Category Archives: Books

Who Was Isobel Kuhn?

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Who was Isobel Kuhn?

Several weeks ago, the chapter I submitted to my critique group mentioned Isobel Kuhn a couple of times. I was surprised that several of the women in the group weren’t familiar with her.

In my early married life, the ladies’ group of the church we attended had a lending library. Isobel’s books were among the most often checked-out. She was as well known in that time and place as Elisabeth Elliot or Amy Carmichael. I believe that’s where I first heard of Isobel: I know that’s when I started reading her books.

Isobel was a Canadian missionary with China Inland Mission (founded by Hudson Taylor) to the Lisu tribe in China from 1928 to 1950, when forced out by the Communists. She and her husband, John, ministered in Thailand for just a few years until she was diagnosed with cancer. She died in 1957 at the age of 55.

She had grown up in a Christian home in Vancouver. In her book, By Searching: My Journey Through Doubt Into Faith, she writes that when she left for a secular college, her parents armed her with all kinds of arguments against modernism.

In one of her first classes, her professor asked if anyone still believed in heaven and hell, in Genesis, etc. Only Isobel and one other student raised their hands. The professor didn’t present arguments against the Bible: he only said, “Oh, you just believe that because your papa and mama told you so.”

On the way home from class, Isobel examined why she believed what she believed in light of what she was learning in her classes and concluded the professor was right: she only believed because of what her parents said. She determined to “accept no theories of life which [she] had not proved personally” (p. 7). She wouldn’t say there was no God, but rather that she didn’t know whether there was or not. Instead of seeking out the answer to such an important question, she determined that, since one can’t know, then it really didn’t matter what one did. She gave up going to church so she could sleep in on Sunday to rest up after parties and dances through the week. She set aside Bible reading, and she gave herself to the activities she had always been taught were “worldly.”

At first everything was pleasant and fun, but she discovered before long that nothing satisfied. One night she was so low that she even contemplated taking her own life. A groan from her father in his sleep in another room reminded her of the devastating effect suicide would have on her family. She prayed, “God, if there be a God, If You will prove to me that You are, and if You will give me peace, I will give you my whole life.”

The rest of the book tells how He answered that prayer. “To find that He is, this is the mere starting-point of our search. We are lured on to explore what He is, and that search is never finished, for it grows more thrilling the further one proceeds” (p. 94).

God led her to a few summer missions conference at The Firs. During one conference, she heard J. O. Frasier speak about the Lisu tribe he ministered to. Her heart was stirred, and eventually she felt led to go to China herself. Frasier became a mentor to Isobel and later to John.

The problem was Isobel’s mother. For all of her missionary work in the church, Isobel’s mother declared that her daughter would go to the mission field only over her dead body. Her mother wanted her to marry well and move in “good society.” The thought of her daughter depending on the charity of others was more than she could bear. Isobel consulted with Frasier, who gave her some sound advice.

Isobel’s second book, In the Arena, tells how God turned her mother’s heart, provided for Isobel to go to Moody Bible College, led her to her husband, John, and then led them both to China. She tells of different events in their family and ministry, then her cancer diagnosis.

Some incidents in Isobel’s life were highly influential to my own. Here are a few of them:

She had covenanted with a group of friends to read the Bible an hour a day for a year. She divided up her hour into two thirty-minute sessions. One day she got back to her room right before dinner. She hadn’t had her second session with the Bible that day and only had the next thirty minutes in which to do so. She had a program to participate in that night and a devotional she was supposed to give which she had not even started to prepare for. She knew she’d be dead tired when she got home: her class was supposed to clean up after the event as well. She debated whether to have her devotional time, go to dinner, or prepare for her talk. Finally she said, “Lord, I choose you.” And in the time with Him, she felt He gave her what to say for her talk.

When she was a little older and living in a noisy boarding house, she couldn’t find a quiet time to read her Bible. She asked God to wake her up at 2 a.m., when the house was quiet.

In her early married life, she joyfully set up her home with weddings gifts. She was excited to receive her first women guests. As she began to talk with them, one blew her nose and wiped the stuff on a her new rug. The other’s baby was allowed to wet all over another rug. Isobel knew that they were not being deliberately offensive: those were just the customs of the country people in that time and place. Yet, naturally, resentment welled up and she had a battle in her heart. She wrote, “If possessions would in any way interfere with our hospitality, it would be better to consign them to the river. In other words, if your finery hinders your testimony, throw it out. In our Lord’s own words, if thine hand offend thee, cut it off. He was not against our possessing hands, but against our using them to hold on to sinful or hindering things.”

