Author Archives: Barbara Harper

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About Barbara Harper

https://barbarah.wordpress.com

Hope in Darkness

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God gives hope in darkness.

The darkness and barren landscape and often overcast skies of late autumn and winter can be depressing to me. I probably could not live in a country with just a few hours of daylight. I’ve written before about some things that help me through the “winter blues.”

But I decided this week to do a quick Bible study about darkness to encourage myself (and hopefully you, as well).

I remind myself God made the seasons. He mentions them in creation (Genesis 1:14-15). And he told Noah, after the flood, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). He has a purpose for winter’s darkness as well as summer’s light.

God created light and darkness that we might know Him and know He is the only God: “I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord, who does all these things” (Isaiah 45:5-7).

Darkness signals time to rest. The need for rest reminds us of our limitations. We can trust he who “will neither slumber nor sleep” (Psalm 121:4) will watch over us. Psalm 104:19-23 says:

He made the moon to mark the seasons;
    the sun knows its time for setting.
20 You make darkness, and it is night,
    when all the beasts of the forest creep about.
21 The young lions roar for their prey,
    seeking their food from God.
22 When the sun rises, they steal away
    and lie down in their dens.
23 Man goes out to his work
    and to his labor until the evening.
24 O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom have you made them all.

Darkness sometimes indicates God’s chastening. This is a recurrent theme in the prophets. “Hear and give ear; be not proud, for the Lord has spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God before he brings darkness, before your feet stumble on the twilight mountains, and while you look for light he turns it into gloom and makes it deep darkness. But if you will not listen, my soul will weep in secret for your pride; my eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears, because the Lord’s flock has been taken captive” (Jeremiah 13:15-17). But Micah looks forward with hope even though Israel is in darkness due to sin: “I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication” (Micah 7:9).

God delivers us from darkness. Many verses bring out this truth. Psalm 107:10-12 speaks of people imprisoned in darkness because of their sin and rebellion. Then verses 13-15 say, “Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and burst their bonds apart. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man!”

Another passage is Ezekiel 34:11-12: “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.”

Darkness is not a problem for God. We don’t like darkness partly because we can’t see. We don’t know what’s outside when we hear a strange noise. But “If I say, ‘Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,’ even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you” (Psalm 139:11-12).

God knows what is in the darkness: “He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what is in the darkness, and the light dwells with him” (Daniel 2:22).

God protects us in darkness: “He will cover you with his pinions, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness is a shield and buckler. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday” (Psalm 91:4-6).

God gives the treasures of darkness. “I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the Lord, the God of Israel, who call you by your name” (Isaiah 45:3). In context, this passage is addressed to Cyrus, a foreign king who did not know the Lord, about how God chose him and was going to use him and reward him. The couple of commentaries I looked at said that “treasures in darkness” referred to the fact that in that day, people hid treasures away in dark places so no one else could find them. But God was going to give these hidden treasures to Cyrus. I think we have to be careful about over-spiritualizing historic events in the Bible, but I think we can see a parallel with the treasures that God will give His children.

We can trust God in darkness. “Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God” (Isaiah 50:10).

“But as for me, I will look to the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me” (Micah 7:7-8).

We can serve others in darkness. “If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday” (Isaiah 58:10).

Darkness will not overcome God’s light. “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” (John 1:4-5).

Then I thought of the darkness of the seed in the ground and the butterfly forming in the chrysalis. Some day beauty will come from patient waiting in darkness. Light and warmth will surge into new growth. Elisabeth Elliot used to say that you can’t have resurrection without first having death. “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).

This turned out to be a more extensive study than I thought it would be. And that’s not even including verses about night.

Darkness is still not my favorite, but I don’t think it’s supposed to be. In John 3:19, Jesus said, “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.” There’s so much imagery, especially in the New Testament, about Jesus being light and our need to turn from darkness to light (Acts 26:18), cast off the works of darkness (Romans 13:12), and so on.

