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Laudable Linkage

Posted on June 25, 2016 by Barbara Harper

It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve shared noteworthy things discovered around the Web, so here goes:

Two Methods of Bible Study. Do you ever struggle with whether to read larger portions of the Bible or to camp out deeply in smaller passages? Both are needed, and this is the best explanation of the two methods I’ve seen.

The Value of Children. Love this. Great insight.

Afraid of the Unknown. Yes, I tend to be, and this was very helpful.

When My Work Is Marginalized, Unappreciated, or Belittled.

Today Is Not a DIY Project.

Laser Rays…and Moonbeams. Lovely piece on the power of words to tear down and build up, beautifully written.

His Wife, Not His Mother and Part 2: Practical Tips: Learning How To Be His Wife, Not His Mother.

Sexual Desire and the Single Girl (10 Tips For Purity)

How to Write Without Sounding Preachy.

Love this! Some nice film editing about what kids might be imagining in their play, HT to The Story Warren:

Happy Saturday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on June 24, 2016 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.

I love balanced weeks of getting things done yet having time for rest and fun as well, and this has been one of those weeks. Here are my favorite bits:

1. Father’s Day. I felt bad that I didn’t have a post here or on Facebook honoring my husband, dad, step-dad, and son, but I’m just not at the computer much on weekends any more, especially if the kids come over. But I enjoyed the opportunity to honor my husband, especially, on “his” day. And, my daughter-in-law made this awesome cake for the occasion!

It was funny that after the dads in the room opened their presents, little Timothy said, “Cake?” ‘Cause cake always follows presents! 🙂

2. Decluttering done, at least for now. My husband and son took several boxes and bags full of things to donate to the local thrift store. Nice to have that done for now, and I’m enjoying the cleaned-out and more organized spaces.

3. Decluttering spreading. My youngest son got inspired to sort through his room as well. He threw away a couple of garbage bags full of stuff (papers, mostly), added to our donation pile, organized his shelves and closet, and even dusted! It had been…a while!

4. Take-out Mexican food. Yum!

5. Healing. My husband has been battling an infection for weeks now, with I don’t know how many different antibiotics. It’s not completely gone, but it finally seems to be well on its way out.

Happy Friday!

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Receiving Criticism

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I recently heard it said of someone that he doesn’t receive criticism well. And I thought, not many people do.

I have to admit, when someone points out something in my life that needs possible correction or attention, my first response is not, “Thank you! You’ve given me something to think about. I am so glad the Lord laid that on your heart to share with me.” It should be. But my first response to criticism (inwardly, at least) is more likely to be one of the following:

How dare you!
You just don’t understand.
Who do you think you are?
Oh yeah? Well, have you examined yourself lately?
What makes you think you’re right all the time?

Not very pretty, is it?

It should be no surprise to us that we’re not perfect, and no surprise that someone else notices that fact from time to time. We’re sinners — we naturally do wrong. We’d be the first to admit that we don’t have it all together. We’d never claim perfection. We probably know deep down that we have blind spots to some of our character flaws and that we tend to excuse or justify negative traits in ourselves that we see as faults in others (i.e., I’m determined but another who acts the same way is stubborn.)

Let someone try to correct us, and they are being hateful, petty, mean, or, one of the favorite adjectives in today’s Christianity, judgmental.

Here’s what Spurgeon had to say about being criticized:

“Brother, if any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him; for you are worse than he thinks you to be. If he charges you falsely on some point, yet be satisfied, for if he knew you better he might change the accusation, and you would be no gainer by the correction. If you have your moral portrait painted, and it is ugly, be satisfied; for it only needs a few blacker touches, and it would be still nearer the truth.” (Source unknown).

Isn’t that the truth? Sure, some people are judgmental. Some are busybodies. Some correct too much or too easily. Some people who really mean well can correct in an unkind or hurtful way. Some are even wrong in their critiques. But whatever they’ve said, they don’t know the half of it. There’s plenty of fodder for criticism in any of our lives.