Whom God Has Joined is a collection of essays about marriage. It was originally titled One Vision Only and published with biographical remarks by a Carolyn Canfield. I think later versions were published without Canfield’s remarks.

When John proposed, Isobel wrote, “John and I are of very opposite dispositions, each rather strong minded. Science has never discovered what happens when the irresistible force collides with the immovable object. Whatever would happen if they married one another?”

One incident she writes of here occurred when she was telling a story to friends. She was artistic and exuberant and commented that it was “pouring rain.” John corrected her, saying it was “merely raining.” She was indignant that her story was being interrupted by such a minor detail and said, “I didn’t stop to count the raindrops.” He replied that that was just what she should do. He felt she exaggerated and wanted to break her of it. He began “correcting” her prayer letters and stories and began to use the catch-phrase, “Did you count the raindrops?” It was discouraging and distressing to her and she felt it had a stilted effect on her writing. She tells how over time the Lord used this to help her husband appreciate his wife’s gift of imagination and expression and helped her to be more accurate. She commented on the need for prayer, bearing with one another, and forgiveness. “The passion for accuracy plus a sympathetic imagination which relives another’s joys and sorrows—that is double effectiveness. Either quality working unrestrained by itself would never have been so effective. But it cost mutual forgiveness and endurance to weld these two opposites into one!”

Another time, she and her husband had a sharp disagreement. Angry and resentful, she walked out of the house, not caring where she went, just to get away from it all. Gradually she came to herself and realized she was in a little Chinese village as darkness was nearing. In that time and culture that was not done: “good women were in their homes at such an hour.” She felt as if the Lord were saying to her, “You have not considered Me and My honor in all this, have you?” She felt convicted her that she had not even invited Him into the situation. She confessed that was true, asked Him to work it out, and went home. And He did.

One of my favorite pieces of Isobel’s writings was a chapter titled “A Sense of Him” in her book, Second-Mile People. I wrote more about it here. She tells of one particular friend who carried a sense of God’s presence and peace through everything she did, even laughing and chatting.

Her book Green Leaf in Drought is not about her at all, but rather about Arthur and Wilda Mathews, who were the last CIM missionaries to leave China after it fell under Communist rule. Even though they were not welcome, they were not allowed to leave for some time. I was moved by the hardships they endured, what they learned, and how God provided for them (my review is here).

Most of her other books are about their work in China and Thailand. Some of the people they ministered to became dear to me as well. I anticipate meeting them in heaven some day!

Through her mentions of J. O. Fraser, I read two good biographies of him: Behind the Ranges by Geraldine Taylor and a later one, Mountain Rain, by his daughter, Eileen Crossman.

Isobel’s writing style was engaging and relatable. She was transparent about her faults and foibles and the hard lessons she had to learn.

As I suppose could be said about anyone, I wouldn’t agree with every little thing Isobel said and did. But overall, she sought to follow, serve, love, and obey God. Her life inspired me many times over. If you’ve never read her books, I hope you will.

(Note: some portions of this post were taken from previous posts about Isobel.)

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

Review: Create: Stop Making Excuses and Start Making Stuff

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In Create: Stop Making Excuses and Start Making Stuff, Stephen Altrogge contends that creativity is not just for the artistic. We’re all creative in different ways because we were made in the image of God, who is the ultimate Creator. He gave us whatever creative bents we have, so we should set aside fear, pride, or whatever else trips us up and create for His glory.

However, just because God made us creative doesn’t mean we create masterpieces from the get-go. We will grow in whatever skills we have as we exercise them. “We tend to treat creativity like magic: we should be able to summon it at will. But that’s not how creativity works. Creativity is a muscle that gets stronger with use.” We turn out a lot of bad stuff with glimmers of promise before we grow skilled enough to turn out good results. We shouldn’t get discouraged; that’s just part of the learning process.

We also need to remember our identity is not in anyone else’s opinion, good or bad. Not that others’ opinions don’t matter or aren’t helpful. But ultimately our identity is in being a child of God and our purpose is to please Him.

Also, to create anything, we need to be “filling your brain with ideas,” with creative fuel, by taking in creativity: reading if we’re writers, music if we’re songwriters or composers, etc.

