About Barbara Harper

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Review: Firefly Cove

Posted on January 28, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Firefly Cove is the second in Davis Bunn’s Miramar Bay series.

Lucius Quarterfield lived in the 1960s and developed pleurisy when he was seven. The illness damaged his heart to the point that doctors did not give him long to live.

Though often weak and in pain, when Lucius was grown, he bought a small automobile dealership, which eventually turned into a chain.

He fell in love with a woman named Jessica, who was opposite from him in almost every way. However, since he knew he would die young, he felt it was best to pull away, to spare Jessica the pain of losing him.

After eleven months, he wants to see her and drives back to Miramar. His worst fears are realized when he has a heart attack and dies in her arms.

But then he wakes up in a cold room with a sheet over his face. People call him Luke, not Lucius. His hands and face are not his own. He discovers the date is almost fifty years ahead of his own time.

Nothing in the book’s descriptions said anything about this, and the other books in the series that I have read so far don’t have any kind of supernatural or science fiction elements. So it was jarring. Maybe the author wanted it to be as disorienting to the reader as it would have been to the character.

I don’t believe in reincarnation because Hebrews 9:27 says, “It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.” There’s also nothing in Scripture about any human inhabiting any other human’s body. From what I have read of the author, I think he believes the same way. So I am not sure why he would have this occur in his story.

I decided to view the situation as a plot device, just like other impossibilities such as time travel.

In Lucius’s situation, the young man whose body he woke up in had just attempted his third try at suicide. His therapist’s supervisor is ready to have him locked up. He would be even more ready if Lucius told him he had actually lived fifty years before. All Lucius wants to do is find out what happened to Jessica.

Luke’s therapist, a Persian young woman named Asha, notices several differences about him right away. He looks the same but carries himself differently, speaks differently, and has even lost his French-Canadian accent. She and her supervisor think Luke’s “near death experience” led to Dissociative Identity Disorder, or a split personality. Yet he doesn’t manifest certain hallmarks of that illness.

At it’s heart, this book is a love story, though an unconventional one. The story was well-written. We’re drawn in as Lucius’s situation slowly unfolds, figuring out modern gadgets and ways, what kind of man Luke was, how he should proceed, what his future should look like. The characters were well-developed–besides Lucius, I particularly liked Asha and her grandmother. The intrigue of what’s going to happen to Luke–will he ever find Jessica, what will he do when he does, will he be able to avoid being committed to an institution, will anyone else ever believe his story–keeps us engaged, as does Asha’s story. I’m still processing what I think about the book. Even though I normally wouldn’t care for this kind of story, I found it engaging.

I’m inclined to think this might have worked better as a stand-alone novel, except that the theme of the Miramar Bay books has to do with second chances.

(Sharing with Bookish Bliss Quarterly Link-Up)

When Habits Hinder Rather Than Help

Posted on January 26, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Someone has said that if you don’t make a plan, all you have is a wish. When we want to establish spiritual disciplines or meet a need at church, we set up routines or programs.

But then sometimes those routines themselves can get in the way of meeting needs.

I see this on several levels:

We follow routine and forget purpose.

To try to be more self-disciplined, we establish habits to aid in godliness, like regular times of reading the Bible or prayer, church attendance, etc. And that’s a good thing. But we all know what it is to have days when we’re just going through the motions, when our eyes are dragging across the page. We check “Have devotions” off our list of things to do but haven’t really engaged with the text or been affected spiritually. Or we “feel spiritual” if we’ve crossed that duty off or don’t “feel spiritual” if we haven’t.

Sometimes we feel we can’t stop and ponder a passage of Scripture because we need to get through our planned reading for the day.

One book I read on Bible study strongly emphasized application. That’s good: Jesus said to be doers, not just hearers. This author recommended specific, measurable results. For instance, instead of saying “I need to pray more,” he advocated praying for a certain number of minutes, and then slowly increasing the time.

That may be a good beginning. But it seems to me that the more natural approach would be to list things to pray about–usually once we get started, the list increases. Another idea would be to study prayers of the Bible, like Colossians 1:9-14.

