jacob loved each other dearly but were crushed by Laban's decision to force Leah into the mix. And we often don't think about Leah's feelings in all of this. Jill brought out a different aspect in this book. Did Leah secretly love Jacob too? Was she a willing conspirator in becoming the bride of Jacob or was she forced into the deception too? Either way, she suffered a lot in her life because of ...

9 Keys to Building a Positive Lifelong Relationship with Your Kids What is my why in parenting? This is the question I take away from the book, the one I want to think about occasionally. Michael Hyatt said, "People lose their way when they lose their why." And to quote Mike Berry, the author, "When we don't know why we are doing something, when we've forgotten our purpose, we get lost." "Remember that you are in this because you love your child, and ultimately you want to raise a human being who lives with character and integrity and who leaves a lasting impression on the world."  That sums it up well, that is why I try to be consistent, that is why I listen and try to answer 10,000 questions a day, that is why I am trying to teach obedience and respect and responsibility.  But it is easy to lose the long-term focus and just see the day and all its pressures and frustrations and lose heart and patience. Mike offers some good practical soluti...

Let me start by saying I will read anything Rachel Hauck writes. I have read six to ten of her books so far and have loved them all, but especially the books that take two generations and by flipping back and forth between the characters, tell both of their stories. And I am not usually a fan of that, because too often I find I really like the one character and don't really care about the other one. But not in Rachel's books. They draw you in and she makes the characters likable and so you just want to cheer all of them on. I'm not sure if I can give you a favorite book, but The Memory House  is a good place to start. I think I read The Wedding Chapel  first and that was also an amazing read. And now, on to the story. Two ladies: one lost her family, one lost her memories and her dad. Both wander lost, unwilling and unable to move on fully with life. Everleigh, based in the 1950s and beyond, is viewed as having one foot in the grave already because she is unwilling to m...

John 3:16   (link to video) I've been working on memorization for Amber. She is a sponge and can recite portions of her story tapes, so why not use her ability to memorize and fill her brain with Scripture? So we decided to learn John 3:16, which took her a matter of days and she could say it, with one problem. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only forgotten  son....."  Oops, that's kind of a big deal, huh? But then I thought a bit more: forgotten Son, hmm, how many times do I forget Him? How many times do I go through my day acting as though I know nobody by the name of Jesus? Acting as though He is an impersonal being and has no effect on how I speak, how I live, or how I act? I may have mentioned this on here before, I can't remember, but one thing that has been a huge blessing to me this year, 2019, is I feel a real desire to know God more. Yes, I have always said I want to know God more and I did, but this year, this sea...

How Positive Words can Heal How many of you can remember words that were spoken to you as a child, but made a lasting impression on your life? Maybe they were spoken out of anger, frustration, or maybe out of kindness and love, both can be very long-lasting. Mary explores the power that negative words can have on a person. She gives examples of words spoken on a playground that had the power to linger and be on the tip of the person's tongue 70 or so years later. She also brings out the fact that hurting people hurt people and if we can look behind the words that were spoken to the why of why they were spoken it can help us as we process their effect on our lives. But as children, we are incapable of doing that and those words can do damage. There is the flip side though as well, words that were spoken to a child to lift them up and support them and encourage them can also stick in their minds and inspire them to greatness. It is very sobering and has really made me stop an...

Business Powered by Relationships "The single greatest factor impeding healthy relationships is myopia." Randy says this tends to look like me-first. "It's the tendency to make choices based on what is best for me, with blatant disregard for how choices may impact those around me." "A good marriage is a work of art crafted over the course of time by two broken people who recognize their frailty and extend grace to each other." Now I recognize that that last quote seems completely unrelated to the title of the book and in many ways it is, except the context in which this quote was placed in the book. Randy was called in to help solve some less than desirable work relationships and realized the manager was also on the brink of divorce. He focuses instead initially on this man's relationship with his wife, gives him some feedback on what he should take responsibility for in that relationship and then, over the course of time, divided his time ...