All in all, I appreciated what Stephen had to say. Having read this type of book before, there wasn’t a lot that was new to me. But I need these reminders in my own creative journey.

My biggest problem with the book was its tone, which you can pick up from the subtitle. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t just read Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making by Andrew Peterson (twice in a row because it was so good). Andrew’s tone is warm, gentle, and encouraging. One of my friends described Stephen’s book as a kick in the pants. Some people like that style; I prefer coming-alongside encouragement.

However the book is only 56 pages, and the Kindle version is on sale for 99 cents at the time of this writing. So if you feel your creativity needs some inspiration or prodding, this might be the book for you.

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

Review: Always On My Mind

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Always On My Mind by Susan May Warren

Always On My Mind is the fourth novel in the Christiansen family series by Susan May Warren.

Casper is the fourth child and middle son of the family. The previous book, When I Fall in Love, focused on his older sister, Grace, but also shared Casper’s budding relationship with a new girl in town, Raina.

After a big blow-up near the end of that book, Casper, an archeology major, accepted an invitation to a dig in Honduras. He’s always felt overshadowed by his brothers and wants to do something to stand out on his own. But this dig is going nowhere. Even a side project yields no results. He can’t get Raina off his mind. He decides to forgive the past, go home, and tell Raina he loves her.

But when he gets home, he is surprised to discover that Raina is pregnant and shocked to learn who the father is. Further, Raina wants him to go away and leave her alone.

Raina still loves Caspar, but feels she is damaged and no good for him.

Casper goes back to Deep Haven to help at his family’s resort and work in town until he can decide what to do next. He also helps out at the town Historical Society, where he’s surprised to discover that Raina has come back to Deep Haven, too. Their work throws them together, so they form a tentative friendship.

Caspar is dismayed when Raina starts dating Monty, a bully he knew from high school. But Monty turns on the charm with Raina, and she delights in feeling special in his eyes.

One subplot involves Casper’s discovery of clues from an old local legend about a missing gangster and the steel bonds he supposedly left hidden somewhere.

Another involves oldest brother Darek, featured in the first book in the series, who has taken over running his parents’ resort after they retired. But the responsibilities of repairs and projects and the lack of customers and therefore income weigh heavily on him. His long hours away from home start taking a toll on his family. He wonders if he should go back to firefighting.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m not keen on romances. But I do like good stories where people learn, grow, and overcome. Susan’s stories don’t have the silliness and physicality that some romances do. Plus, I got invested in the family in the first book, and since the series was free at Audible for a time, I decided to follow through.

Susan had written here that part of her reason for writing this series was that she and her husband were in the season of parenting adult children, and she wanted to write about “watching, hoping, praying your adult children into a legacy of faith.” The Christiansen parents, John and Ingrid, are somewhat background characters in the books, but emerge to share a word of wisdom, guidance, or encouragement here and there.

Each story begins a beautiful letter that Ingrid has written to the child featured in that book.

Susan writes that part of her focus in this particular novel is “What do you do when you love someone who seems bent on self-destruction? Worse, when they seem incapable of listening to reason? Pray. Hope. Love anyway.”

There’s kind of an obvious symbolism between Casper’s hunt for lost treasure and Raina being a type of lost treasure.

My only difficulty with this story is that I didn’t care for Raina at first. I didn’t have a problem with the fact that she was a “broken soul,” had a lot of baggage, and needed redemption. I just didn’t see any qualities that would cause Casper to fall in love with her. But by the end of this story, I did.

On a side note, for some reason, the audiobook covers are different from the e-book and print covers. I like the book covers much better.

Review: A Noble Scheme

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A Noble Scheme by Roseanna M. White

A Noble Scheme is the second novel in Roseanna M. White’s Imposters series. The first book, A Beautiful Disguise, established that The Imposters were a private investigation firm in the early 1900s. Siblings Yates and Marigold Fairfax learned that their father’s spendthrift ways had left no money. One of his whimsical purchases had been an entire circus which stayed at the estate when not traveling. The circus performers and animals became close friends of the Fairfaxes. Yates and Marigold had learned acrobatics, theatrics, and other performance tricks from them. They decided to use these skills to support themselves and their circus friends by maintaining their place in society and secretively, in disguise, investigating matters for high-end clientele.