Also, sometimes darkness doesn’t indicate evil, but something hidden and unknown. For instance, in 1 Kings 8, Solomon’s temple has just been finished and the ark of the covenant has been brought in. “And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord. Then Solomon said, ‘The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick darkness'” (verses 10-12). When Moses was given the Ten Commandments, “These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain out of the midst of the fire, the cloud, and the thick darkness, with a loud voice; and he added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me” (Deuteronomy 5:22).

Ecclesiastes 11:8 says, “So if a person lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.” A note on the word vanity says it means “vapor” or “a mere breath.” Our lives seem to pass away like mist.

But “It is you who light my lamp; the Lord my God lightens my darkness” (Psalm 18:28). God gives us abundant hope in darkness.

Psalm 18:28. God lightens my darkness.

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

Laudable Linkage

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Some of the thought-provoking reads from this week:

The Worshiper, HT to Challies. Interesting twist at the end of this one.

How to Make the Bible Come Alive. I always cringe at this phrase, because the Bible IS living (Hebrews 4:12)–we don’t make it come alive. But that’s exactly what Ryan Higginbottom talks about here: how to deal with and present the Bible in the faith that it is living and active. I especially liked this: “Some leaders break out the bells and whistles. They think that if they jazz up the setting, or the presentation, or the activities, then people will really pay attention and get a lot out of the Bible study. However, this approach is doomed from the start. It presumes that the Bible is (at worst) boring or (at best) inert, and that what God really needs is a good carnival barker.”

The Halloween Night That Changed My Life, HT to Challies. I loved reading this testimony that “God’s grace is stronger than the hardest heart.”

When Art Reminds Us of Eternal Truth, HT to the Story Warren. “‘…The Lion of Lucerne is the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world.’ —Mark Twain. Art has a transcendent quality. It can cause us to contemplate the struggles and joys of human experience. Sometimes it overwhelms us with the beauty of the mundane or the eternal. I believe that the search for truth, beauty, and goodness is inherent to the artistic process and is so embedded in the human heart that even if artists do not acknowledge the Creator in their hearts, their art often communicates some truth of the Divine.”

Toxic, HT to Challies. “‘Toxic’. It’s a word that has invaded Christian speech, but could I suggest a moratorium on this adjective, please? For two reasons: . .” I especially like the second one.

In the End, There Are Yellow Tulips, HT to Challies. “When I walked into the church, she stood there with an apron on and a bouquet of yellow tulips extended towards me. I put my hands out and took them as she pulled me close in a hug. She knew those yellow tulips wouldn’t fix the hurt. She knew those yellow tulips would die in a few days. But that wasn’t the point. She saw me.”

A Grandmother’s Heart for Her Loved Ones, HT to Challies. “Grandmama bear wanted to confront those who’d wreaked havoc, demand an explanation, and describe the painful aftermath of their actions. But in the two decades since the horn-blowing incident, my spirit has become quieter and gentler because of the influence of the Spirit that dwells within me. So instead of lashing out, I took my jumbled emotions to the One who hears it all and bears it all.”

Should I Charge Other Christians for My Expertise? HT to Challies. “People just ask them to do little jobs or little consultations, say, in the evening or after church — it’s their gift, after all — without even thinking how this may be unbiblical by mooching or exploiting.”

It’s not about the nail, HT to Tammy. This video is a hilarious take on the “Don’t try to fix it, just listen” stance.

Thankful quote from Spurgeon

Friday’s Fave Five

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Once again another week has flown by, and we’re pausing with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to remember some of the good things that have happened.