Not surprisingly, the Bible has much to say about receiving criticism or reproof or correction. Here is just a sampling.

For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life. Proverbs 6:23.

Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee: rebuke a wise man, and he will love thee.
Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be yet wiser: teach a just man, and he will increase in learning. Proverbs 9:8-9.

He is in the way of life that keepeth instruction: but he that refuseth reproof erreth. Proverbs 10:17.

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise. Proverbs 12:15.

Poverty and shame shall be to him that refuseth instruction: but he that regardeth reproof shall be honoured. Proverbs 13:18.

A scorner loveth not one that reproveth him: neither will he go unto the wise. Proverbs 15:12.

The ear that heareth the reproof of life abideth among the wise. He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul: but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding. Proverbs 15:31-32.

A reproof entereth more into a wise man than an hundred stripes into a fool. Proverbs 17:10.

As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover upon an obedient ear. Proverbs 25:12.

I used to tell one of my sons who had trouble receiving correction that if he didn’t acknowledge that a certain action or attitude was wrong, he could not correct it or change it. I often shared with him Proverbs 28:13: “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.”

So what’s the best way to respond to criticism? Here are a few tips that I know I need to put into practice:

Believe that the other person has your best interest at heart, or at least he or she is trying to make you better in some way. Thank them for their interest and concern.
Receive it calmly. Beware of responding defensively, in angry retaliation, or in a wounded closing in on oneself. You may need to ask for time to process what they’ve said.
Examine it to see whether it’s valid.
Pray about it. Maybe it doesn’t seem valid because you have a blind spot that God is trying to alert you to.
Criticism stings so much primarily because of pride. “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble…Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up” (James 4:6, 10).

Humble

If it is valid, do whatever you need to do to correct it. Confess it to the Lord if it is a sin (1 John 1:9) and to anyone else it has affected.
If it is not valid, explain to the person, kindly and calmly, why you feel you need to keep doing what you’re doing. There are times it will be invalid. For example, a pastor of a church of 200 may hear 25 (or more!) opinions of what he should do, some in direct conflict with each other.There is no way he can implement every suggestion or change everything to please everyone.

We can take comfort in the fact that God sees believers through His Son, Jesus Christ, and that once we savingly believe on Him, His righteousness is transferred to our account because He took our sinfulness on His. Because of His amazing grace, those who have believed on Christ for salvation become God’s children, and will have a home with Him in heaven. Our eternal life begins NOW, not when we die.

Yet until we get to heaven, we have a sin nature to contend with, and we’re instructed to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (II Peter 3:18). II Timothy 3:16-17 tell us: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (ESV). Part of that growing, completion, equipping, is realizing those areas where we have a problem and then seeking God’s grace and relying on His Word to change us. So when we receive a criticism, instead of just brushing it off, we can see if God means to use it to show us something we need to know about ourselves. We can prayerfully examine it to see if it is just, then we can confess it to the Lord (and to whomever else we might need to confess it) and correct it and grow in wisdom and character — and stop causing a problem in other people’s lives by continuing on in the fault. Isn’t that much better than hanging on to our hurt and indignation? And even if the criticism is invalid, perhaps God allowed it to put us through a time of self-examination and humbling.

There is only one perfect person in the universe, and as we behold Him, He changes us to be more like Himself: But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. II Corinthians 3:18.

(Updated from the archives.)

(Sharing with Inspire Me Mondays, Literary Musing Mondays, Woman to Woman, Works For Me Wednesday, Thought-Provoking Thursday)

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Summer

Posted on June 21, 2016 by Barbara Harper

Yesterday marked the first day of summer, though it has been feeling pretty summery around here for a few weeks already.

Summer doesn’t have quite the sensation of joy, freedom, and expectancy that it does when you’re a child and school is out for three glorious months. With our kids no longer in school and our grandchild not yet in school, our schedules aren’t affected much by the school schedule – except it’s nice to be able to drive without having to worry about slowing to a stop in school zones at certain times of the day. And we do have to watch out more for kids playing in or near the neighborhood street.