HOW to LIVE SENT in the PLACE YOU CALL HOME "What we do in our land is what the next generation will inherit. What is seen and unseen. What we build, shape, and create will be what others step into." Sobering words they are. What legacy am I leaving? What faith journey am I writing for others to read and follow? Shauna and her pastor husband left family and comfort in the Midwest and moved to San Francisco to start a church. Now she is surrounded by concrete and people and working to reach out and touch lives where ever she goes. They work to make their home a hub for their community, a safe place for people to go. Shauna says to do this you need seeing eyes and listening ears. These eyes and ears must first look up and listen to the True Voice then they will be able to see out to the needs and hear the stories being told all around them. Be willing to step out of your comfort zone to reach out. And probably the chapter that challenged me the most because of the tim...

I think this is my last fiction post for the month and I'm glad. I feel like I really overindulged in fiction this month and while it's a good break from deep reading, too much is too much back to back, especially such light fluffy reading. This also falls into the caliber of fun, light reading, but I did really enjoy it. I loved reading about the food aspects as well because I am intrigued by fancy pastries and also by owning my own cafe/pastry shop. So watching Melody and Rachel work together to get it up and running was interesting as well, even though the author admits that she way expedited the process to make the book more interesting. I can appreciate that in a fiction novel because reading pages and pages of red tape and prolonged hunting for the perfect building would have been boring. Anyway, Melody, the pastry chef meets Justin, the airline pilot and you know how the story ends. Of course, there are twists and turns in the way, but I don't need to go into d...

Okay, it's official. I've never been a person to just gush over a season. I can't tell you that I just love Fall or Winter or Summer or Spring. I think I just like the changing seasons and have no real preference for anyone. However, I have concluded, I don't really like Spring. Yes, I just said that. Oh, I know, spring is a time of new growth, greening grass, and tender shoots of whatever bulbs were buried in the ground. But, let's face it, here in northern Wisconsin, spring is yucky. It's mud. This year it is lots of water as warm weather and rain combine to melt the snow faster than it can soak into a frozen earth. It is lots of lovely slippery ice on driveways making it treacherous walking. And it is dirty, oh so dirty. The snowbanks lose their whiteness and become grey and brown and rocky, depending on your winter snow plow.  But then again, I suppose it isn't technically spring yet, but let's face another fact about living in northern Wisco...

The third and last in the Cimarron Creek Trilogy Cimarron Creek is a small town in Texas where everyone knows everyone and everyone knows everyone's business too or so it seems. I like the town, the main characters have been friendly and kind and fun to read about. This book has helped renew my faith in the "Christian fiction" genre, though that might just be my classification system. This book features a midwife, a knife-wielding gangster woman, an abandoned, orphaned woman, and, of course, the handsome Ranger. I don't have to tell you what happens, you can probably figure it out. But it provided the right amount of suspense for me to keep me reading and engaged. So I confess, I may have skipped ahead just to make sure everything turned out okay, but.... It also included the story of Aimee, a girl from France, who had traveled all the way to Texas to find someone important to her. That part was also interesting as well as the day to day life stories of the to...

I don't know if you've ever had that feeling of putting down a book and going, "Oh, I really don't know what I think of this book I just finished, what just happened?" That's kind of my thoughts on this book, I experienced a range of emotions during the reading of this book and ended the book on a laugh, a laugh that was more like, "Oh really, are you serious?" And yet, I'm not sure why. And then I saw that the genre above the bar code was labeled contemporary romance and that explains a few things to everyone, now doesn't it? So to be fair, I think I've read a few too many predictable Christian fiction books while hankering to branch out a bit. And I have read a few of Melody's books that are pretty old, particularly Armando's Treasure and recall it as being an amazing, completely non-romantic story. Now granted, it's been a few years since I read it, so maybe I am all wrong, but I have high regard for the book in my mind...

Sophia, still reeling from the death of her fiancee, not so much because he died, but because he had strangled a part of her and she kept hearing his voice in her head, she kept beating herself up for the decisions she had made. Ginny, also stuck in a rut when her husband takes off to go find himself and she stays home to try to survive and make his dream continue to thrive. Emily, from the 1800s, forced to become a governess after her father dies, forced to give up her only true love, yet she chooses to surrender to God and let Him work in her life. What do these three ladies have in common? They "meet" in England when Sophia discovers a notebook journal and goes on a quest to find out more and that is where I need to stop because I don't want to give away spoilers, but Sophia and Ginny become good friends, each battling their own wars, each trying to do it on their own. Of course, William, Ginny's brother-in-law is happy to help Sophia, you knew there was gonna ...