However, in A Nobel Scheme, a waiter comes to them–someone who could not afford them. Yet when they hear that his son has been kidnapped, mistaken for his almost identical wealthy cousin, the team accepts the case pro bono.

Gemma Parks is also part of the Imposters. She writes a society column as G. M. Parker and fills in however she can. She keeps her ears open in society functions and sometimes masquerades as Marigold so Marigold can look for clues.

Graham Wharton is the Fairfaxe’s distant cousin who came to live with them when his parents died. He’s an architect who can help the Fairfaxes find tunnels or keeps or hiding places in old houses.

Graham and Gemma had grown up together and fallen in love. But in the last book, they were estranged. Several references were made to what had happened between them, but that situation wasn’t explained until this book. It’s a pretty big reveal, so I won’t spoil it.

Gemma avoids Graham as much as she can, but they try to put aside their differences for the cases they are working on. This particular case throws them together more than normal. Graham hopes to win Gemma back, but she can’t forgive him. He, in turn, blames God. He acknowledges his foolishness in what happened, but God could have prevented it.

I love that this series is different from the usual historical fiction fare. The themes of faith and forgiveness are woven in naturally. Roseanna is one of my favorite authors, and this book didn’t disappoint.

Some of my favorite quotes:

The more she wrote for herself, the more herself she became.

Words were wily things—but they were miraculous too. They created, they shaped, they breathed life. God had used them to form the universe, and Christ had come as a living Word to write Himself onto the hearts of humankind. Was it any wonder, then, that words had pulled her from the brink of darkness and delivered her, however slowly, back to the Light?

I enjoyed the audiobook nicely read by Susan Lyons. Sadly, the audiobook didn’t include any author’s notes. But I found this interview in which Roseanna shares how she came to write about nobility hosting a circus and investigating in disguise.

Review: Proverbs for Life for Women

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Proverbs for Life for Women

Proverbs for Life for Women is a gift book compiled by Lila Empson for Zondervan in 2003.

The book looks very much like a gift book. It has a puffy hardback cover, lovely pages, and a ribbon bookmark. The size is a little under 6×7″.

There are about 46 readings grouped into several categories: the Righteous Woman, Virtuous Woman, Faithful Woman, Confident Woman, etc.

Each reading contains a verse from the book of Proverbs in the Bible, a story illustrating the proverb, a conclusion, a “Try this” action suggestion, and a few other proverbs or quotes.

Proverbs for Life for Women

This book mostly uses the Good News Translation of the Bible (formerly Good News or Modern Man, now often called Today’s English Version). This is not my favorite version, for a number of reasons. It translates the thought of a passage rather than the words. It succeeds in its goal of having an easily readable text, but it sacrifices some accuracy. I think a different Bible translation would have made this book a lot stronger.

Also, I wouldn’t endorse all the people the book quotes from.

Just about the time I thought this book seemed a little lightweight in content, I’d read a section that was particularly helpful and meaningful.

So, this book has a lot of good points, more good than bad. But it could have been much better with a little tweaking.

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

Review: When I Fall in Love

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When I Fall in Love by Susan May Warren

Susan May Warren’s Christiansen family series centers on six fictional adult siblings and their parents and friends in the small town of Deep Haven, Minnesota. The family runs an old-fashioned resort (cabins but no Internet).

Though all the family plus several side characters appear in each book, each focuses mainly on the story of one sibling.

When I Fall in Love is the third in the series, about second-oldest sister Grace. Grace loves cooking and wants to go to culinary school. But she’s also a homebody who doesn’t like to venture out of her comfort zone.

When she caters her oldest brother’s wedding, the family thanks her by pitching in to surprise her with a three-week trip to a cooking school in Hawaii.

But Grace is not pleased. She’s terrified.

Her sister’s fiance, a hockey player on the professional team in Minneapolis, chose this particular school because his teammate, Max Sharp, is going there, too. He asks Max to keep an eye on Grace and help her out.

Max is less than thrilled. He goes on a cooking vacation each year somewhere where he’s not known. He gives the bulk of his year to hockey. For that one month, he just wants to get away by himself and do something different.

Grace is not happy, either. She doesn’t want Max to feel he has to baby-sit her.

But when they meet on the airplane, each not knowing who the other is at first—well, this is a romance novel, so you know they are going to be attracted.