Yet summer still retains a bit of charm, though it’s very hot and humid here in the South. It’s the season of grilling, sitting in the pool if you’re lucky enough to have access to one (we enjoy filling up a kiddie pool for Timothy), longer days, yard work, picnics, and vacations for some.

Here are a few favorite quotes about it:

Summer is the time when it is too hot to do the jobs it was too cold to do in winter. ~ Author Unknown

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time. ~John Lubbock

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken. ~James Dent

Someone’s sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago. ~ Warren Buffett

No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.
~James Russell Lowell, The Vision of Sir Launfal, 1848

And most of my fellow Southerners can identify with this:

You know you are in the South in August when…

* The birds have to use potholders to pull worms out of the ground.

* The trees are whistling for the dogs.

* The best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.

* Hot water now comes out of both taps.

* You can make sun tea instantly.

* You learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron.

* You discover that in August it only takes 2 fingers to steer your car.

* You discover that you can get sunburned through your car window.

* You actually burn your hand opening the car door.

* You break into a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 am.

* Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, “What if I get knocked out and end up
lying on the pavement and cook to death?”

* You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.

* The potatoes cook underground, so all you have to do is pull one out and add butter, salt, and pepper.

* Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying boiled eggs.

* The cows are giving evaporated milk.

We’re experiencing some of that though it’s not August yet!

The Bible mentions summer a few times, among them:

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. Genesis 8:22

Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: thou hast made summer and winter. Psalm 74:17

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. Proverbs 6:6-8. And another one about industrious ants: The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer. Proverbs 30:25

He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame. Proverbs 10:5

As snow in summer, and as rain in harvest, so honour is not seemly for a fool. Proverbs 26:1

Saddest of all: The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. Jeremiah 8:20

Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Matthew 24:32-33

No hint of summer as vacation there! That helps me not to be wistful of childhood’s long summers off. That must be a modern concept: it wasn’t that long ago that kids didn’t have school in summer for the express purpose of being available to help their parents during the busiest seasons on the farm, and even now, summer is a busy time for farmers and homesteaders. It would be interesting to study summer in other cultures: for instance, in areas near the equator where it’s excessively hot, I wonder if summer if more laid back because it would be harder to function in the heat.

But the Bible does encourage times of rest as well as diligence, so I am glad summer affords time for that.

We have no special plans for the summer except for a couple of events to look forward to. With my husband’s mom here, we can’t really travel. What I call our “birthday season” begins in July: five of us have birthdays between then and mid-September. But we enjoy grilling and sitting outside in the evenings when it’s not so hot, and we look forward to my oldest son coming for a week-long visit in a few weeks. Lately our neighborhood has been getting together for a group cook-out on the 4th of July. Summer used to be reading heaven for me when I was younger, and though I can’t spend the bulk of the day in a book anymore, I still do get a bit more reading in as there is not much on TV during the summer.

What are you doing this summer?

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Book Review: Chateau of Secrets

Posted on June 20, 2016 by Barbara Harper

Melanie Dobson first came to my attention through Carrie. If you read Carrie much at all, you know that she does not like Christian fiction, yet she likes Melanie. Since I do like Christian fiction, I figured I would probably enjoy Melanie all the more. So when I saw her Chateau of Secrets come through on a Kindle sale last year, I snapped it up.

And indeed, I enjoyed it very much. Normally I read Kindle books on my iPad mini as I am getting ready to fall asleep and then when I have any waiting time away from home. But this one had me pulling my phone out several times during the day to read a few more paragraphs.

Gisèle Duchant lives with her father in their ancient chateau on Normandy before the onset of WWII. As Hitler’s forces come ever closer, they decide to leave. But Gisèle’s father is killed, and she then decides to stay. Her brother, Michel, is a leader in the underground resistance, and she has been helping him by secretly bringing food and supplies where he is hiding in the tunnels beneath their property.

