Monthly Archives: January 2026

Favorite Books Read in 2025

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Favorite Books of 2025

I usually publish my bookish end-of-year posts the last week of December. But–it just didn’t happen. So here they are!

I posted the 65 books I read this year here. I’m doubling up posts today since they overlap.

I don’t have a set number of favorites I am looking for, though I try to aim between eight and twelve.

I usually try to keep it fairly even between fiction and nonfiction–but fiction won out this year. Though I read several good nonfiction books, there were more standouts in the fiction category.

Rembrandt Is In the Wind

Rembrandt Is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art Through the Eyes of Faith by Russ Ramsey. I don’t know much about art. But I found Ramsey’s book drawing observations from the lives of artists and their art fascinating.

Honorable mention nonfiction:

The Return of the King

The Return of the King is the third in J. R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. There is so much to love about this book: the writing, the characters, the epic quest, the satisfying ending, the courage.

Between the Sound and Sea

Between the Sound and the Sea by Amanda Cox. An event planner helps a man and his grandfather restore an old lighthouse and cabin, uncovering a mystery concerning the lighthouse keeper’s daughter–who happened to have been an old love of the grandfather.

Christmas Book Flood

The Christmas Book Flood by Roseanna M. White tells how an Icelandic tradition, Jolabokaflod, got started. It involves people taking time Christmas evening to read the books they received that day. I knew very little about Iceland and it’s lore and loved that this book was so different.

Every Hour Until Then

Every Hour Until Then is the fifth in Gabrielle Meyer’s Time Crosser novels about a handful of people who lead double lives in different eras. Here, twenty-three-year-old Kathryn Kelly lives a privileged life in 1888 London with her parents and sister, and in 1938, she’s an assistant exhibit curator at the Smithsonian Arts and Industries Building. When the Smithsonian does a exhibit on Jack the Ripper, she discovers her sister in 1888 is one of his victims. She tries to discover information in 1938 that will help save her sister in 1888, even though deliberately changing history could cause her to forfeit her life in one timeline. This was one of the most riveting plots I have ever read, with a major plot twist I did not see coming.

Set the Stars Alight

Set the Stars Alight by Amanda Dykes Lucy Claremont is the daughter of an English watchmaker who loved to make puzzles and riddles for his daughter and a boy they befriended, Dash. Lucy loves the ocean and is especially fascinated with a ship rumored to have sunk nearby. Dash loved the stars. They are separated for a while but come back together to find more information about the ship. The timeline goes back and forth between current day and the 1800s, when the ship sank, telling what really happened to it. Amanda’s books have a way of touching the heart, and this one did in both timelines.

Unlikely Yarn

The Unlikely Yarn of the Dragon Lady by Sharon J. Mondragon was the biggest surprise of the year for me. I had never heard of the title or author, but I saw the title was free in Audible’s Plus Catalog at the time. It looked like an interesting novel about a group of knitters, which seemed like a relatively safe topic. I decided I’d give it a try. I am so glad I did. The four women meet weekly to knit prayer shawls for those going through a hard time and to pray for them. When the place they meet is being remodeled, their pastor encourages them to go to some public place, like the mall. They do, with their leader complaining all the way. But they have some interesting results in the people they come across, as well as each of them individually. I wouldn’t agree with every little theological aspect of the book, but the story, writing, and characters were great.

Waiting for Christmas

Waiting for Christmas by Lynn Austin. The main characters in this book appeared originally her earlier novel, All My Secrets. Addy and Howard are newlyweds when they discover a dirty boy, Jack, hiding in their bushes. He insists he is not an orphan: his father is working on a ship and coming back at Christmas. And his sister, who has some kind of problem (she only speaks to him) was hiding when authorities came to their home after their mother died, and he can’t find her. They take the Jack in and visit orphanages trying to find his sister. They are overwhelmed with the needs they see. Along with the search for Jack’s family and Addy and Howard’s adjustments to marriage and each other, it explores the truth that help doesn’t necessarily come from grand efforts at saving the day, but in small acts of kindness to those God places in our path.

What were your favorite books this year?

Books Read in 2025

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Books read in 2025

I enjoyed an eclectic reading year, with some classics, some contemporary; some hot off the press, some that had been on my shelf for decades; some fiction, some nonfiction. I ended up with 65 books finished this year.

Titles link to my reviews. “MTBR” behind a title indicates this is a book I owned before this year and am counting it for the Mount TBR (To Be Read) Reading Challenge,.