The problem is, Max never planned to be attracted to anyone. He’s the carrier for a disease that killed his father early and will probably take his life as well. He can never ask a woman to be part of his life knowing what she will have to go through, only to end up alone.

Grace tests his resolve, though.

In the subplot, Grace’s friend and coworker, Raina, had helped cater Grace’s brother’s wedding. She’s fairly new to town and has had a hard background. Her only remaining family is her aunt Liza in Deep Haven. Raina is not religious, but she attends church because her aunt requires her to.

Grace’s brother, Owen, seeks Raina out after the wedding, making Raina feel special. But she doesn’t know that Owen is in a downward spiral. He was a rising hockey star, only to be sidelined by a devastating injury. The fame and money had gone to his head, and the injury and loss of his career has sent him further to the wild side. He only uses Raina for a one-night stand.

Raina is bitter against all the Christiansen men. But when she gets to know Casper, the college-aged brother home for a semester, she finds he is much different from Owen.

I liked the themes of getting out of one’s comfort zone and trusting God with the unknowns in life.

I didn’t like so much the family pushing Grace out of her comfort zone. Older sister Eden, in particular, comes across really pushy and bossy here. I hadn’t gotten that vibe from her in the book focusing on her (It Had to Be You). Not only does she propel Grace into the trip, she wants Grace to cater her wedding with Hawaiian food–as if cooking in Hawaii for three weeks makes Grace an expert. The fact that Eden didn’t listen to Grace and kept insisting really bothered me.

Plus, the author has God answering Grace directly several times when she prays about something.

Also, though we’re spared a bedroom scene with Owen’s indiscretion, we’re still shown more than I would have liked.

Even with those caveats, though, I found much to enjoy in this story. Just like in real life, we get ourselves in messes. But God offers healing and redemption.

I had listened to the audiobook, which unfortunately didn’t contain any of the author’s notes about what inspired this story. However, I did find a bit of background on Susan’s site here.

Review: Be Skillful (Proverbs)

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Be Skillful: Wiersbe Commentary on Proverbs.

In Be Skillful (Proverbs): God’s Guidebook to Wise Living, pastor and Bible teacher Warren Wiersbe notes, “We are living in the information age, but we certainly are not living in the age of wisdom” (p. 11, Kindle version).

The book of Proverbs is one of the Bible’s wisdom books. Of course, we can gain wisdom all through the Bible, but Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon, are grouped together as wisdom books.

Wiersbe goes on to say, “It isn’t enough simply to be educated and have knowledge, as important as education is. We also need wisdom, which is the ability to use knowledge. Wise men and women have the competence to grasp the meaning of a situation and understand what to do and how to do it in the right way at the right time” (p. 16).

“Biblical wisdom has little if any relationship to a person’s IQ or education, because it is a matter of moral and spiritual understanding. It has to do with character and values; it means looking at the world through the grid of God’s truth” (p. 17).

“Biblical wisdom begins with a right relationship with the Lord. The wise person believes that there is a God, that He is the Creator and Ruler of all things, and that He has put within His creation a divine order that, if obeyed, leads ultimately to success” (p. 17).

“The first essential for an effective study of Proverbs is faith in Jesus Christ so that you can honestly call God your Father. You can’t make a life until you first have life, and this life comes through faith in Jesus Christ (John 3: 16, 36)” (p. 26).

The bulk of Proverbs is made up of individual sayings. “Proverbs are pithy statements that summarize in a few choice words practical truths relating to some aspect of everyday life. The Spanish novelist Cervantes defined a proverb as ‘a short sentence based on long experience'” (p. 20). But these proverbs are not just clever sayings: they are God’s inspired Word and profitable for doctrine, correction, reproof, and instruction just like the rest of the Bible (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Normally, Dr. Wiersbe’s comments follow the chapters of the book of the Bible he is discussing. In this commentary, however, he groups his remarks as to the categories in Proverbs: the contrast between wisdom and foolishness, diligence and laziness, the virtuous woman and the “strange” woman, etc., and characters like the drunkard, glutton, the simple, scoffer, fool, king, parents and children, and so on.

As to why God directed the writers of Proverbs to lay out the book this way, Wiersbe has a couple of suggestions. Most people didn’t have their own copies of the Scriptures. Short, pictorial statements would have been easier to remember that a lecture. Plus, “Just as the Bible itself isn’t arranged like a systematic theology, neither is Proverbs. What Solomon wrote is more like a kaleidoscope than a stained-glass window: We never know what the next pattern will be” (p. 22). Some make a practice of reading a chapter of Proverbs each day of the month. They receive wisdom on a variety of topics to carry with them throughout the day.