Eventually the Nazis come to their area and take over the chateau for their local headquarters. They commandeer Gisèle to cook and keep house for them, so she’s walking a tightrope between doing what is required of her there yet still helping her brother and trying to keep the tunnels a secret.

The chapters alternate between her story in the 1940s and her granddaughter Chloe’s story in modern times. Chloe is a teacher engaged to Virginia gubernatorial candidate Austin Vale. Being the fiancee of a high-profile politician has its drawbacks, but their times alone convinces her that it’s worth it. Just a few weeks before her wedding, her parents ask her to go to France. A filmmaker is doing a documentary on the chateau and its role in the war, and Chloe seems to be the best person to go and be interviewed by him. Chloe doesn’t know much about the chateau, and her grandmother Gisèle’s dementia confuses or hides much of her memory, so she’s not able to give her much information. But when she tells her grandmother that she’s going to the chateau in Normandy, Gisèle urgently insists that she must find Adeline. Chloe has never heard of Adeline before. As she travels to France, stays in the chateau, and delves into her grandmother’s history, she uncovers a multitude of secrets, some of which will have an impact on her family now.

I enjoyed both Gisèle’s and Chloe’s story lines. I liked the way the author wove in much detail about France in that era without making it too heavy or encyclopedic. I had not known that Jews served in the German Wehrmacht. Some probably did so to hide their Jewishness, but some did so out of coercion to protect loved ones. I loved the mystery of the story and thought the author did an expert job at unfolding it.

The story is loosely based on the life of Genevieve Marie Josephe de Saint Pern Menke. She lived in a chateau in France during WWII which was taken over by the Germans, and “risked her life to hide downed Allied airmen and members of the French resistance in this tunnel underneath the chateau,” among many other things.

Gisèle is Catholic, and, not being Catholic myself, there were a few points here and there that I would disagree with, namely praying to Mary, St. Michel, and ever her dead mother (that’s not the biggest problem I have with Catholicism, but it’s the biggest one in this book, because nowhere in Scripture are we instructed or encouraged to pray to anyone but God Himself. Jesus said, “When ye pray, say, Our Father which art in heaven….” After all He did to create access for us to God, why would we try to go to Him through anyone else?) I don’t share what I disagree with in books just to be critical or contentious, but sometimes people tell me they read things I recommend, so I want to be careful that I don’t promote error. I would assume that Gisèle’s Catholicism is accurate to the time, place, and person her character is based on. And I did find much good spiritual truth in the book otherwise.

Overall I loved the book and will keep my eyes peeled for more of Melanie’s books in the future.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

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Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on June 17, 2016 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.

It’s been a busy getting-things-done-at-home week and therefore not much of a blogging week. 🙂 But it’s felt good to get some things accomplished. Here are some of the best parts of the last week:

1. A fun Saturday. We went with our kids and grandchild to a park, mainly to watch Timothy play in the fountain, or splash pad. Then we ate lunch at a nearby restaurant, came home and caught a nap, and then Jason and Mittu came over and made chicken nachos for dinner.

2. A blow dryer with a “cool” setting. What’s funny is that it has been sitting in a closet for three years. It was among my mother-in-law’s things from the nursing home, but we don’t remember buying it for her (that was the case with a lot of things – some of her things missing, but a few things we’d never seen before were with her belongings. Sigh.) She has one in her room, so we just put this one in a box. Just recently mine started acting up, so I dug this one out – and really liked it! It has a lot more power than my old one. And this time of year when I get sweaty so easily, especially on days I go to the gym, it’s nice when I am finishing blowing my hair dry to turn on the cool setting for a minute or so. To think I could have been using it all this time!

3. Using gift cards. Last Friday night I felt totally uninspired to cook, or even to think about what to cook. I had a couple of gift cards for Cracker Barrel that I received at Christmas, and my husband indulged me in using them for dinner that night – we called an order in and then he picked it up. Then I went to look for a couple of things at our nearby Hobby Lobby that I had seen at another one. I didn’t find one, and decided against the other – but I did find a couple of other things! They all happened to be 40% off. And I still have gift card credit!