Nonfiction

Classics

Christian Fiction

Other Fiction

Next up: my top picks from this year’s reading.

How was your reading year?

Prayer Request

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Prayer Request

Hello, friends,

I’ve mentioned that I am due to have ablations for atrial fibrillation and atrial flutter. This is the week!

Some of you may remember that I had an ablation for atrial fibrillation about seven years ago. I knew it was possible to have that done more than once, but thought that only happened if the first one failed. Since then, I have learned that it’s not at all uncommon. Nerves grow back and make new pathways, so sometimes have to be “zapped” again.

Atrial flutter is new to me this year. The ablation for it is supposed to be a one-time thing. Since I had several weeks of atrial flutter in the spring and then again in the fall, we felt it would be best to go ahead and get that taken care of. And when I learned they could do both procedures at the same time, and I’d been having an increase in afib episodes, it seemed wise to go ahead and have both done at the same time.

One of my major concerns right now is exacerbation of some of my preexisting conditions, like IBS. I’d appreciate your prayers that, Lord willing, none of those things will be a problem, that everything would go well, that there would be no complications, that the procedures will accomplish what they’re supposed to, and that God would give me peace of heart and help me rest in Him.

I have some bookish posts prepared for the rest of this week–books read in 2025, my favorite reads of the year, and my reading challenge wrap-up. I hope to be back later this week with an update about how things went at the hospital and how I am doing.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you all!

The Light Shines in the Darkness

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Light shines in the darkness

Before we take the Christmas decorations down, I love to just sit and look at the lights for a while, to savor the season that passed so quickly. Besides lights on the tree, I have a lighted garland over the windows next to my desk and a small tree on my dresser, as well as the outdoor lights.

Christmas lights are one of the things I miss the most when everything goes back to “normal.” The rest of the winter can be hard with less light and barren, cold, colorless landscapes. Valentine’s Day is a bright spot for us. We have family birthdays in February and March. But that stretch of winter is usually my least favorite part of the year.

It helps to know that, after the winter solstice in December, we’re gradually getting more sunlight. It doesn’t look or feel like it at first. But I take it on faith that it is happening and it will be noticeable in several weeks.

Scripture mentions light over 200 times. God made it the first day of creation in Genesis 1. And the last chapter of the last book of the Bible, Revelation, says that in the “new Jerusalem,” we won’t need lamps or even sunlight any more, because “the Lord God will be their light.”

Some of the Bible references to light are metaphorical. One of my favorite verses is Isaiah 9:2: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.” Matthew 4:12-17 says this was fulfilled in Jesus.

When Simeon saw Jesus as a baby, he said, “My eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel” (Luke 2:22-32).

In John 8:12, Jesus declared, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

After John the Baptist was born, his father, Zechariah, said, “And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” (Luke 1:76-79). Some other translations use “dawn” or “dayspring” in place of “sunrise.”

Josh Taylor shares this beautiful observation in Mercy Mild: A 25-Day Christmas Devotional Tracing Christ’s Love from Eden to Eternity:

When you’re watching a sunrise, you can’t pinpoint the exact moment night becomes day. It spreads, seeps into everything, changes the whole landscape one shade at a time. That’s what God’s mercy does through Jesus. It doesn’t just blast away the darkness—it transforms it, warms it, makes things grow that couldn’t grow before.

Christmas isn’t just about string lights and wrapped presents. It’s about light breaking into darkness in the gentlest way possible. About God looking at our mess and instead of sending judgment, sending His Son—the Dayspring, the Sunrise.

Sometimes the quietest light makes the biggest difference (pp. 140-141).

Sometimes God appears in a blaze of glory: on Sinai, to Paul the apostle, in Revelation. But when Jesus came to save us, He came gently, spreading His light like a sunrise.

Sometimes it’s hard to see His light. As Andrew Peterson wrote in his beautiful song, “Is He Worthy,” the world feels broken. Sometimes it seems like the wrong side is winning. 

But John 4:9 assures us, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

Maltbie Babcock captures something of this truth in “This Is My Father’s World”: “Though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the Ruler yet.”

His light is with us beyond Christmas. We see God’s light in His Word. We see it in His people. We see it when people turn to Jesus for salvation and serve Him and others. 

