Gravel Road Musings

Social media is full of them, those pictures of cute, little, missing teeth first graders all excited and eager gripping a lunch box or a sign board or something that indicates that they are off to the big world of school. Sometimes fear or anxiety shines through in their eyes or the way they grip their lunch box in a tight, white-knuckle grip, but mostly it's excitement that glitters off the page, causing even the casual social media scroller to smile and remember their own first days of school.  But what we don't see, what is kept hidden away in broken hearts are the mothers who hop onto Instagram to see what's happening with their friends and come across these cute little first graders and without warning their heart is ripped open again and the tears stream down their cheeks.  Because this was the year, this was the year their own little first grader was supposed to be going to school. This was the year they were going to have their own pictures to post on Instagram, th...

  Depression. That is a word we hear about quite a bit and we all have an opinion on, but also a word we whisper about and are ashamed to admit we might struggle with it. Enter this book, the story of a courageous woman's fight against depression and its demons. This is a fight that she almost loses, but yet emerges at the end, a different, but better person who has finally been able to recognize God's love and forgiveness in her own life. This is the story of Josephine, a beautiful author and child of God, who writes beautifully about God's grace and redemption and forgiveness and yet struggles to embrace it all for herself.  It's the story of Henry who must seek for that forgiveness. It also feels like a personal story for the author herself. Elizabeth, in the acknowledgements, mentions her own struggle with depression. It feels like this story could be deeply personal for her too in her own journey through life. I like to quote pieces from the book when I write revie...

 Her debut novel, Katie Powner has me anxiously awaiting any more novels she might be writing.  This is the kind of story I am looking for, a story with feelings and emotions, but not romance, a true-to-life story, a story that has you turning the pages because you want to know if the characters made it through, if they were able to restore relationships. Gerrit is a crotchety man recently retired from farm life and struggling to find his way back to his wife, his family, even to his own life, to find peace with himself. Rae is struggling to live up to her parents' expectations and feels like it all depends on her to hold everything together.  Then there's Morgan and Taylor and Kylee and David and Gerrit's wife, Hannie, and his children, Evi and Noah and,  of course, the neighbor across the street.  I just loved this book. I want to read Christian fiction, but get disillusioned because it all seems to be boy meets girl, the end.  But this book had depth: br...