At the Close of the Year

Posted on December 31, 2014 by Barbara Harper

Excerpts from “At the Close of the Year”

~ by John Newton

Let hearts and tongues unite,
And loud thanksgivings raise:
‘Tis duty, mingled with delight,
To sing the Saviour’s praise.

In childhood and in youth,
His eye was on us still:
Though strangers to his love and truth,
And prone to cross his will.

And since his name we knew,
How gracious has he been:
What dangers has he led us through,
What mercies have we seen!

Now through another year,
Supported by his care,
We raise our Ebenezer here,
“The Lord has help’d thus far.”

Our lot in future years
We cannot now foresee,
He kindly, to prevent our fears,
Says, “Leave it all to me.”

Yea, Lord, we wish to cast
Our cares upon thy breast!
Help us to praise thee for the past,
And trust thee for the rest.

What’s On Your Nightstand: December 2014

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Barbara Harper

The folks at 5 Minutes For Books host What’s On Your Nightstand? the fourth Tuesday of each month in which we can share about the books we have been reading and/or plan to read.

I’m so glad the 5MFB folks decided to put this month’s Nightstand post on the last Tuesday rather than the fourth Tuesday of December, which, this year, would have been two days before Christmas. There is much less pressure and more time to enjoy it this week. In fact…I would love it if it were the last Tuesday of every month, or the last day of the month. 🙂

December is traditionally a busy month, but I was able to get some good reading and listening in.

Since last time I have completed:

The Weight of Glory by C. S. Lewis, reviewed here.

Number the Stars by Lois Lowrey for Carrie’s Reading to Know Classics Book Club for November, reviewed here.

The Gift of the Magi and Other Christmas Stories by O. Henry, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henry van Dyke, and Leo Tolstoy, reviewed here.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, audiobook, reviewed here.

To Kill a Mockingbird for Carrie’s Reading to Know Classics Book Club for December, mostly audiobook, reviewed here.

Merry Humbug Christmas by Sandra D. Bricker, reviewed here.

The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens, audiobook, reviewed here.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, audiobook. I didn’t review it this year, but my thoughts on it from a couple of years ago are here.

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas, essays compiled by Nancy Guthrie. I have read this several times and referred to it here before, but I have never reviewed it. I hope to soon.

The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson, audiobook, just finished yesterday afternoon.

That may look like a lot, but many were audiobooks and a few of them were very short.

I didn’t read the Christmas books I had planned to, but then I did read some I hadn’t planned on. I do like to read something Christmasy this month, so I am glad I got a few titles in.

I’m currently reading:

The Pound a Day Diet by Rocco DiSpirito. This one got laid aside, literally. I am not even sure where it is. But I am about 2/3 of the way through it and plan to finish it.

Where Treetops Glisten: Three Stories of Heartwarming Courage and Christmas Romance During World War II by Cara Putnam, Sarah Sundin, and Tricia Goyer.

Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room:Daily Family Devotions for Advent by Nancy Guthrie

I haven’t mentioned them every month, but I’ve been reading daily devotionals Daily Light on the Daily Path and Traveling Toward Sunrise this year and will have those finished tomorrow.

Next up:

Lizzy and Jane by Katherine Reay

To See the Moon Again by Jamie Langston Turner

Carrie hosts a Lucy Maud Montgomery Reading Challenge in January, so I will be reading something of hers. I’ve read all the Anne books multiple times, so I’ll probably continue in the Emily series I started last year.

Other than that I haven’t decided. I am still pondering whether to participate in any reading challenges this year or just map out my own plan, but I do have some things I want to tackle this year. In audiobooks, I want to finish the Sherlock Holmes series, and I’m thinking I’d like to try War and Peace.

I also compiled a list of the books I’ve read this year and then my top ten favorite books of the year.

For those who like to plan ahead, I will be sponsoring the Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge again in February, where participants read anything by or about Laura. I don’t know how many years I’ll do this, but I’m definitely planning on it this year.

Happy Reading!

