Gravel Road Musings

The Crooked Path of Growing Toward Faith Apparently, the subtitle has changed since the book I received. Mine was an uncorrected proof and the subtitle says "The Crooked Little Grace-Filled Path of Growing Up".  I think both apply. This is Andrea's memoir from her year spent at Oxford getting her Master's degree and writing her thesis. There is basically nothing about her studies, but lots about her journey, in making friends, and finding her place in Oxford and also in life. England isn't necessarily known as a Christian country despite the old churches that still remain there. This caused Andrea to doubt what she grew up believing and wondering if it wasn't better to just go through life without faith as her non-Christian friends seemed so okay and content not believing in God. But in the end, she realizes that her faith is her foundation. There are a few things I want to quote and comment on. When one of her friends asked her what her pillars were, ...

5-Minute Inspirational Stories by Stan and Jan Berenstain with Mike Berenstain I may have mentioned my love of the Berenstain Bears a time or so on here when I've done reviews of their books. Their Living Lights Series is a Christian-based series that teaches godly principles. This book is a collection of 12 stories including: The Berenstain Bears God Loves You! (in spite of who you are or what you do) The Berenstain Bears Say Their Prayers (God hears our prayers and answers but not always how we think.) The Berenstain Bears Love Their Neighbors (A bear version of the Good Samaritan) And so on. I do love the good principles that are taught throughout the book through forgiveness, not gossiping, etc. My only complaint is one little filler/swear word. I consider it a swear word yet, but in our day, I think it is so common that people don't even think of it as a swear word. I'm not saying that it makes it right or wrong, it's just a word I don't want my dau...

Apart from the Crowd This was a fluffy book, by this I mean that there wasn't a lot of depth or insight I gained from reading the book, but it was fun, fluffy read that required no thought. It's the story of a wallflower in New York society. By wallflower I mean someone who wasn't really accepted into society and so spent their time at events, up against the wall or hiding in corners observing the goings on of the elite class. Permilia was an outspoken girl with a heart for others, despite being raised in privilege. She tried to be frugal while still maintaining the fashion style her stepmother required of her. She did this by finding out of the way dressmakers who were working to put bread on their table, but who had very nice fashion sense. This is probably the takeaway from the book, to care about people less fortunate than we are and to not allow our wealth to make us look down on others less fortunate. And of course, there is one of the wealthiest men in the ...

Heart of the Frontier Book One This was a Christian Historical fiction book where, of course, the main two characters fall in love with each other, so I'm not going to go into that too much. You know how it works, the feelings, the misunderstandings, the corrections, etc. But I do like Tracie's writing and I think she does a good job at what she does. What I really liked about this book was the historical event that Tracie sought to portray as accurately as possible. That even was the Whitman Mission in Oregon Country and the Indian's attack and subsequent massacre of Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa and the men that were staying there. And then how they held the woman and children hostage, raped the women, and how they were ransomed by Peter Ogden. Of course, Tracie took liberties with her characters, but she tried to stick with the main facts and the stories that surrounded it. I did a tiny bit of research on it as well and found it to be quite accurate and ...

Illustrated by Barbara Chotiner A Faith that God Built book This is the second Faith that God Built book that I have and I really, really like them. For any of you that know the book "The House that Jack Built" it is the same idea. There is an initial sentence and every line is added to it, so that by the end of the book, you have the whole story on the final pages, but it is fun to read it and to hear it build on each other. It does rhyme as well adding to the charm of reading it. While there's not a specific age attached to the book, it's just called juvenile nonfiction, my two year old loves these books. Since I just got this one, I don't know how she will like this one, but the other book we have, (she calls it the "Ark book"), we read a couple times a week at least. So I'm thinking this one will also be well-liked. This book is about Paul and Silas being in jail and singing praises to the prisoners who were "crusty and cold with n...

So this is not the post I mentioned yesterday, but it was that came to me while having my devotions this morning. I have been slowly working my way through a Bible Study called "An Unexplainable Life" taken from Acts 1-12. Slowly is a key word here. It's a ten week study that I started at the beginning of the year and I am now nearing the end of week two. There's been some lack of self-discipline involved as well, but let's not get into that now. This morning I was reading about the early church again. Do you know what they did E.V.E.R.Y D.A.Y? They worshipped God together, they ate together, they praised God together, they enjoyed the favor of the people together. And they did this all with joy and gladness. What has happened? Or should I say, what would happen if today's church would try that? What if everything we did was done with joy and gladness? What if, when we got together with other Christians we spend our time praising God instead of goss...

Finding God's Best in the Most Unlikely Places God, Adoption, Down Syndrome, Love are a few of the themes that carry through in this book. Many things come to mind when you hear these words and rather than confuse a book review and a blog post, I may actually do a blog post in the next little while addressing some of those thoughts. So stay tuned for that. This is the story of Josh and Heather Avis and their journey through adoption. Not just normal adoption, but the adoption of two special needs children with heart defects who needed open heart surgery. Their middle child, Truly, did not have special needs as far as Down Syndrome, but she was a wide open, energetic, wild and free child, so she kept them very busy as well. It's the story of saying yes to God and having your lives forever changed. I really liked the emphasis on saying yes to God and being willing to do what He calls you to do. Another thing I appreciated was the open honesty that Heather expressed in t...