Likewise, if we read about loving our neighbor, we might take them a plate of cookies or shovel snow from their sidewalk and think, “There! I’ve loved my neighbor today.” But then we forget about the need to love our neighbor when he forgets to return a tool or plays loud music at midnight.

It’s not that measurable results are wrong, but they are only one aspect of applying Scripture. Sometimes measurable responses can lead to outward actions without accompanying inward change. Sometimes we need to carry the truth we learned, like loving our neighbor, with us all through the day and pray for grace to implement it when it’s difficult.

We seek formulas rather than truth.

We’ve all seen clickbait titles like How to Be a Better Wife in Three Easy Steps or Follow These Steps to Curb Your Temper. Many raised children according to the plan of the day and were surprised to find their children did not respond in the expected way.

I saw a post sharing a routine for visiting the sick. But every sick person might not have the same needs. And if they sense we’re just going through a script, they are not going to feel ministered to.

I’ve sometimes gotten good results (or so I thought) by praying a certain way in a particular situation, only to have that prayer not “work” the next time that situation arose. I finally learned God doesn’t work by formulas, because then we trust in formulas and not Him. He wants our hearts.

Our routine hinders our purpose.

One church we visited had a greeting time during the service. No one interacted with us or even looked at us until the greeting time. Then, while someone played the piano, everyone smiled, shook hands, and spoke to visitors. But as soon as the music stopped, it was like someone flipped a switch, and everyone closed up again.

Other examples: we feel like our obligation to witness is fulfilled when we go to our church’s visitation night. Or, because our church has official greeters at the door, we feel no one else needs to greet visitors. Or we don’t pick up trash on the floor because someone is paid to do that.

Once when we were visiting my husband’s parents, a couple of women from church came by to see my mother-in-law. They brought a plant and card and conversed for a few minutes. When my mother-in-law thanked them profusely, one of the women said, “Well, you were on our list today.” My mother-in-law never discussed the comment, but I felt it deflated any good feelings about the visit since it seemed to be only motivated by a list.

We try to force results.

Bible study leaders naturally want people to participate. But we had a pair of leaders who felt everyone had to say something every time. If you didn’t speak up, they were going to make you! So instead of interaction and conversation happening naturally, the quieter people felt nervous, on edge, or put on the spot.

Small group leaders want people to “go deep” in their conversations and relationships, so some have “turn to your neighbor and bare your heart on command” sessions instead of letting those opportunities arise in a more natural way.

Or would-be mentors feel they need to work through an artificial list of probing questions instead of developing a personal relationship with their mentee.

We don’t think we can change what we do.

For years, I followed the same Bible reading plan because it was what I was taught. It took years to realize that there are many ways to engage with the Bible, and changing things up helped me stay engaged and see new things in the Word.

For many years, churches in my area had Sunday evening services at 7 o’clock. Then one church changed their service time to 6. It was amazing how many conversations there were about whether that change was right or wise. Eventually, other churches did the same. These days, I am happy to see a variety of services in churches, like small groups in the afternoon or lunch together after the morning service and a short time together before everyone goes home. But forty years ago, those solutions would have been unheard of.

Some programs are useful for a while, but fizzle out after a time. It’s vain to keep them just because “that’s what we’ve always done.”

Routines have a purpose.

It’s true, sometimes we need systems and routines because we don’t always “feel like” doing what we need to. A former pastor once said that one of his best times of prayer occurred when he had to start by confessing to the Lord that he didn’t feel like praying. Sometimes just doing what we should whether we feel like it or not is the first step to feeling like it.

But we should seek God’s grace to serve not just out of duty, and not to check off all the designated boxes, but with a right heart. The mechanics of ministry and spiritual disciplines are tools, but not the main focus, not the end-all of our efforts.

Our ministry isn’t boxed into a particular time, place, or group of people. Our programs don’t take care of all of our obligations. There is a sense in which we should always be “on,” always ready to serve. Even if there are official greeters at church, we can greet people when we see them or help a confused visitor find the right class. Even if there is someone designated to send cards to sick Sunday School class members, we can send one, too. If God has placed on our hearts that we need to help someone else in the church, we need to pray about how to do that rather than just dismissing it because our church has a benevolence committee to take care of those things.