My favorite posts of the year

Posted on December 29, 2014 by Barbara Harper

free-letters.com

There is something about the end of the year that invites reflection. One aspect of that for me is that I like to look back through my posts of the previous year and remind myself what I have been thinking about. I don’t necessarily look back through book reviews (other than listing the books I’ve read this year and then my top ten favorite books of the year) or Friday Fave Fives (though the top ones of those would probably be when Timothy was born and then when he came home from the NICU 10 1/2 weeks later) or Laudable Linkage or anything like that. Rather, I like to look back over the posts when I’ve been thinking through an issue or wrote about something that affected me or something I felt God was teaching me. So from those posts, here are some of my favorites (favorites not in the sense that I necessarily enjoyed them the most, but they are the ones that impacted me the most):

January:

Christian Fans. “How sad that people will defend at all costs a media personage, even a Christian one, who will never know them or care about them, at the expense of a relationship with someone they know and are supposed to love in their very own church and community.”

February:

Be Still? Or Fight? “Sometimes God will supernaturally win the battle for me while I only watch, but sometimes He gives me victory by handing me a sword.”

The Spiritual Value of a Secular Job.

The Value of Homemakers.

March:

Can We Let God Down?

Strong Women.

YA Censorship. A question about censorship in YA lit led to a further discussion about objectionable elements in any literature.

April:

Trusting God in the Dark.

Helping Parents As They Age, part of the Adventures in Elder Care series.

May:

None. I was spending a lot of time at the NICU that month. 🙂

June:

Eternal Glories Gleam, written after our pastor’s announcement of his terminal cancer diagnosis.

July:

But If Not….Another that grew out of my pastor’s illness: thoughts on the reality that God does not always answer prayer the way we’d like.

When People Say the Wrong Thing.

A Plea to Caregivers, another in the Adventures in Elder Care series.

August:

It was a busy month, so there is nothing in the way of “deep thoughts” except for some book reviews, but I did finally get all of my favorite cookie recipes into one post. 🙂

September:

Absent From the Body, Present With the Lord, on my pastor’s death.

My Ebenezers.

Irritating vs. Irritate-able. My biggest problem is not what irritates me, but my ability to be irritated.

October:

31 Days of Inspirational Biography. This was a series of posts through the whole month: this post contains a list with a link to each one. It did me good to look back over the lives of saints who have gone before and to learn from them.

Why Read Biographies?

November:

No Mere Mortals.

Why Read Fiction and Christian Fiction? I discussed why read at all, then why read fiction, then why read Christian fiction. This was a post that had been in the back of my mind off and on for years, so I was glad to finally get it written down. And, it’s funny, after thinking this would be my magnum opus, I don’t think it made a splash in the blog world much at all. 🙂

A revival of what?

December:

Grieving at Christmas is one I have reposted a number of times under different titles. Each year, sadly, I seem to know someone grieving the passing of a loved one this time of year.

Looking at my WordPress stats for the year, none of the current year’s posts is near the top of the number of viewed posts. The highest of them is 31 Days of Inspirational Biography at #15. The post viewed most this year (almost four times as many views as any other post) is Coping When a Husband Is Away from 2011. I’m amazed but thankful that God is using it to help women dealing with that issue.

Only a few days left of this year! Except for the monthly What’s On Your Nightstand post tomorrow and a book review or two to finish out this year, I am ready to look ahead to 2015.

Books Read in 2014

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Barbara Harper

I like to list and look over what I have read for the year, and Sherry at Semicolon, who hosts a weekly Saturday Review of Books where we can link up our book reviews, is setting aside this last Saturday of the year for books lists – what we’ve read this year, favorite books of the year, books we are planning to read next year, etc. I included audiobooks in with the the others because I do consider them “read” even though I “listened,” and for many of them I reread or looked at excerpts from online versions or library or Kindle copies. But all of the audiobooks this year were classics except for one in the “other fiction” category.

I’m just listing the titles read and not including commentary, but I am linking the titles to my reviews.