4. Finally getting my hair cut. I have been meaning to for a few weeks and just haven’t made it til this one. It’s nothing new or exciting, but it’s just so much more cooperative at shoulder length, and I was about 2″ past that.

5. Progress in sorting out some things to donate to our local rescue mission thrift store. I had started a couple of weeks ago and gotten sidetracked, but determined to finish this week, as this stuff was piling up in my sewing room. It’s been fun to find some things I thought I had lost or had forgotten about, plus to tidy up and reorganize the spaces that have been cleaned out. I still have a bit to do, but I’m enjoying a sense of accomplishment.

Happy Friday!

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Book Review: Don’t Let the Goats Eat the Loquat Trees

Posted on June 14, 2016 by Barbara Harper

I saw Don’t Let the Goats Eat the Loquat Trees: The Adventures of an American Surgeon in Nepal by Thomas Hale mentioned at Lou Ann‘s, put it on my TBR list, and just finished it recently.

Thomas open his story with the realization of his need for Christ, even though he would have said he was a Christian before that. After truly believing on Jesus for salvation, he spent much time in the Bible as it opened up to him. He “asked God what He would have me do. I was disturbed by Jesus’ statement to His disciples: ‘If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.’ I didn’t seem to be able to tone down that passage. It meant to me that if I was going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, I had to go all the way, to hold nothing back, to give my entire life to God. That was a tall order, as I’ve found every day since.”

God eventually led him to prepare to go to Nepal as a surgeon, and along the way, led him to his wife, Cynthia, who was training to become a a medical missionary as a pediatrician.

Just two months before heading to Asia, their mission informed them that they were being sent not to the large hospital in Kathmandu that they had been expecting, but rather to a “small fifteen-bed hospital located out in the hills, a day’s journey from Kathmandu…still under construction…” without “even a road to it.” The change in situation would mean a completely different atmosphere: rather than a large, well-equipped hospital with culture and entertaining nearby, they’d be going to a “tiny, ill-equipped rural outpost” and a “crude, mud-walled house, where our neighbors would be illiterate and unkempt hill people.” “Cynthia made her biggest adjustment to life in Nepal right then and there.”

We might have been tempted to think how lucky Nepal was that we had come. After all, there couldn’t have been many fully trained surgeons and pediatricians in that little kingdom of twelve million people. That attitude, however, would have been the worst we could have harbored. Indeed, we had been warned of the harmfulness of such an attitude, warned that even a trace of superiority would create a barrier that would repel the friendliness and goodwill of any Nepali we met. At the same time we found that rooting out our deep and often hidden feelings of superiority–feelings of importance, of being advantaged on background and education, of having so much to offer–was no easy task.

One problem this entailed before they even left was the supply of surgical equipment that would normally be supplied by a hospital, but of course would be impossible for the small hospital they were going to. Hale details the miraculous way God provided for a multitude of equipment.

It’s fascinating reading of their trials in just getting to their hospital and home, landing on an “airstrip” that was not much more than a field, the difficulty of getting carriers for all of their things (including a piano, which the natives were not impressed by), accidentally killing a cow, which was considered the same as killing a man “and drew the same penalty–eighteen years in prison–if the crowd didn’t get you first,” adjusting to insects (“if you think you can kill ants faster than they can be hatched…don’t count on it”), learning to love the people, dealing with mistrust of the “foreign doctors” at first to eventually have the opposite problem of being overrun with people and needs. He shares many case studies and lively stories along the way. He shares, as well, many things he learned about himself and about living for God:

It took a mild-mannered and uncritical animal to make me see in myself those negative attributes that I had always attributed to other American surgeons. Facing two hundred angry men proved to be effective therapy for removing most traces of condescension with which I previously might have regarded them. It also improved my relations with missionary colleagues and with Nepali brothers and sisters in the church. I guess God had no gentler way of removing some of my imperfections; I only wish I could say, for His trouble, that He finished the job. But it was a start.