1. Dry ice “experiments.” We had gotten some dry ice to use at our family Halloween party, but had quite a bit left. Jim texted Jason and Mittu a link about some other things they could do with dry ice. They invited us over on Saturday to do some of those dry ice activities with Timothy. As it happened, when Jason went to get the dry ice out of the freezer–the bags were empty. The dry ice had turned back into a gas, I guess because their freezer wasn’t as cold as dry ice needs to stay solid. Since we were set up and planning to play with it, Jason set out to find some more, having to go to four stores before he found any. But Timothy had such fun mixing up water with food coloring or dish soap and dropping dry ice in, then using different utensils on it. We found that if you squeeze dry ice with tongs, it makes a screeching sound. And Jim and Jason got curious about what would happen if you put water and dry ice in a water bottle with the lid on. Short answer: it explodes loudly. (There’s a sheriff’s deputy living in Jason’s neighborhood, and we were a little afraid he would come over to investigate the noises we were making on the back deck. He didn’t, thankfully.) Near the end of the activities, Timothy proclaimed, “I love science!” 🙂 Then Mittu made stir-fry for us, and we played a couple of rousing hands of Uno.

2. Voting. I’m thankful we have that privilege in this country.

3. Veteran’s Day in the USA today. I am abundantly thankful for those who have served our country, often in unseen ways, at great sacrifice to their families.

4. Getting an hour back. I don’t really like changing the time back and forth, nor the early darkness. But I do like that extra hour once a year from “falling back.”

5. Apple cider. We usually just have this a couple of times a year, but Jim and I discovered we both like having an alternative hot drink. Neither of us likes hot tea, but we usually want more warm drinks in cold weather than coffee.

I hope you’ve had a good week as well!

Dracula

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I’ve never been much into horror or “monster” stories, except for an afternoon TV program that was popular when I was a teenager (what is it with teens and vampires?)

But last spring, my oldest son told me about Dracula Daily. Dracula by Bram Stoker is epistolary novel, made up of dated notes, letters, telegrams, and journal entries. Dracula Daily sent out excerpts from the book on the dates of the letters, etc., so the reader got them in “real time.” There would be weeks with nothing, but then there would be several journal entries on one day when something major was happening.

I decided it might be fun to experience the novel that way, so I signed up. I didn’t think to mention it in my end-of-month posts where I listed my current reading, I guess because it wasn’t in my usual reading format.

The story begins with Jonathan Harker, a new solicitor, traveling from England to Transylvania with some paperwork for a Count Dracula, who has just bought property in England. After some weird and frightening occurrences, Jonathan finally makes it to Dracula’s castle. The Count seems nice enough, but the remoteness of the castle, the wildness of the land, the howling of wolves nearby, all seem spooky.

Over several days Jonathan notices weird things about the Count himself. He never eats. He sleeps during the day and is awake at night. He has very sharp, canine-like teeth.

Things just keep getting weirder and more horrible. And then Jonathan discovers he is imprisoned. When he finally escapes, he lands in a mental asylum for a time.

Meanwhile, back in England, Jonathan’s fiance, Mina, wonders why she has not heard from him. Mina travels to be with her lifelong friend, Lucy Westerna, whose mother is seriously ill. Lucy receives three proposals of marriage in one day, but she loves one man: Arthur Godalming.

But after a while, Lucy begins sleepwalking, and then exhibiting strange symptoms, and then becomes anemic.

Jonathan makes it home, and he and Mina get married. He doesn’t tell her all that has happened to him, but he writes it down. He tells Mina where it is and invites her to read if it she wants, but she decides not to—yet. And then one day while Jonathan and Mina are in town, Jonathan sees Dracula.

Meanwhile, Dr. John Seward, one of Lucy’s rejected suitors, is called to check on her. He calls in his friend, Van Helsing, who suspects he knows what Lucy’s problem is. He orders a blood transfusion and other measures, but doesn’t say why or what he’s thinking. Things might have gone better if he had, because people who didn’t understand accidentally sabotaged his efforts. But then, he probably would not have been believed.

Finally Van Helsing does tell the others about the Count, and they all team up together to find and destroy him.

As it happens, the Literary Life Podcast started doing a series on Dracula on Oct. 31 (appropriately). I’ve only listened to the introductory episode so far, but it was pretty fascinating and enlightening. According to those doing this podcast, in Victorian times (when Stoker wrote Dracula), monsters in stories represented the devil. (Dracula, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and The Picture of Dorian Gray were all written within ten years of each other). Stoker even chose the name Dracula because he thought it meant devil. These were classic good vs. evil stories in which evil must be defeated.