Non-fiction:

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas, essays compiled by Nancy Guthrie, not reviewed yet
Crowded to Christ by L. E. Maxwell
Gospel Meditations for Missions, not reviewed.
Gospel Meditations for the Hurting by Chris Anderson and Joe Tyrpak, not reviewed.
The House Is Quiet, Now What? by Janice Hanna and Kathleen Y’Barbo
How I Know God Answers Prayer by Rosalind Goforth
How to Read Slowly by James W. Sire
Ida Scudder: Healing Bodies, Touching Hearts by Janet and Geoff Benge
Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir of Sorts by Ian Morgan Cron
The Knowledge of the Holy by A. W. Tozer
Loving the Church by John Crotts
Made to Crave Action Plan Participant’s Guide by Lysa TerKeurst and Ski Chilton
Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire with God, Not Food by Lisa TerKeurst
Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis
On Stories and Other Essays on Literature by C. S. Lewis
Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi
Walking From East to West: God in the Shadows by Ravi Zacharias
Walking in the Spirit: A Study Through Galatians 5 by Steve Pettit
Wednesdays Were Pretty Normal: A Boy, Cancer, and God by Michael Kelley
The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses by C. S. Lewis
Why We Are Not Emergent: By Two Guys Who Should Be by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck
Women of the Word by Jen Wilkin

By the end of the year I will also have finished another round through Daily Light on the Daily Path, plus Traveling Toward Sunrise, a daily devotional by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman, and Let Every Heart Prepare Him Room by Nancy Guthrie

Classics:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Gift of the Magi and Other Christmas Stories by O. Henry, Dostoyevsky, Henry Van Dyke, and Leo Tolstoy
The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I will Repay by Baroness Orzcy
The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
My Man Jeeves by P. D. Wodehouse
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (did not review this time, but a review from a previous year is here.)
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
Persuasion by Jane Austen (did not review this time, but a review from a previous year is here.)
The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes book by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Christian fiction:

Courageous by Randy Alcorn
Dear Mr. Knightley by Katherine Reay
The Girl in the Gatehouse by Julie Klassen
In Perfect Time by Sarah Sundin
Jennifer: An O’Malley Love Story by Dee Henderson
Just Jane: A Novel of Jane Austen’s Life by Nancy Moser
The Last Bride by Beverly Lewis
Lost and Found by Ginny Yttrup
Merry Humbug Christmas by Sandra D. Bricker
Somewhere Safe With Somebody Good by Jan Karon
Undetected by Dee Henderson
Unspoken by Dee Henderson

Other fiction:

The Book of Three by Alexander Lloyd
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book IV: The Interrupted Tale by Maryrose Wood
The Seamstress: A Memoir of Survival by Sara Tuvel Bernstein

62 books in all (65 if you count the three I’ll complete by the end of the year): 20 audiobooks and 42 made of paper. There were maybe three or so I wasn’t so thrilled with, but overall it was a good reading year. There was a lot less Christian fiction than usual and a lot more nonfiction, due mostly to the reading challenges I participated in this year, especially the TBR challenge. A lot of my TBR books are nonfiction because I tend to gravitate to fiction. I do enjoy nonfiction when I get into it, but I usually have to “make” myself pick it up. Yet my top ten or so books of the year usually are nonfiction. That’s coming up next!

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on December 26, 2014 by Barbara Harper

It’s Friday, time to look back over the blessings of the week with Susanne at Living to Tell the Story and other friends.

This past week has been full to overflowing with blessings. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Our 35th anniversary. We thought we were going to my son and daughter-in-law’s place for lunch, but they surprised us with an anniversary celebration.

2. A special gift. Our kids had a special book made for our anniversary with photos and memories. This will be one of our most prized treasures.

3. A dinner date. Since Jim’s mom has lived with us, we can’t usually eat out because of the expense of hiring someone to care for her. But we did on our anniversary. I had been hankering for a steak from Outback for a while, so we went there. Yummy food and truly nice for the two of us to get away for a bit.

4. Family time. My oldest is home for the week, my husband is off for a couple of weeks, and everyone else had a couple of days off besides the weekends, so it has been nice to have some family time with everyone home.

5. Christmas could supply five faves all on its own – reading and reflecting on the Christmas story from the Bible, giving and receiving, wonderful food, afternoon naps, evening games, and spending a lot of time with our little grandson on his first Christmas.

Hope you’ve had a great week as well. It’s hard to believe that not only December, but the year is winding down to a close. Now that Christmas is over I am looking forward to a bit of down time over the next few days.

Merry Christmas!

Posted on December 25, 2014 by Barbara Harper

We hope you and yours have a lovely day with all its activities, especially remembering our dear Saviour born for our salvation.

