Gravel Road Musings

  A Realist's Guide to Believing in the Goodness of Life At first glance, this book looks like it will be a feel good, happy-go-lucky book where everything is sunshine and rainbows, but it's not.  "Patching together a joyful life takes far more effort than submitting to the soporific lull of cynicism. Cultivating happiness takes grit, determination, and a good sense of humor. It's a lot of work."  And that is true. Joy doesn't sugarcoat life-she recognizes and acknowledges the hard and shares stories of her own hard, of her own struggles to be happy.  Her chapter titles indicate that she understands the struggle: Flounder Well, Befriend Sadness, Be Like Mr. Collins, etc. Joy understands that life will be difficult, but she also understands that God is there with her in the struggle and He will help her through it. I really enjoyed this book. I was challenged to accept what comes my way in life, to sit with the sadness, to flounder well in the uncertain times, ...

(I can't get the picture to upload for some reason) What I've Learned on my Unexpected Journey This is the life story of Gary Chapman, the person responsible for making "The Five Love Languages" a household word. He has written many, many books on the love languages and I have found them useful and helpful in my own relationships. This is a small book, divided up into different segments of his life. There's a section on his early years, his school years, his marriage, career etc. There's not a lot of overlap in each section, so in that way the book could feel disjointed as far as understand what all was going on his life at one time.  I enjoyed the book because I enjoyed reading some of his other books. It was interesting to hear how his own marriage struggled and prevailed because, without knowing it yet, he was putting the love languages to practice.  If you don't know who Gary Chapman is the book might seem a bit dry. There's not a lot of flair to t...

  I just finished this book and I am not even sure how to begin processing what I read. I will read anything that Erin Bartels writes and this book is no exception, but it is raw. It is also triggering as it deals with rape and suicide so I would recommend caution if those subjects are hard for you. About halfway through reading, I flipped through to the back, because that's what I do when I get impatient to know what is going to happen, and I happened up the author's note. Erin, herself, had been molested as a girl of nine and this story is her journey to processing her own story. I don't know how much of the story is Erin's story, but for me the story changed at that point. It was no longer a good story, the depth, the emotion, the journey became much more real and alive at that point. While, I can't relate to the journey that Kendra needed to take, I was pulled into the story and my heart broke for Kendra and for all the Kendras out there who have suffered in sil...