On the other hand, sometimes we can perfectly follow all of our routines, and our programs can seem to be going swimmingly, but we’re unaware that we’re missing something vital. The Pharisees were famous for this. All through the Bible, God reminds His people not to serve Him only with outward performance, but with their hearts.

A. W. Tozer said this in The Pursuit of God:

The simplicity which is in Christ is rarely found among us. In its stead are programs, methods, organizations and a world of nervous activities which occupy time and attention but can never satisfy the longing of the heart. The shallowness of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship and that servile imitation of the world which marks our promotional methods all testify that we, in this day, know God only imperfectly, and the peace of God scarcely at all. If we would find God amid all the religious externals, we must first determine to find Him, and then proceed in the way of simplicity.

Routines, habits, and programs can be a great help. But they are an avenue of ministry, not an end in themselves. May God give us grace to keep our hearts engaged and our focus on others’ needs and His glory.

(Revised from the archives)

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

Laudable Linkage

Posted on January 25, 2025 by Barbara Harper

This is a good time for my occasional reminder that links here do not imply 100% endorsement of everything on a site I’ve linked to or from.

Why Don’t We Read the Bible More? Three Common Misunderstandings, HT to Challies. “That we should read the Bible is rarely questioned. Why we should read it is also fairly well-established. What we rarely do is examine why we, as confessing Christians, don’t read the Bible despite saying that we should. In my years of lay and vocational ministry, I’ve known the acceptable answers to this question and what we perceive to be ‘unacceptable’ answers.”

To (Almost) Die Is Gain, HT to Challies. A young wife and mom contemplates the gains she experienced after a dangerous brain surgery.

Biblical Theology Is for Nerds, HT to Challies. “When Marvel fans piece together the interconnected stories of the MCU across multiple films, they’re exercising the same muscles needed to trace biblical themes from Genesis to Revelation. The skills that make someone an expert in Star Wars lore or DC Comics continuity might be preparing him or her for something far more profound: biblical theology.”

What Does “Love Your Enemies” Not Mean? HT to Challies. “I recently preached on Jesus’s most revolutionary ethical teaching––love your enemies (Matt. 5:44). It stands as a Mount Everest among ethical instructions that both Christians and non-Christians respect. Yet, because we have a certain modern definition of love, it is easy to misunderstand Jesus’s teaching. What did Jesus actually mean by enemy love and how do we integrate it with Old Testament texts that seem to contradict it?”

The Sweet Honey of Forgiveness. “I’m thinking we make forgiveness way harder than it needs to be. It seems cumbersome, impossible … and somehow so wrong.”

How Are Children a Gift From the Lord? HT to the Story Warren. “If kids are a blessing and having a house full of them is a gift, we are going to have to structure our lives a little differently than the cultural norm.”

Our Answer to “Imagine.”Just before I stepped up to speak at the funeral of a professing believer, I had to endure the playing of John Lennon’s ‘Imagine.’ The opening words are ‘Imagine there’s no heaven!’ . . . I began to pray that the Lord would give me wisdom about what to say about this choice of music for a funeral.”

How to Pray for a Cancer Survivor. Much of what’s written here can be applied to other kinds of major illnesses as well. Sometimes the mental, emotional, or spiritual healing from trauma takes longer than the physical.

The Darkness of Winter, HT to Challies, subtitled, “It’s Not the Villain I Once Pegged it For: How the Lord uses Winter to Grow my Faith.” I share the author’s aversion to winter, though her winters are harder to deal with than mine. But she shares how God uses them.

When Everyone Else Is Getting the Blessings You Want. It’s easy to focus on the one thing we want that we don’t have. But God has poured out many blessings on all of us. Lois shares several.