Those big, glorious bursts of God’s light are usually for a short time, for specific special occasions. Then life goes back to (a hopefully new) normal. After all the excitement Mary experienced with a visit from Gabriel, having baby Jesus, and running from Herod, she spent the next several years as an ordinary wife and mother. But she “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19). After the shepherds saw the angel host and followed the instructions to find the newborn Jesus, they likely went back to shepherding. But “they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child. . . And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them” (Luke 2:17, 20). 

Like Mary, we can treasure and ponder what we’ve seen, heard, and experienced. Like the shepherds, we can share His light with others, glorifying and praising Him in our everyday lives.

2 Corinthians 4:6

(I often link up with some of these bloggers.)

Laudable Linkage

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Laudable Linkage

I’m not quite caught up with my online reading, but here are some good things I found this week:

When You Don’t Get Anything Out of Devotions. “Sometimes God meets with us in a special way. Occasionally a verse or a phrase or a thought can revolutionize our lives, but I have found that those times tend to be rare. Rather, it’s the slow and steady repetition of reading God’s Word, asking Him to change me, and watching as that happens little by little through the weeks, months, and years.”

Jesus Is Unashamed to Take Awkward Family Christmas Photos, HT to Challies. “In many ways, the Old Testament can be seen as a massive coffee-table photo book. Sometimes the photos are stunning. But for any Old Testament family with a decent collection of pictures, there are—without exception—some awkward family photos. We read about priests and kings, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, who we’d be ashamed to claim as family. Would Abraham have stuck Lot’s picture on his fridge at Christmas? Would you?”

Don’t Be Duped by This Year’s Religious Trend, HT to Challies. “The religious zeal with which the world pursues self-help isn’t surprising. Lacking a Savior, nonbelievers will look inward to solve their problems. But it’s concerning when self-help methods begin to trickle into Christian thought and teaching. In Colossians, Paul warns the church not to be taken captive by any human doctrine that is ‘not according to Christ’” (Col. 2:8).

The Scopes Trial at 100: Fact, Fiction, and the Christian Historian, HT to Challies. “The trial remains embedded in the American imagination a century later. It was a key skirmish in what’s often depicted as the great ideological conflict of the modern world: science versus religion. However, this telling is too simplistic.” I learned some things I hadn’t known about the trial.

How Do We Measure Christian Maturity? (Hint: It’s not Just Bible Facts), HT to Challies. “We often measure maturity by the wrong metrics. We confuse information with formation, and equate Christian vocabulary with Christ-like virtue. Which is understandable because information is measurable. But I don’t think that it’s the right way.”

Being Ourselves in Heaven, HT to the Story Warren. “These are common portrayals of the afterlife, disembodied ghosts—pale reflections of a person’s former self—floating in a nebulous netherworld. But these stories do not accurately reflect what our lives will be like on the New Earth. A central part of our bodily resurrection will be the continuity of our identity.”

The Coming of the Light, HT to the Story Warren. “Soon the winter solstice will be upon us. On the twenty-first of December the sun will struggle into the sky for just a few short hours before sinking below the horizon once again. Taken in isolation, this day could be viewed as a victory for darkness. Without the benefit of history we could be forgiven for believing that the light will gradually be swallowed up and disappear. Armed with the bigger picture, we know that the longest night is simply a turning point. There are dark days still ahead but, from this night on, the coming of the light is inevitable.”

Mary: Enduring Shame for the Cause of Christ. “Pain? Sure. Hardship? Yes. Poverty? OK.  Hard work? Count me in. Death? That one is very hard, but yes. Public humiliation? Uh, maybe not.”

Don’t Fight the Wrong War, HT to Challies. “I reject the framework that Christians are at war to maintain conservative and Christian values. In fact, adopting this worldview may cause us to lose the real war God calls us to fight.”

AI Griefbots? HT to Challies. “With the powers of generative AI technology, we can summon the voices of our friends, family members, and even heroes from beyond the grave. . . . But just because we can doesn’t mean we should. The apostle Paul writes, ‘All things are lawful,’ but not all things are helpful” (1 Cor. 10:23).”

Single This Season? Prove He’s Sufficient. Though the context here is the difficulty of being single during the Christmas season, it’s truths are applicable year round.

Renewal From Wreckage: How A Near Death Experience Changed Trevor Gearhart (video). I’ve mentioned the Dead Man Talking podcast a couple of times. Bob Roberts, camp speaker and creator of Kids 4 Truth, has been dealing with stage four cancer in his liver and discussing what God is doing through that with four longtime friends. They had a guest on this episode: a pastor friend who had a massive heart attack while driving, crashed into the stairwell of a building, and was pronounced dead. He was resuscitated and had triple bypass surgery. Though my own physical issues have not been that serious, I identified with several things he said.