It had been a while since I had read Proverbs. I enjoyed thinking through it again along with Dr. Wiersbe’s insights.

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

Review: It Had to Be You

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In It Had to Be You by Susan May Warren, Eden Christiansen feels like she’s forever on the sidelines. Her other siblings have stand-out talents. Eden always dreamed of being a reporter. She landed a job with the city newspaper, but she’s stuck as an obituary writer.

Since she lives in the same town as her younger hockey-player brother, Owen, and she’s the only family member there, she goes to his games and watches out for him. She sees that the fame, acclaim, and money has gone to his head. But he won’t listen to her admonitions. It doesn’t help that Owen idolizes his team captain, Jace, who has a bad-boy reputation on and off the ice.

When Jace and Eden meet, they clash immediately. She berates him for not being a better example to his team.

Jace, meanwhile, has his own problems. Several slams on the ice have resulted in too many concussions and regular migraines. He has nothing else but hockey, so he keeps going despite doctors’ warnings. When he tries to avoid fights during games, his value drops in the eyes of his team, agent, and the spectators.

And there is a side to Jace that others rarely see. He helps his best friend, Sam, run a restaurant and helps Sam take care of his daughter, a heart transplant patient.

Owen, in a moment of carelessness, sustains a devastating injury. While visiting him in the hospital, Jace and Eden accidentally discover a John Doe, an unidentified patient in a coma. They are thrown together to try to find John Doe’s family.

I don’t read romance novels very often. They can be somewhat silly and too focused on the physical. But Susan’s don’t seem to be that way so far.

I got a little irritated with both characters’ tendency to create a whole scenario of what they thought the other was thinking from a line or gesture or silence. It’s not usually good to assume motives no matter how well we know someone. But learning not to judge or assume is part of what they experienced here.

Another theme throughout the book is letting go of things we can’t and weren’t meant to control.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. A couple of my favorite quotes:

Minnesota grew hockey players like pine trees.

There’s always light . . . God’s love is too bright for the darkness to win.

This book is the second in the Christiansen family series. The first was Take a Chance on Me. Since the sequels were free in Audible’s Plus Catalog, I am listening to them before they are rotated out.

Review: Life Without Limits

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When Nick Vujicic was born without arms and legs, his parents were shocked and grieved. They were concerned about how he could ever grow up to be independent. They were devout Christians yet wondered why God would allow such a thing to happen.

Nick wondered the same thing as he got older.

I have to confess, I wondered the same thing. Even with as much comfort and reassurance I’ve received studying God’s reasons for allowing suffering, and as much as I have come to trust His character and will, thinking of a person growing up in this condition was hard to come to grips with.

Maybe that’s why I had Nick’s book, Life Without Limits: Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life, on the shelf for so long without picking it up. It was one we had bought for my husband’s mother. I remember her saying her tears were streaming as she read this, and she felt she had nothing to complain about after reading this book.

Recently, I saw several Facebook posts from friends about a young wife and mother they knew who ended up in the hospital with several severe infections. The doctor said her condition was a 10 out of 10 on the scale of a serious illness. The treatment reduced blood flow to her limbs, which resulted in amputation of both arms and legs. She’s been in the hospital since December.

As my heart went out to this family and I’ve been praying for them, I decided to pick up Nick’s book to see how he dealt with his situation.

After his parents’ initial shock, they strove to give him as normal a life as possible. He was a determined little boy and found ways to do most things he wanted to do.

However, school was a different story. His family wanted him to attend regular classes rather than special-needs classes. He faced the cruel remarks of some of his classmates, which was depressing. He was even suicidal at one point until his father encouraged him.

Nick found that often he had to be the one to reach out to make people feel comfortable approaching him. That and a good sense of humor helped people to see he was just a regular guy on the inside.

Discussions with others about how he coped with no limbs led to speaking to student, church, and youth organizations. In the years since, speaking became Nick’s vocation and ministry, not only in his native Australia, but around the world.

This book is part memoir, part motivational encouragement. He does include Christian principles but also a lot of secular motivation (love yourself, etc.).