Food (Allergies) and Fellowship. “Food plays an important part in corporate worship and the fellowship of God’s people. It did in Scripture, and it does so today. So, one of the issues we should perhaps consider is the challenge of food allergies. While food allergies may seem simply like a personal health issue for individuals, it can also impact that individual’s fellowship with other believers in a local assembly.” I can “amen” all of this as we have family members with gluten, dairy, nut, and other food issues. I’d especially highlight being careful of cross-contamination–sometimes people who mean well don’t realize this is a problem, too.

God’s presence is not the same as the feeling of God’s presence
and He may be doing most for us when we think He is doing least.
–C. S. Lewis

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on January 24, 2025 by Barbara Harper

January is one month that I am glad to see speeding by. This has been a frigid week: you know it’s been cold when 30 degrees seems like warming up. Today, I’m looking for blessings with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Light! This is the first week it was still light outside when we left for Bible study! I know we get more daylight each day after the winter solstice, but this is the first I’ve seen actual evidence of it. On top of that, the sunset was gorgeous that day, and we got to view it on our drive.

2. An impromptu visit with the kids. Jason, Mittu, and Timothy popped in for a while one afternoon this week. Timothy made some brownies from a recipe in the Minecraft cookbook he had received for Christmas, and he wanted to share some with us.

3. A field trip and dinner out. I don’t know why I think an excursion to Home Depot is a field trip, but I do. 🙂 Jim and I had gone together to look at several things for the house. We got done right at dinner time, and he suggested we go out to the same Mexican food restaurant we had taken the kids to over the holidays. We hadn’t eaten out in a while–we usually get take-out to bring home. And though the restaurant was a bit noisy, it was enjoyable.

4. Nights off from the kitchen. When Jim was painting in the kitchen/dining area, he suggested getting takeout since everything was in disarray. He went out and got Panda Express for us. The next night we ate leftovers from that meal. Then we had the dinner outing mentioned above.

5. Another area painted. This week, Jim worked on painting another bathroom and hallway. This hallway has six doors–one to the bathroom, one to the garage, and four closet doors. We’re blessed with a lot of storage space in this house, but the doors do take longer to paint than the walls.

How was your week?

Review: Miramar Bay

Posted on January 22, 2025 by Barbara Harper

When I started listening to The Christmas Hummingbird by Davis Bunn, I didn’t realize that it was the eighth novel in a series. The first few books in the series were free for Audible subscribers, so I decided to try them out.

In the first novel, Miramar Bay, Connor Larkin is an actor known for his “bad boy” good looks and for dying onscreen (97 times so far). His current gig is a fake “reality” show featuring his relationship with a Hollywood starlet. But now the studio has written an on-air wedding into the script, and Connor bolts. He had visited Miramar, on California’s central coastline, some years before, and it seemed a quiet place to hide out and think.

Connor steps into a Miramar restaurant playing Sinatra music and is drawn in. He had originally wanted to be a musician playing this type of music, but his early acting roles led him another direction. He finds himself applying for a waiter’s job at the restaurant.

Sylvie Cassick had put all her money and hopes into the restaurant and named it Castaways. Her father had been an artist, a kind man but an impractical dreamer. When her mother left them, Sylvie took on the role of trying to keep things in order and the bills paid. She had not heard from her mother in years, and her father passed away, so she’s on her own. Her staff has become dear friends. But everything hangs by a thread: one major problem or repair could cost her everything.

And then the unthinkable happens when illegal drugs are found in her fish order.

As Conner and Sylvie get to know each other, they bond over music. But when Sylvie learns who Connor really is, she can’t get over the fact that he lied to her.

Miramar is known as a place of second chances. Will Connor and Sylvie find theirs as they each face their separate crises?

Some of the characters in the later book were here, too: the sheriff, the head waitress, and a few others.

I looked online to see if Miramar is a real place, and it is: you can read more here.

I loved the small-town, close-knit community Bunn created. The characters seemed real and relatable. The plot kept me invested and interested.

As with the Christmas book, there’s not much mention of anything of a spiritual nature in this book, though everything else I’ve read from Bunn has been Christian fiction. One character visits a chapel a couple of times and prays for help. Perhaps Bunn meant this as a crossover into the general market, which would then draw readers back to his many other books. This is a good, clean read, but it was a little sad to me that the author, who knows real peace can only be found in Christ, had Connor find his peace in a community.