Spurgeon New Year quote

“What rivers of infinite bliss have their source, aye, and every drop of their fulness in him! Since, O sweet Lord Jesus, thou art the present portion of thy people, favour us this year with such a sense of thy preciousness, that from its first to its last day we may be glad and rejoice in thee. Let January open with joy in the Lord, and December close with gladness in Jesus” (From Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening reading for January 1).

Friday’s Fave Five

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Friday's Fave Five

We’ve had another full but lovely week. Well, except that some have been sick. But hopefully all are on the mend. Here are a few favorites, shared with you all and Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Family time. Jeremy, our oldest son, was here until yesterday. He had to work remotely from our house this week, but popped in for lunch and coffee breaks. It’s so nice he could do that rather than having to cut off his visit last weekend.

2. A mixed outing. Mayfield Dairies Farm Park advertised a Merry Mayfield Christmas.with all kinds of activities. We went on the last day, but it was strangely deserted. Only one other family was there besides us, though more came later. I only saw two employees on the field. About half the advertised activities were not available. Jeremy said it looked like one of those weird empty carnival movie sets where a maniacal clown was going jump out at us at any moment. But we played in what was available and had fun. The best part was an apple cannon, where you shoot old apples at targets. Strange as it sounds, it was very satisfying to do!

Apple cannon:

apple cannon

Me taking aim:

Big slide:

big slide

Tire swing:

Tire swing

Lassoing the fake cows with hula hoops. 🙂

Photo op:

3. More adventurous cooking. I mentioned last week that all my kids have become good cooks, though they didn’t show much interest in it while they were in high school and college. They’re also much more adventurous than I am. 🙂 Jeremy made Hungarian Chicken Paprikash for us one night. And I was amazed and delighted to learn from him about a couple of products I hadn’t known about–tomato paste in a tube (for when you only need a tablespoon or two) and frozen minced garlic.

4. Low-Key New Year’s Eve. We had an assortment of snacks, then played games. Everyone went home between 9 and 10. Jim, Jeremy, and I fell asleep in the living room, but Jeremy set his alarm so we could turn on the TV in time to watch the ball drop in NYC. 🙂

5. Coupon from Audible. Audible had an offer saying if you spent three credits within a specified time, they’d gift you a ccoupon of $15 towards audiobook purchases. I was able to find two Christmas novellas and one novel with my coupon.

Bonus: Good news from a friend undergoing a kidney transplant. All went well with the surgery and his numbers have improved immensely the first day after. One of my simple pleasures is getting new wall calendars set up for the year. Jeremy made it to RI with no scheduling problems. Though we miss him already, his cat was glad to have him back. 🙂 Jason and Mittu got me some much-needed larger plastic storage containers, unasked and unexpectedly (I think prompted by my sending soup home with them in the only large container I had which had a broken lid 🙂 ). We finally got some family photos New Year’s Eve:

Happy New Year to you!

The Threshold of a New Year

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This poem comes to mind as we face a new year:

Thou standest on the threshold
Of days which are unknown;
Thou standest at the gateway
Of paths unmapped, unshown;
But God Himself is with thee-
Thy Saviour, Keeper, Friend;
And He will not forsake thee,
Nor leave thee to life’s end.

Thou standest, and thou askest-
“What have the days in store?”
He answereth thee. “Blessing!
Yea blessing more and more.”
What form the blessing taketh
Thou mayest not yet know,
But blessing upon blessing,
He waiteth to bestow.

Thou waitest – and He waiteth:
He waiteth now to bless;
To link His sovereign greatness
To human helplessness;
To show, through all life’s journey,
His tireless care for thee;
To fill thy incompleteness
With His sufficiency.

Thou pausest on the threshold –
Enfolded lies the year;
But with God’s arms beneath thee,
There is no cause for fear.
Through shadowed days or sunlit –
Whate’er the year may bring –
This fact may be thy comfort;
God reigns in everything.

James Danson Smith

I couldn’t find much information about the author, but his poem speaks to me. Whatever the new year holds, God is with His own and loves them.

May you all be His own and walk with Him closely in the new year and beyond. May you know more and more of His greatness, love, and sufficiency. 

Deuteronomy 11:11-12

“But the land that you are going over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water by the rain from heaven, a land that the LORD your God cares for. The eyes of the LORD your God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year” (Deuteronomy 11:11-12).