Infant holy, Infant lowly, for His bed a cattle stall;
Oxen lowing, little knowing, Christ the Babe is Lord of all.
Swift are winging angels singing, noels ringing, tidings bringing:
Christ the Babe is Lord of all.
Christ the Babe is Lord of all.

Flocks were sleeping, shepherds keeping vigil till the morning new
Saw the glory, heard the story, tidings of a Gospel true.
Thus rejoicing, free from sorrow, praises voicing, greet the morrow:
Christ the Babe was born for you.
Christ the Babe was born for you.

Traditional carol, translated from Polish to English by Edith M. Reed, 1921

Book Review: Merry Humbug Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Barbara Harper

I picked up Merry Humbug Christmas by Sandra D. Bricker when it was on sale for the Kindle app (at the moment it is 99 cents, but that could change at any time) mainly because I enjoyed her The Big 5-OH! a couple of years ago.

This is a two-part story of two friends. The first, Joss Snow, was born on Christmas day, and her parents in a burst of holiday and new parent inspiration decided to name her Merry with her middle name as Christmas. Merry Christmas Snow. “Her name had come to seem like a Before and After puzzle from Wheel of Fortune.” By adulthood she’d had enough of the jokes and wisecracks such a name brought out, and she had it legally changed to Jocelyn, going by Joss. When a family tragedy occurred on Christmas Eve, she was done with the holiday. “She’d made a decision long ago not to ask too many questions about the why of that turn of events. Instead of turning on God, she’d turned on Christmas.” She not only did not celebrate it, she went out of her way to avoid it along with her best friend, Reese Pendergrass. This year she’s found the perfect getaway for herself and Reese: a Bah Humbug Cruise that promises no festive seasonal vestiges. The only problem is that Reese drops a traitorous bomb on her: her boyfriend has just proposed and she is going to meet his family at Christmas.

Joss decides to go alone, only to discover when she arrives to board the ship that her cruise has been canceled and she has been rebooked on the “12 Days of Christmas Fun Cruise.” It takes a certain suspension of disbelief to accept that that would happen without her having received some notice beforehand, and that she would find herself actually on the ship, deciding to disembark only after it was too late. But setting that aside, Joss soon meets “a walking commercial for Christmas at Dollywood” in the platinum blond, overly adorned and talkative Connie, and steels herself for a miserable time tucked away in her room. Connie, however, won’t let her get away with that, and in the course of events Joss also meets a potential client for her business and a handsome guy with an Irish brogue.

Meanwhile, Reese is nervous about meeting the seemingly idyllic family of her fiance when she herself comes from a non traditional hippie-ish family. An accident in which they hit a deer on their way and have to finish their journey on foot in the snow sets off a series of disasters which makes Reeses doubt she will ever be accepted by the family.

In one scene Reese thinks that it’s like they’re in the middle of a cheesy holiday movie, and, yes, the book did have a TV holiday movie feel about it. I did wince at Reese’s calling her fiance, Damian, Damie, and Joss calling some guy gorge, as in gorgeous (I had never heard the latter before – is that a thing now?) But overall the book is full of Bricker’s trademark humor and is a light, fun holiday read. I especially enjoyed the interaction of the two friends at the beginning and end of the book. And of course, it wouldn’t be a Christmas book without Joss realizing that Christmas is “not really so bad…under the right circumstances.”

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Review: The Cricket on the Hearth

Posted on December 23, 2014 by Barbara Harper

The Cricket on the Hearth: A Fairy Tale of Home is a novella by Charles Dickens, one of his five Christmas books. It’s one of the few where he does not engage in social commentary.

It’s the story of John Peerybingle, a carrier (someone who transports goods for others) and his wife, Dot. They live in a modest home with their baby and the baby’s nanny, Tilly Slowboy. They are good friends with Caleb Plummer and his blind daughter, Bertha, who both work by making toys for the Scroogish Mr. Tackleton to sell. Mr. Tackleton has somehow gotten a young friend of the group, May, to agree to marry him, though she has admitted to him that she does not love him and she still pines for Edward, Caleb’s son who is thought to have died in South America.

The story opens with John coming home to a scene of domestic tranquility, complete with a cricket on the hearth which Dot regards with special affection because she first heard it the night John brought his young wife home and “It seemed so full of promise and encouragement. It seemed to say, you would be kind and gentle with me.” It’s “music” has cheered and encouraged her many a time, and she comments, “This has been a happy home, John; and I love the Cricket for its sake!”