The only other thing some readers might find objectionable is a fair amount of alcohol consumption. One example: Sylvie’s friends “make” her drink brandy to brace herself before sharing bad news. I know this is an area where good people can differ, but to me alcohol seemed to be mentioned a lot.

I listened to the audiobook nicely read by Graham Winton. If you’re familiar with the Adventures in Odyssey radio program by Focus on the Family, Graham’s voice sounds a lot like the actor who portrays character Jason Whitaker there–so much so, that I had to look up that actor. But that actor’s name is Townsend Coleman.

(Sharing with Bookish Bliss Quarterly Link-Up)

Lesser Lights

Posted on January 19, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Before the invention of electricity, it was rare to see a whole city lit up. One could see candlelight or lanterns in windows. Gaslights helped illuminate sidewalks. But if the whole city seemed alight, that meant something unusual was going on.

These days, though, cities seem to dwell in perpetual light.

G. K. Chesterton commented on this in The Illustrated London News in 1927:

In every civilised age and country, it has been a natural thing to talk of some great festival on which “the town was illuminated.” There is no meaning nowadays in saying that the town was illuminated. There is no point or purpose in having it illuminated for any normal and noble enthusiasm, such as the winning of a victory or the granting of a charter. The whole town is illuminated already, but not for noble things. It is illuminated solely to insist on the immense importance of trivial and material things, blazoned from motives entirely mercenary. . . .

It is no good to send up a golden and purple rocket for the glory of the King and Country, or to light a red and raging bonfire on the day of St. George, when everybody is used to seeing the same fiery alphabet proclaiming the importance of Tibble’s Tooth Paste or Giggle’s Chewing Gum. The new illumination has not, indeed, made Tibble and Giggle so important as St. George and King George; because nothing could. But it has made people weary of the way of proclaiming great things, by perpetually using it to proclaim small things. It has not destroyed the difference between light and darkness, but it has allowed the lesser light to put out the greater (quoted in Winter Fire: Christmas with G. K. Chesterton by Ryan Whitaker Smith, pp. 107-108).

Light is one of my favorite symbols of Christmas and one of the things I miss most when we take decorations down.

But light is not just a symbol of Christmas. It’s a symbol of God, a thread running through the whole Bible.

From the Old Testament: “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1).

To the New: “Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life'” (John 8:12).

From prediction: “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.” (Isaiah 9:2).

To fulfillment: “And leaving Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: ‘The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned'” (Matthew 4:13-16).

From the Father: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5b).

To the Son: “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. . . . The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world.” (John 1:4-5, 9).

My husband loves astronomy and will take his telescope out when some phenomenon is happening in the sky. He often says that to really see the stars best, one needs to get away from the lights of cities, towns, or neighborhoods.

It’s not that lesser lights put out the light of the stars, but they obscure and distract from them.

The lesser lights in our lives do the same. They may be harmless in themselves, but their number and seeming urgency take our attention. They can’t put out the Light. But they make it harder to see Him.

Some day, there will be no lesser lights: “And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever” (Revelation 22:5).

Until then, may our hearts cry out with the psalmist, “There are many who say, ‘Who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!’” (Psalm 4:6).

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

Laudable Linkage

Posted on January 18, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Some of the good blogging found this week:

Nearness Is Enough, HT to Challies. “For years, I thought the nearness of God would mean that everything would be okay or, at the very least, feel okay. I hoped that his nearness would mean some sort of tangible presence, some sort of relief from pain. I hoped that it would act as a shield and protection around me, that it would stop the fiery arrows of the enemy from penetrating my heart. But that was not the nearness of God.”

Trump, Trudeau, and the 51st State. The situation in Canada, from one who lives there.

Narcissus in Public, HT to Challies. “I took my family to downtown DC, ending the day with what we had envisioned as an idyllic skate at the ice rink in the National Gallery’s Sculpture Garden. Although it was lovely, as ice skating always is, the experience was marred by the presence, for most of our one-hour skate, of a cluster of young women for whom the rink’s only value was as background scenery for Instagram glamour shots.”