The podcasters say it wasn’t until after Freud that people began to sympathize with the monster, wondering what in his background made him like he was, seeing him as the victim instead of the victimizer. And in our day, people try to infuse modern sensibilities into old stories. But I agree with the podcasters that to truly understand what writer meant, we have to understand the context and times in which he or she wrote.

They also share some interesting tidbits that I would never have picked up on my own. For instance, Jonathan is traveling into Transylvania on the eve of St. George Day. That evening was something like our Halloween, and in those times, superstitious folks thought evil creatures were free to roam the earth that one night.

Then the meticulous record keeping later on is supposedly a nod to the Enlightenment–that even though this is a fantastic tale, they’re going to handle it in a very scientific manner. Yet there’s also a nod to Shakespeare’s quote in Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy”–there are things that enlightened science and technology can’t explain or handle.

The podcasters (one of whom is a literature teacher) also said that Stoker was not the first to write a vampire story, but he established some of the tropes of vampire lore that still hold today. Yet the modern vampire story is very different from his. They said the idea of the mysterious sensual stranger vampire came from a story written by Lord Byron, which he wrote when he hosted a party in which the participants were challenged to write a scary story. Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein then. Byron left his story unfinished, but his friend and doctor, John Polidori, wrote a similar one based on Byron. Byron was angry with him and terminated him, and then Polidori published his novel in revenge (You can read more about that here).

I thought Dracula was very well-written. It was both suspenseful and scary, yet with a thread of hope throughout.

Some of my favorite quotes from the book:

We learn from failure, not from success!

How good and thoughtful he is; the world seems full of good men—even if there are monsters in it.

Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings.

Though sympathy alone can’t alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable.

She is one of God’s women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist—and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish.

It is in trouble and trial that our faith is tested—that we must keep on trusting; and that God will aid us up to the end.

We believe that God is with us through all this blackness, and these many dark hours. We shall follow him; and we shall not flinch.

I’m looking forward to learning more from the Literary Life Podcast.

The text of Dracula is available at Project Gutenberg. Dracula Daily also has their missives in the archives.

I’m counting this book for the Mystery/Crime/Detective category of the Back to the Classics Challenge. Even though it’s both a horror and a Gothic novel, I think it fits as a mystery because who the Count is and what’s going on with him and then with Lucy, are all mysteries to the other characters. The Count does commit crimes. And then the measures to find him all fit with a detective story.

Bringing Maggie Home

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In Bringing Maggie Home by Kim Vogel Sawyer, Hazel DeFord was ten years old when her mother asked her to take her three-year-old sister, Maggie, to the blackberry thicket to pick berries for a cobbler. Hazel set Maggie down for just a moment while she chased a snake away from a baby bunnies’ nest. When Hazel came back, Maggie was gone. None of the volunteers could find a trace of Maggie besides her hair ribbon, shoe, and favorite doll.

Hazel felt incredibly guilty for leaving Maggie unguarded, especially while witnessing the downward spiral Maggie’s disappearance caused in her family. She resolved to be as good as possible so as not to cause them any more trouble.

When Hazel grew up and had her own family, she never told her daughter, Diane, about Maggie. She felt Diane would never be secure with her if she felt she couldn’t trust Hazel to take care of her.

But Diane resented and rebelled against Hazel’s perfectionism and over-protectiveness. Hazel’s concerns came across as controlling to Diane.

But Diane’s daughter, Meghan, loves her grandmother and spends several weeks with her every summer. Now grown and a cold-case detective, Meghan has survived a car crash with a severely broken ankle. She decides to go to her grandmother’s to recuperate and work on some photo albums for Hazel’s upcoming 80th birthday.