Much time and energy can be wasted on matters that are, at best, trivial.

The key to successful ministry will lie in their ability to assimilate that culture and to free themselves from the attitudes and prejudices of their own. They have been warned about the inevitable feeling of superiority, paternalism, disdain, impatience, and frustration that they are sure to experience and to which they previously may have considered themselves immune. Finally they have been told that the course of their entire missionary career will ultimately depend on one thing: their day-by-day, step-by-step walk with God.

Many times a worker arrives in a foreign land only to discover he doesn’t love the people quite as much as he thought. They are different; their ways are different. And the new missionary quickly learns that survival depends on his ability to adjust to the new people among whom he plans to live; he adjusts to them, not vice versa.

To give unwisely demeans and creates dependence; to give wisely takes time, which is scarce, and wisdom, which is scarcer.

When medicine is given free, patients often sell it instead of taking it themselves; they’d rather have the cash.

We find it comfortable to sit back, fold our arms, and mutter to one another, “All they have to do is repent.” But is that what Christ did when He rose from where He was and, with unfolded arms, came into the world to minister to us? Taking Christ’s example, we need to minister to the world in every way we can. Each Christian, before God, must find out where his or her duty lies.

Love is the one quality the world can discern that sets Christians apart and makes Christianity distinct from every other religion. If we fail to act on this truth, we will lose our right to be heard and will enter the post-Christian era for good.

The only way we know to help our Nepali friends in a lasting way is to put them in touch with the God who is the source of love and who sent His son Jesus into the world to demonstrate it.

Those early disciples had only two fish and a few loaves, but they gave Him all they had. Is this not His word to us today—to give Him all our loaves and fishes, to give Him everything we have? Then, who can say what He would be able to accomplish in our time through us?

Some of the hardest parts to read are those where the hospital had to cut corners because of the overwhelming demand on their time and resources. I don’t know if I could have made some of the decisions they did, but then, I’ve never been in that situation. They did rescind some of them after a time.

Though I wouldn’t agree with just every little point in the book, overall I found it quite an interesting and eye-opening account and really enjoyed it.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

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Book Review: A Man Called Ove

Posted on June 13, 2016 by Barbara Harper

A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman first came to my attention, I believe, through Susanne’s review. When I first saw the name, I thought it was pronounced with a long O and A sound – Oh-vay. But the narrator of the audiobook I listened to pronounced it Oo-vuh. The book was written in Swedish and translated into several different languages.

Ove is only 59 years old, but seems older. He’s curmudgeonly, suspicious of anyone who drives anything other than a Saab and of salespeople trying to swindle him out of money. He is highly principled, performing daily inspections of the neighborhood to make sure no one is parked where they are not supposed to be (and taking down their license plates numbers if they are) and no one has violated any signs (which Ove himself put up).

Then his world is turned upside down when a new neighbor with a pregnant Iranian wife backs his trailer over Ove’s mailbox. He dubs them “the pregnant one” and “the lanky one,” and they continually and aggravatingly insert themselves into his life.

I mention this next part mainly because some might be sensitive to it: Ove is planning to take his life. His wife has died and he wants nothing more than to be with her again. He makes very detailed plans, and though he doesn’t believe in God, the universe, or destiny, every time he is about to end his life, something happens. Either someone needs his (unwilling) help, or something makes him angry enough that he has to deal with it first.

My favorite parts are the flashbacks describing how Ove went from the taciturn but dependable young man he was to the grumpy old man he became and detailing time with his father, his youth, his jobs, his hurts, but especially his wife.

People said Ove saw the world in black and white. But she was color. All the color he had.

But if anyone had asked, he would have told them that he never lived before he met her. And not after either.

She understood him as no one else had since his father. People questioned her choice when she married him, but no one else had ever looked at her like he had, “as though she were the only girl in the world.” And she understood when he did not share her love of Shakespeare but spent weeks making beautiful bookcases for her books. When he later meets a teenager who had been one of her pupils, and they talk of her,

And then they both stand there, the fifty-nine-year-old and the teenager, a few yards apart, kicking at the snow. As if they were kicking a memory back and forth, a memory of a woman who insisted on seeing more potential in certain men than they saw in themselves.