The Prosperity Gospel We Sometimes All Believe In. “There is a version of the prosperity gospel that we can all believe in and it goes something like this: ‘God, I gave my life to you, and in exchange I expect you to make my life easy. I may not need riches or opulence, perfect health or abundant wealth, but I would like ease. And if you take that ease from me, I may just assume that your feelings for me have altered or your love for me has waned. I may even regret following you. Please, just keep my life easy.’”

Please Don’t Sing “Imagine” at Funerals, HT to Challies. Or any time, really.

Will You Pass the Test of Praise? HT to Challies. “Generally, testing feels like something we want to avoid. But Scripture mentions a surprising test which looks, at first glance, like an exam we all want and could easily ace.”

The End of My Words. “‘The words of Job are ended.’ Have you ever come to the end of your words? I have. More than once, in my sanctification process, I’ve cried and wailed, and a time or two, I’ve even screamed my case before God until nothing was left. Dry bones. And at the end of my words, something miraculous took place.”

Hosting a Missionary Family. Tips and insights for churches and families hosting a visiting missionary.

I wish, my brothers and sisters, that during this year you may live nearer to Christ than you have ever done before. Depend upon it, it is when we think much of Christ that we think little of ourselves, little of our troubles, and little of the doubts and fears that surround us.
— Charles Spurgeon

Friday’s Fave Five

Posted on January 17, 2025 by Barbara Harper

We did get our predicted snow last Friday–3-4 inches at our house. Thankfully the power stayed on. We stayed home Saturday and then ventured out to church Sunday with no problem. It’s been cold enough that some snow is still around. The roads and parking lots are mostly clear, but there’s enough ice to require watchfulness. We’re supposed to get more snow Sunday.

Meanwhile, we’re counting blessings with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. A long overdue haircut and a coupon. I had a coupon for a $7.95 haircut at a new place near us. I hadn’t had a cut since September, so it felt really good for the shaggy ends to be cleaned up.

2. An outing. Jason and Mittu invited us to Timothy’s favorite pizza place to celebrate his reaching his reading goals. It was good to get together again–somehow we hadn’t seen each other in a couple of weeks except in passing at church. Plus I enjoyed getting out to do something fun.

3. A dentist’s visit over with. Seeing the dentist is not my favorite thing to do, even as nice as she is. This time, I was concerned about a couple of bumps on the side of my tongue. When one sees bumps where there are not supposed to be any, one’s mind jumps to the worst case scenario (at least this one does). She didn’t think they were anything serious, but took pictures to research further and perhaps consult with an oral surgeon. We talked so much about my tongue that nothing was said about my teeth, but I assume they are all okay.

4. More rooms painted. We have front room that’s smaller than a living room which we have called the sitting room, reading nook, and various other designations. Jim painted that this week and is now on the kitchen/dining area. Along the way, he’s replacing old yellowish light bulbs with brighter white ones. I am so pleased with how everything is looking!

5. Spring cleaning as we go. While Jim had the curtains off the front room window, I thought to myself that I should wash the window while he went out for more paint. That window is hard to get to normally. Then he mentioned that he already had washed it. I washed and ironed the curtains while he took care of the blinds. I mentioned that I’d like to dust the top of some of the pictures before he put them back on the wall, because I had trouble reaching them while dusting. He said he had been dusting all the pictures and plaques before hanging them back up. Isn’t he thoughtful? I helped do some of that after he finished painting the front room. I’ve been astonished at how much dust was still on things that I regularly dust!

While the furniture has been moved out of the way, he’s swept and vacuumed normally hard-to-reach areas.

Probably no one will notice that the curtains have been washed or the farthest corners under the couch swept or the backs of plaques dusted. But it feels good to have them done. It hadn’t occurred to me that we’d be doing this cleaning while painting room by room, but it makes sense to do it while the furniture is out of the way and everything is off the walls. Doing a room at a time is easier than doing all the spring cleaning at once. And, to be honest, I don’t think I have ever spring cleaned this thoroughly.