Jealous, Diane, decides to come, too, without being invited or letting anyone know. Meghan is wearied playing peacemaker between the two women.

Then an accidental discovery of a shoe box of old photos leads Hazel to tell her daughter and granddaughter the truth.

Meghan and her partner at work, Sean, decide to see if they can uncover any information about Maggie’s disappearance. With the case being 70 years older, older than any case cracked by their agency, solving it is a long shot. But they resolve to try.

I loved this book. I wasn’t sure I would at first, because Hazel’s and Diane’s bickering made me tense. Then I realized the problem was mainly Diane. Hazel’s issues were easier to understand and sympathize with. And Diane’s responses were understandable to an extent. But her bitterness and selfishness got to be a bit much. Still, I felt things would turn a corner at some point, so I persevered. I’m glad I did.

The point of view shifts from each of the women at different times in their lives, and occasionally to Sean’s viewpoint as well. I didn’t feel that the changing viewpoints, timelines, or locations were hard to keep up with at all.

I’ve often said that I appreciate Christian fiction that is unapologetically Christian. I know sometimes the message needs to be subtle, but sometimes subtlety turns into vagueness. It’s good to see an author getting down to the spiritual needs in a story without becoming preachy or beating people over the head with truth. I thought Kim did a great job both with the story and the spiritual issues underneath them.

I didn’t know, when I started this book, that it had a sequel: Unveiling the Past. I will probably be reading or listening to that some time soon.

I listened to the audiobook, nicely read by Barbara McCulloh. Unfortunately, the audiobook didn’t contain any back matter, so I am not sure whether any of the story was based on anything in real life.

You Don’t Have to Choose a Word for the Year

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We’re almost at the time of year when bloggers start considering their word for the next year.

For many, choosing a word for the year replaces a list of resolutions. That one word gives them focus for the year. Christians who do this usually pray about it leading up to the new year and feel this word has been given to them or impressed on them by God. They often plan activities, reading, or Bible study around their word.

I’ve read wonderful testimonies about how God has worked in someone’s heart through meditating on their word for the year.

It’s a fine practice.

I’ve never felt particularly led to do it myself. I’ve studied or focused on one topic for a while, but not necessarily from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31.

Perhaps you’ve never felt led to choose a word for the year and you wonder if you’re missing out. Or perhaps you’ve chosen one in the past but, like a forgotten New Year’s resolution, it soon faded out of memory.

I just want to emphasize a few truths:

God never tells anyone in the Bible to choose a word, a theme, or a verse for the year. He never tells anyone not to do any of those things, either. It’s just one method of studying and applying God’s Word.

God may lay on your heart to study a certain topic, truth, characteristic, etc. from the Bible, and that may or may not coincide with January 1 and may or may not last a year.

Psalm 119:105 says “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Commentary I’ve read for that verse said that the lighting they had in Bible times only shone a step or two ahead. God often guides that way–day by day, just enough for the next step. Of course, He knows what is ahead and may well prepare people for it through a word for the year. But I have found that to happen through my daily Bible reading or sermons or Sunday School lessons I hear. It’s amazing how often God’s truth intersects my experience through a book I picked up seemingly randomly.

What’s more vital than a word for the year is daily seeking God in His Word.

Whether or not one chooses a word for a year, it’s good to read the Word of God every day. God can teach us through an extended focus on one word or concept. But He promises to give us guidance, hope, encouragement, and so much more as we meet with Him daily.

Granted, most people who choose a word for the year don’t do so at the exclusion of other Bible reading. Their main focus might be that one word, but they probably also follow a Bible reading plan and attend a Bible study group or church where they hear other parts of the Bible taught.

There’s value in reading large chunks of the Bible to keep the big picture in mind, and there’s value in camping out in a smaller section for a while. We need the panoramic lens to take in the beauty and wonder of the big picture of God’s Word and to place everything in context. We also need the macro lens for close-ups, for camping out with a verse at a time and mining its truths. I wrote about reasons and ways to do both here. For many, their one word is that close scrutiny.