Some of the quotes that stood out to me:

Experiences like that helped me realize that being “different” just might help me contribute something special to the world. I found that people were willing to listen to me speak because they had only to look at me to know I’d faced and overcome my challenges. I did not lack credibility. Instinctively, people felt I might have something to say that could help them with their own problems (pp. 20-21).

As difficult as it might be to live without limbs, my life still had value to be shared. There was nothing I lacked that would prevent me from making a difference in the world. My joy would be to encourage and inspire others. Even if I didn’t change this planet as much as I would like, I’d still know with certainty that my life would not be wasted. I was and am still determined to make a contribution (p. 24).

Often the very challenges that we think are holding us back are, in fact, making us stronger. You should be open to the possibility that today’s handicap might be tomorrow’s advantage (pp. 43-44).

Nick was encouraged by the man who was born blind in John 2. The disciples asked Jesus, “Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus responded, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

This book was published in 2010. Since then, Nick has gotten married, had four children, written more books and traveled and spoken to even more people.

I appreciated Nick’s attitude and willingness to help and encourage others.

You might be interested in this piece about Nick on Australia’s 60 Minutes program:

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

Review: Dandelion Summer

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Dandelion Summer by Lisa Wingate

In Dandelion Summer by Lisa Wingate, J. Norman Alvord is a retired widower with heart trouble. As he fades in and out of consciousness from an angina incident, he has a vivid memory of a house with seven chairs and a black maid. His mother never had a maid, and he was an only child. Norman wonders if this is truly a memory or a figment of his imagination. If it’s real, where was this house and who was the woman?

Norman’s daughter, Deborah, is at her wit’s end with her curmudgeonly father. They’ve never gotten along, but she promised her mother she’d take care of him. She tries to nudge him to think about moving to a facility. but he refuses. So for the short term, she hires a woman to come in once a week to clean her father’s house and the woman’s daughter to come in two days a week after school to make dinner, clean up the kitchen, and keep an eye out for her dad.

The daughter, Epiphany, has an Italian mother and black father, though her father is long gone. Epiphany, or Epie, as she is sometimes called, doesn’t feel like she fits in anywhere. She’s bullied at school until the school’s basketball star takes a liking to her. But he is bad news.

Epie and Norman don’t hit it off at first. They are opposites in almost every way. But when Epie agrees to keep some of his secrets, like Norman’s searching for clues about the house in his dreams upstairs, where his daughter has forbidden him to go, Norman grudgingly accepts Epie’s presence. Eventually he tells her what he s searching for and accepts her help bringing boxes from the attic.

Clues and more emerging memories lead Norman and Epie to a road trip for more information. But with Norman’s heart trouble and Epie’s inexperience, will they make it?

The point of view switched back and forth between Norman and Epie. I listened to the audiobook wonderfully read by Jason Culp and Bahni Turpin. Their voices and expressions added so much more to the reading/listening experience.

This book was the fourth in Wingate’s Blue Sky Hill series. I hadn’t read any except the second book, The Summer Kitchen, but I didn’t feel there were any gaps that didn’t make sense. This book stood well enough on its own.

Though I thought the road trip was unlikely in real life, the author made it plausible. I enjoyed the slowly developing relationship between Norman and Epie–first just tolerating each other, then learning to appreciate things about each other, and then coming to truly care for each other like a grandparent and grandchild.

The mystery of Norman’s background was unraveled quite nicely, keeping me curious and invested throughout the book.

I was struck by how both Norman and Epie were misunderstood from the outside. In the book, we’re privy to their thoughts and circumstances that no one else knows. Epie seems like an underachieving student to her teachers, but they have no idea what she has to deal with from the other students and a mom who has gone from man to man. And they don’t take the time to find out what underlying problems there might be. Yet Norman can see her innate intelligence and the need to be nurtured.

Some quotes that stood out to me:

Maybe not everyone got the mom who baked cupcakes and showed up at all the school parties. There weren’t enough of those to go around, so maybe God used other people, like Mrs. Lora and J. Norm, to make sure you learned how to shell a purple hull pea or find Saturn in the night sky.

I would have lived more fully in the moment, realize how easily a perfect day can slip by unnoticed. Any day is the glory day if you choose to see the glory in it.

It’s funny how mistakes are so much clearer after you’ve already made them.

Wingate has a penchant for sometimes halting the flow of dialogue by putting extra information between the speaker’s answers (one of my writing pet peeves). But overall, I really enjoyed this book.