John has brought home an elderly gentlemen whom he had picked up in his work, but those who were supposed to retrieve him did not come for him. They make him feel at home for the time being.

There are various comings and goings and discussion with and about their friends, particularly the upcoming wedding between Mr. Tackleton and May. In one conversation between John and Tacklelton,

“Bah! what’s home?” cried Tackleton. “Four walls and a ceiling! (why don’t you kill that Cricket? I would! I always do. I hate their noise.) There are four walls and a ceiling at my house. Come to me!”

“You kill your Crickets, eh?” said John.

“Scrunch ’em, sir,” returned the other, setting his heel heavily on the floor.

Everyone is invited to a pre-wedding celebration, and at one point there, Tackleton shows John a scene through a window where the elderly visitor takes off his wig, is revealed to be quite young, and interacts with Dot very familiarly. Tackleton assumes Dot is being unfaithful. John is at first quite angry and thinks murderous thoughts against the imposter, but the cricket somehow turns into a sort of a fairy and reminds him of all Dot’s good qualities. John decides that in his love for Dot, the best thing he can do is release her to marry the person she actually loves.

But, as you can guess, Dot is not being at all unfaithful or untrue. As to what is really going on and who the stranger is, I’ll leave for you to find out in the book.

I do like Dickens, and I have enjoyed listening to audiobooks of his works that I am already familiar with, but I am finding that when I listen to an audiobook of one of his books I haven’t read before, it takes me a very long time to get into them. It usually takes him a while to get through the characterizations and set-up, and my mind tends to wander in that part until he actually gets going with the story. But I enjoyed going back through the online version. So I don’t know if Dickens (at least unread Dickens) is better read rather than listened to, or if I just get more out of him the second time through a story rather than the first. I don’t think the narrator helped this version much, so that contributed as well. I didn’t enjoy the story much at the beginning, but by the end I thought it was very sweet, and enjoyed it much more going over it again. I especially liked what Dot said at the end of explaining to her husband what was going on:

“Now, my dear husband, take me to your heart again! That’s my home, John; and never, never think of sending me to any other!”

(This will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)

Back to the Classics Challenge Wrap-up

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Barbara Harper

Karen at Books and Chocolate hosted the Back to the Classics Challenge this year, where we could choose to read and review classics that fit in certain categories, with drawings for prizes at the end of the year. There are some required categories and some optional categories, and, thankfully, I was able to finish them all. I will link each title back to my review.

Required:

A 20th Century Classic: My Man Jeeves by P. D. Wodehouse
A 19th Century Classic: Bleak House by Charles Dickens
A Classic by a Woman Author: The Blue Castle by L. M. Montgomery
A Classic in Translation (A book originally written in a different language from your own.) The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky.
A Classic About War The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy.
A Classic by an Author Who Is New To You: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Optional Categories:

An American Classic: Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
A Classic Mystery, Suspense or Thriller: A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle, the first Sherlock Holmes book
A Historical Fiction Classic: I will Repay by Baroness Orzcy, part of The Scarlet Pimpernel series.
A Classic That’s Been Adapted Into a Movie or TV Series: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
Extra Fun Category: Write a Review of the Movie or TV Series adapted from Optional Category #4: To Kill a Mockingbird

Karen asks us to “Please remember to indicate within your post how many entries you have earned for the prize drawing. You earn one entry for completing the six required categories, an additional entry for completing three of the optional categories; complete all five optional entries, and you receive two additional entries for completing all of the optional categories. The most entries one person can earn is three. ” Since I completed all of the required and optional categories, I have three entries.

I did not grow up reading a lot of classics, so I have purposefully tried to incorporate a few classics into my reading the last few years. This challenge was a fun way to do that. I had pretty much decided not to do it next year, however, just because I had been involved in too many challenges this past year and felt a little constricted and constrained. But Karen changed the format for the Back to the Classics Challenge 2015: this time there are twelve categories of classics but we have the choice of reading from whichever category we want, with a minimum of six required to enter for a $30 Amazon prize, and more entries are earned at different reading levels. So I think perhaps I will join in after all, but I’m going to wait til after Christmas to decide whether to and which classics to read if I do.