While many people find great value in choosing a word for the year, those who don’t use that method shouldn’t feel they’re missing out or somehow not as spiritual. People have gotten by for millennia without a word for the year. On the other hand, just because this practice is relatively new doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with it. If choosing a word for the year has been a great blessing for you, or you think it might be, or you think it’s something God wants you to do, go for it, and may God bless you in it.

Jesus said, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Let’s be faithful to partake of that bread in some way every day.

(Revised from the archives)

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

Laudable Linkage

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Here are a few good reads found this week:

Ordinary Chores, Extraordinary Love: Imaging God’s Care for Us, HT the Story Warren. “If God himself works every single day in billions of small, repetitive ways to care for his creation and his children, then maybe our mundane to-do lists are more important than we realize.”

There Are No Insignificant Christians, HT to Challies. “The person sitting in the other pew at church is more glorious than you realize. It is easy for us to look at some of the other people in our church and think, ‘I am glad they are part of this church, but they are not that significant.’ If we feel like that, it exposes a biblical blindness on our part that we need to correct as soon as possible.”

Top 10 Things I wish Worship Leaders would Stop Saying. Yes! I don’t hear all of these, but the ones I do hear bug me. I wrote a post on #3 a while back: God does so much more than show up.

The Body Is Bigger Than You Think, HT to Challies. “One of the best things that could happen to the rank-and-file churchgoing Christian is to get a better sense of the bigness of the Body of Christ. The Church is bigger than your church. The kingdom is bigger than your denomination. God’s people are all over the world, united by a shared love for Jesus and confession of his lordship.”

Four Ways to Help Your Children Love the Church More, HT to Challies. “It pays to ask the question, before our children drift away, how we can help them love the local church. Here are a bunch of ways we might do that.”

The Scariest Story and the Greatest Hero. I haven’t read the book or seen the movie mentioned, but I appreciated these thoughts on helping kids navigate and learn from scary things.

Friday’s Fave Five

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Here we are at the first Friday of November. Our trees are past peak color, but there are still plenty of beautiful autumn leaves outside. Nights were in the 50s, and days got up to mid-70s this week. I’m thankful for this weekly opportunity to pause and reflect with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. A joint church service. The church we have been visiting prays faithfully for their “sister church,” a Black church about twenty minutes away. Last Sunday, they held a joint service with the theme of Psalm 133:1: “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” Different people from both churches sang, testified, read Scripture, and spoke. The styles of singing and preaching were different, but it’s good to experiences those differences. It was such a wonderful day.

2. A neighborhood get-together. One of our neighbors used to organize a big neighborhood cook-out on July 4th each year. The practice kind of fell off for several reasons, and then the pandemic hit. Last Sunday afternoon, we had the first big get-together in a long time. I met some new neighbors and touched base with some old ones. An added blessing: intermittent rain had been predicted, so one lady opened her garage for the get-together. But, though it rained that morning, the afternoon was dry. Plus the temperatures were comfortable. We were able to set up lawn chairs in the driveway while keeping the food and drinks in the garage.

3. Family dress-up party. When the pandemic closed down the usual places my son and daughter-in-law used to take my grandson trick-or-treating, they asked if we could have a family party on Halloween night. We’ve done that ever since. Here are our costumes for this year:

Mittu made some yummy chicken sandwiches and these two cute pies, one apple and one blueberry.

4. Mammogram done. Nice to have it behind me for another year. I don’t have the results yet, but the first look didn’t seem show anything alarming.

5 Operation Christmas Child. After my mammogram appointment, I stopped by two different dollar stores and then packed my OCC box last night. I love participating in this.

Bonus. The Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions started this week. Host Ken Jennings said it was their “Academy Awards, World Series, PhD Defense, and Homecoming Week all rolled into one.” This has been a season of super-champions. It’s fun to see some of my favorite players again, and it will be exciting to see which of them comes out on top.

How was your week?