How is your January going so far?

Review: Set the Stars Alight

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Barbara Harper

In Amanda Dykes’ novel, Set the Stars Alight, Lucy Claremont is the daughter of an English watchmaker whose family invites a young “lost boy” into their circle. Dash grew up in America until both parents died. He lived with a distant aunt who wasn’t home much and seemed not very interested in him.

Lucy’s father loved to tell stories and riddles to the children. Many of his stories centered on a legend about a man who lived 200 years before, Frederick Handford. Handford was a seaman who, accused of treason, stole a boat called the Jubilee and was never heard from again. Many had searched for any sign of Handford or the Jubilee, to no avail. Many stories had been told about what might have happened.

Lucy grew up with a love for the ocean and a desire to research and find the Jubilee. Dash grew up loving the stars, after hearing about them from Lucy’s father and using his homemade telescope. Their interests and circumstances seemed to take them in opposite directions until their paths crossed again while researching the Jubilee.

The story shifts back and forth from 2020 to the 1800s and what really happened with Frederick Handford. He was the son of a respected admiral who, since his own glory days, fell to drink. Frederick grew up with his father on one end of the house, drinking and raging, and his mother at the other end, playing parts of Handel’s Messiah. When his mother died, he ran away to escape his father’s rage and neglect. He was taken in by a kind local shepherd, but inadvertently brought tragedy to the man and his family. Frederick spent the rest of his life trying to make it up to them, especially the man’s daughter, Juliette.

Amanda writes in her author’s notes that this story felt like a set of nesting dolls, with many layers and stories within stories. That’s an apt description.

Amanda’s stories have a way of deeply touching hearts. Her characters are real and flawed, yet their stories are redemptive.

One of my favorite quotes comes from the book comes from a poem titled “The Old Astronomer to His Pupil” by Sarah Williams:

Though my soul may set in darkness, it will rise in perfect light;
I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

A few more quotes that stood out to me:

He is coming, and coming, and coming, and coming after you. In every sunset, in every snatch of birdsong In everything that stirs deep into you and makes you hungry for bigger things, eternal things. That is Him, pursuing you with tenderest grace. In the places so hard they wring your soul. In the places so beautiful they steal your breath. He is there, filling your soul, giving you breath.

Made-up tales that stand through time . . . they are echoes . . . of truth.

I think it’s our duty to keep the stories, to pass them on. It is our duty—and our honor. In a world as dark as ours, we—that is, people—forget how to see the light. So we remind them by telling the truth, fighting the dark, paying attention . . . setting the stars alight. There are things shining brightly all along, if we will notice.

Such freedom, to know our limits. And to know the God who has none.

God had a way of redeeming wounds with the strength of others.

Surprise gave way to curiosity, And curiosity–as it was meant to from the time God breathed life into the great wide world–made way for wonder.”

I listened to the audiobook, which was mostly good except the narrator’s diction wasn’t clear in places. I checked out the e-book from Libby to get the author’s notes and look up some passages.

I thought the modern-day part of the book moved a little slowly at times. But overall, this was a lovely, touching story.

(Sharing with Bookish Bliss Quarterly Link-Up)

Cultivating Awe of God’s Word

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Barbara Harper

Are you in awe of God’s Word?

If you’re like me, you’d probably say, “Not as often as I’d like to be.”

There are times when our meeting with God is special, when He gives us just what we need in the moment, we notice something new, or we’re blessed by an old, familiar, but beloved passage.

But other times—we’re sleepy, distracted, hurried, or we’re slogging through a book like Leviticus.

I was struck recently by a quote from G. K. Chesterton in Winter Fire: Christmas with G.K. Chesterton: “The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.” Though he wasn’t talking about the Bible there, I felt what he said was true of the Bible as well.

Chesterton’s quote reminded me a couple of verses:

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! (Psalm 139:17.

My heart stands in awe of your words. I rejoice at your word like one who finds great spoil (treasure, plunder) (Psalm 119:161a-162).