Overall the book is cleverly and wonderfully written, tender in some places, humorous in others, and the author has a nice way of setting seemingly opposite thoughts in juxtaposition (like Ove’s not believing in destiny when the way he met his future wife certainly seemed like Someone set up the situation).

The only major flaw is a smattering of bad language, including taking the Lord’s name in vain pretty badly and one incidence of the “F” word. Usually the latter is a deal-breaker for me, but as it happened towards the end of the book, I did finish it. I understand that a man like Ove who is not a Christian and is a curmudgeon is likely to talk like that. My own father talked like Ove, so it doesn’t shock me. But I don’t like to read books or watch movies with that kind of language because I don’t want those words floating around my head and possibly coming out accidentally. The F word, though, came from a different character who was particularly nasty. The thing is, I didn’t need that word to get that picture of her. The writing was clear enough that I got it without having to throw that word in there.

Sometimes I wonder if I need to give up on modern fiction all together, because it all seems to be spattered with bad language this way. I wish modern writers would get that they don’t need it.

I don’t know if it has been made into a movie, but it would be a good one – minus the bad language.

(Sharing at Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books)

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Laudable Linkage

Posted on June 11, 2016 by Barbara Harper

Here are some noteworthy reads discovered recently:

Antidote to False Teaching: Stability and Growth in The Knowledge of Christ. Quote: “The single most effective method for studying any book of the Bible is accessible to every believer.”

3 Truths to Speak to Your Temptation

Imagination and Evil. Quote: “Children’s books that scrub any evil from the story are burgeoning. The conflicts are based on misunderstandings or due to a different perspective. They are easily solved with a pleasant discussion. It’s very sanitary! But are we telling our children the truth by painting an evil-free, pain-free world? Stories are not innocuous; they convey a worldview just as powerfully, if not more so, than direct statements.”

Me Before You: Dear Hollywood, Why Do You Want Me Dead? “11-year-old wheelchair athlete tells the culture to get over itself”

Check Your Words at the Door

My Husband Doesn’t Put the Kids to Bed, and It’s Really Okay

I’m not sure why I keep reading Jess Connell. I enjoy her posts but she mainly writes about raising children, and I am past that stage. Maybe to recommend her to others? Anyway, here are three that struck a chord with me lately:

Motherhood 101: The Class We Never Got. Learning “on-the-job” while feeling overwhelmed.

How To Set Your Kids Up For Obedience.

Is Homeschooling a Safeguard Against Rebellion?

Praise Him in the Hallway.

More Weird Things Writers Say.

Imagine If Ebooks Came First.

And to end with a smile…

Happy Saturday!

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on June 10, 2016 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.

It’s been a rough week for my husband, who hasn’t been feeling well. But hopefully things have turned a corner. Here are some bright spots from the week:

1. Sunday dinner. Through a series of mishaps (involving a baby, a blow-out diaper, and a car seat that had to be taken out and cleaned up), my son and daughter-in-law weren’t able to go to church on Sunday morning (or at least would not have gotten there til it was more than half over). So they came to our house and started making lunch. That especially worked out well because dealing with an ant invasion in the kitchen that morning put me running behind and I wasn’t able to get the dinner that I was planning on into the crockpot. I had a Plan B in mind, but it was much nicer to come home and find a meal nearly ready.

2. Hubby helping with the ant invasion clean-up.

3. Air conditioning. I’ve come back from errand-running just dripping with sweat a couple of times – and it’s only June!

4. “More Manners of Downton Abbey.” The historical advisor for “Downton Abbey” discussed manners and mores of the time. It aired just before the series finale, and I had it in my Tivo recorded shows, but hadn’t seen it until this week. It was a pleasant hour’s viewing. I enjoy watching those times, but I am glad I don’t live in them!

5. This photo of my son and grandson playing in the fountains.