Christmas Reading Challenges

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I always enjoy reading books about or set during Christmas in December. There are a couple of reading challenges where we can share about the Christmas books we’ve read.

I’ve participated in the Literary Christmas Challenge hosted by Tarissa at In the Bookcase for a number of years. Details about this year’s challenge, which runs from now til Dec. 31, are here.

A new challenge to me is the Ho-Ho-Ho Readathon hosted by Caffeinated Reviewer. The challenge details are here. There will be prizes! 🙂 This one runs just from November 18-30—maybe to get us in the right spirit for Christmas?

I usually try to wait til Thanksgiving to read Christmas books, but I may start earlier this year.

I like to read some kind of Christmas or Advent devotional book in December, and Tim Challies shared a good list of some I don’t have. But I decided to try Hannah Anderson’s Heaven and Nature Sings: 25 Advent Reflections to Bring Joy to the World.

I’ve collected most of these on Kindle sales over the last few years. I don’t know how many I’ll get to, but some are novellas or novella collections.

Hope for Christmas: A Small Town Christmas Romance Novella by Malissa Chapin

It’s a Wonderful Christmas: Classics Reimagined by Julie Cantrell, Lynne Gentry, Allison Pittman, Kelli Stuart, Janyre Tromp

Midnight, Christmas Eve by Andy Clapp

Christmas in Mistletoe Square
by Cara Putman, Teresa Tysinger, Pepper Basham, Janine Rosche

Magnolia Mistletoe: An Edisto Christmas Novella by Lindsey P. Brackett

A Goose Creek Christmas by Virginia Smith

The 20th Christmas by Andrea Rodgers

A Christmas Snow by Jim Stovall

A Christmas Bride by Melanie Dobson

This one is a free audiobook for Audible subscribers. I’ve not heard of the author, but the reviewers say it’s sweet and clean.

Snowed In for Christmas by Cami Checketts

I might also listen again to The Christmas Hirelings by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. I really enjoyed this audiobook a few years ago, plus I like Victorian-ish stories at Christmas, too.

I have a couple of Christmas story collections in print books: The Best of Christmas in My Heart by Joe Wheeler and Stories to Read at Christmas by Elsie Singmaster. I might try to read one or both of those.

Three Fifty-Seven

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I had never heard of Hank Stewart or Kendra Norman-Bellamy, but their book, Three Fifty-Seven: Timing Is Everything was free for Audible subscribers.I really liked the premise, so I decided to give it a try.

Ms. Essie is an elderly lady who lives alone. Her husband died very young, but she never wanted to remarry. The family for whom she acted as caregiver in their last days left her their home and enough income to be comfortable.

As Ms. Essie sits on her porch and knits, she can’t help but be aware of some of her neighbors’ problems. The single mother yells a lot, and her teenage son shows disrespect and stays out past curfew. A regular jogger from down the street seems to be running from something rather than just running for her health. Angel, her best friend’s granddaughter, is married and expecting her first child. All is well with Angel and her husband until an accident seems to have harmed the baby.

Ms. Essie decides to be as helpful and available as possible. When her neighbors are outside, she invites them in for lemonade and peach cobbler. She offers a listening ear, prayer, and a bit of advice. As their problems intensify, so do her prayers.

As the subtitle indicates, time is a factor in the book. Each chapter starts with the time of day.

We all need a Ms. Essie in our lives. Though I didn’t like the ending, I loved the story and the truth that God can work through us if we’re available to Him.

My only minor complaint about Essie is that the authors may have made her a little too special in the sense of knowing just what to say or how to get people to share their troubles. One character says Essie “had a direct line to heaven, and God told her things He told no one else.” I wish that had been dialed back a bit and she were more ordinary–that would be more encouragement to those who don’t reach out because they don’t know what to do or say.

Unfortunately, for me a major flaw was bedroom scenes or descriptions that went too far. I don’t want or need to know the details. For that reason, I probably wouldn’t look into a book by these authors again. And that’s really a shame, because otherwise this was a great book.