So what can we do when we feel less than awed by God’s Word?

Employ practical helps. It’s hard to be awed when we’re sleepy or distracted. Getting enough sleep, choosing a more wakeful time of day, taking a shower or doing a few minutes of exercise first can help us be more alert. Removing distractions as much as possible helps: turning off the phone, choosing a time you can be somewhat alone, etc.

Pray. Psalm 119:18 is an apt prayer: “Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.” When we’re dull in spirit, we can appropriate another of the psalmist’s prayer: “I am greatly afflicted; Renew and revive me [giving me life], O LORD, according to Your word” (Amplified Version).

Remember:

Who is speaking to us. I’m inspired by what George Guthrie says here: “I am still blown away by the idea that the God of the universe wants to communicate with us on a daily basis and that he has chosen to do so in this miraculous book we call the Bible.” As we meditate on who He is and the ways He has worked in our lives, our hearts will warm towards Him and His Word.

That God chose these specific words for us. Psalm 139:17-18 says God’s thoughts are vast, more than the sand. One of our former pastors used to say that the Bible is divinely brief. Out of the multitudes of things God could have said, He inspired and preserved in the Bible what He wants us to know. So each sentence has a purpose.

The cost and privilege of having a Bible in our own hands. Most people didn’t until after the printing press was invented in 1440 AD. Even when it became widely used, books were too expensive for many people to have. When books became more widespread, brave men like William Tyndale labored and gave their lives to have it translated into English that everyday people could read.

Past experiences with the Bible. Remembering some of those special times in the Bible that I mentioned at the beginning can reawaken our desire for it to speak to us again.

Our enemies: the world, which tries to turn our heads; our flesh, prone to wander, to laziness, to self-indulgence; and the devil, who wants to deceive and distract us. It’s no wonder we often have to fight for time and attention while reading the Bible. But the struggle is worth it.

Slow down. Sometimes we rush through our time in the Bible just to get it done or to get to other tasks. Reading a smaller amount and taking time to reflect on it is better than zipping through several chapters without retaining anything.

Ask why this passage is in the Bible. If God inspired all of Scripture, each passage is there for a purpose. What does it tell us about God?

Begin with hymns or praise. I’ve often been encouraged by missionary and writer Elisabeth Elliot’s confession in On Asking God Why: “When I stumble out of bed in the morning, put on a robe, and go into my study, words do not spring spontaneously to my lips–other than words like, ‘Lord, here I am again to talk to you. It’s cold. I’m not feeling terribly spiritual. . . .'” She found help by reading through hymns or psalms.

Get help from a good study Bible, commentary, or study group. All three have helped me by giving some background or explanation of the passage or pointing out things I overlooked in my own reading.

Keep reading in spite of feelings, or the lack of them. Another former pastor said that one of his best times of prayer began with his confession that he didn’t feel like praying. It often happens that way with Bible reading, too. We might not feel awe-inspired as we begin. But the Bible says it is living and active (Hebrews 4:12). As we read, God speaks to us and enlivens us. Even if we don’t feel any differently after reading, God has fed us.

Thank God for what we read. We often divide our quiet time with the Lord into prayer and Bible reading. But we can integrate those activities. When we read of God’s love, we can thank Him for sharing His love with us. When we read an example of His love, power, or wisdom, we praise Him for them right as we read. We can turn some of the verses into prayer and praise. Awe of God’s Word is not an end in itself, but leads us to awe of our God.

In the Everyday Gospel Christmas Devotional, Paul David Tripp says:

The beginning of Matthew presents us with a majestic one-time moment in history that you shouldn’t run past in your desire to complete your daily Bible reading. God has recorded and preserved it for you because he wants it to leave you in gratitude and awe. And that awe is meant to capture your heart with such force that it changes the way you think about who you are and how you live your life. (December 16 reading).

Awe in our Bible reading doesn’t just help us enjoy it more. As Tripp says, awe captures our hearts in order to change us. Awe is part of beholding Him: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

“The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder,” Chesterton said. There is much to inspire awe and wonder in the Bible. May God give us eyes to see and hearts to understand.