Gravel Road Musings

  Let me start by saying I like Jane Kirkpatrick as an author. I have read a few of her books and would love to read a lot more. I like how she researches and throws so many facts into her stories. It feels like a fun way to read about history.  However, because of the research that she does and the way she sticks to facts in her stories, I just couldn't get into this story at all. If it wasn't that I was doing it for a reading challenge and also needed to write a review on it, it would have been hard to keep picking up the book.  The book is written about Abigail Scott Duniway who spends her life working to advance women's rights. She works desperately to see Oregon allow women to vote in elections. She is an energetic, go-getter who has multiple irons in the fire and can barely keep up with the demand. She is outspoken and forthright and says what needs to be said without a lot of tact.  Because of her outside focus, Abigail misses so much of her family life. She h...

  So taking a sharp turn from my last review, let's talk about a fiction book. And yet, I can find some similarities in this book. This book is about several hurting women. It is a sequel to "Bringing Maggie Home" and I highly recommend you read that one first. I did and while I think this would have still been a good book on its own, it would have raised so many questions that were answered in the first book.  A single mom who raised her daughter on her own, a daughter who has always wondered what it would be like to have a dad, and a grandma who was plagued by a secret she held for 70+ years. That's the premise of "Bringing Maggie Home" and while some of those questions are answered in that book, a lot remained for this book, "Unveiling the Past." And one thing that was impressed in this book is you can always have access to a Father, your heavenly Father, if you are willing to avail yourself of his help. This book focuses about evenly on Meghan ...

  Real Women, Real Issues, and What You Need to Know to Truly Help I got this book in the mail, looked at and thought, "Wow, that's a big book. I'm gonna have to slog my way through that." But I am happy to report I was wrong. While big, the book was an easy read as far as the words, but it has a heavy content as you look at the many ways women are hurting in this world. This was such a helpful book. Bev was the editor and the chapters are written by many different women focusing on their area of specialty. There are chapters on depression, eating disorders, infertility, terminal illness, abortion, sexual abuse, homelessness, pornography, sexuality, and more. Each chapter starts with a story and then moves into how to help women in these situations. I think my biggest takeaway from this book that is far too broad, but yet encompasses so much of life is this: listen. Listen to the pain of the woman in front of you. You can't fix their pain, but you can listen and y...

  "For with God, nothing shall be impossible." Luke 1:37 The picture has nothing to do with anything, except I think it's a pretty blue sky in the picture. I've been thinking about this verse off and on over the last six weeks or so. We love this verse. Something comes up "Nothing is impossible with God" slides glibly off our tongue. I mean, really God has got this and I don't even need to show up, or do I? I think we miss a crucial part of the context here.  What does verse 38 say? "And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word...." Now, I'm no Bible scholar and I stand corrected here, but didn't Mary have a part to play in God's impossibilities?  Suppose the angel had said, "Mary, nothing is impossible with God." And Mary said, "Allrighty then, prove it, because I am going to stand here with arms crossed waiting to see." Or "I'll believe that when I see it." O...

  A One-Year Guide to Reading and Understanding the Entire Bible That sounds like a very lofty statement. Understanding the entire Bible? Is that really something  you can do in one year? I think after reading the heart of Tara-Leigh Cobble her desire is for us to understand it better and to enjoy Bible reading. She talks about the mistakes she made in reading the Bible and how once she was able to read the Bible as a story in chronological order helped her to make sense of the confusion she often felt when reading it. This is what she says about it: "I spent years trying to build my life around a book I hadn't read about a God I didn't know. But now that I really know Him, I want to help others know Him better too!" I have not read the entire book. I already had plans for this year's devotions and decided not to change, but I am looking forward to using it perhaps next year. I have heard quite a bit of good about this book from someone I follow on Instagram and s...

  Finding God in the Disruptions of Life I'm struggling to come to grips with this book. It was so very helpful for me; I thoroughly enjoyed it all the way through. The timing was providential; written in 2019, but released in October, 2020 in the midst of a very tumultuous year and you can't help but believe that God was orchestrating all of this. But then I read the epilogue and Shelly talks about Co-Vid yes, but she also talks about her cancer journey and how the very things she writes about she is now needing to put into practice. It made the book come alive for me a bit more. After finishing the book, I did some digging and discovered that Shelly died less than a month after the book was published. I didn't know you could grieve someone you didn't know, but this feels like a loss to me. Good writers shouldn't die young and yet Shelly is now experiencing the certainty she wrote about looking for. And I want to grab ahold and claim God's truth and cling to Hi...