April Reflections

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April Reflections

There are some months I’m glad to finish. January is one, especially this year. But I am not so eager to get through April. I’ve loved the more moderate temperatures between the cold of winter and heat of summer. And seeing the landscape fill with color and life again is heartening.

Nevertheless, time marches on!

Family

Someone asked Jim recently if he had adjusted to retirement. He said there always seemed to be plenty to do, and much of it was a lot more physical than his regular job.

Jim, Jason, Mittu, and Timothy went camping right at the end of last month. Jesse and I joined them for lunch and dinner one day.

Then Jim, Jason, and Timothy drove to OH to see the eclipse. Jeremy, in RI, drove to Montreal for the same reason and made a weekend of it, exploring the city. Cloud cover prevented our seeing much here in Knoxville, but I caught a brief glimpse through a break in the clouds. We were all texting each other leading up to and during the eclipse.

We celebrated Timothy’s tenth birthday. It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since he entered the world as a 3 lb. preemie. Now he’s almost as tall as I am.

The lowest part of the month was a tooth extraction for me. But the procedure and recovery went much better than expected.

Overall, we had a nice blend of activities and rest, and enjoyed dinners at each others houses and other get-togethers. We also enjoyed a school play of “Winnie the Pooh” and dinner at a Mexican food restaurant afterwards.

Creating

I only made one card this month, for Timothy’s birthday:

Ten year old birthday card

The “Happy birthdays” were embossed with the Cuttlebug. The 10 was made with the Cricut machine.

Watching

Jim and I watched Damsel on Netflix, kind of a twist on the fairy tale trope. It starts like a fairy tale: a king running out of money arranges for his oldest daughter to marry the prince of a neighboring kingdom. The prince seems nice enough, so the daughter agrees. The stepmother (not evil this time) senses something wrong and tries to advise against the marriage, but she doesn’t have any concrete reason enough to stop it. I won’t spoil the twist, but the “damsel in distress” ends up having to rescue herself. We started watching it mainly because we liked Millie Bobby Brown so much in the Enola Holmes movies as Sherlock Holmes’ little sister. An added treat was that the queen was played by Robin Wright, who was Buttercup in The Princess Bride. Damsel was a little heavy on the girl-power theme, and gory in a few spots (which you’d expect when fighting dragons). But overall we enjoyed it.

One night when was Jim was camping, I watched the Barbie movie, mainly due to nostalgia. Barbies were my main toys. In fact, my family nickname is Barbie. I thought that came from the doll until I learned she came on the market when I was four. So maybe Barbie was a common nickname then.

I had one of the iconic first Barbies in the black and white striped swimsuit. If I still had it now, it would probably be worth a lot of money! But I gave all of that stuff to my four sisters, so I’m sure none of it survived all those years.

Since I was on the early end of the Barbie craze, I was totally unaware of all the variations and accessories that came later.

The film had a couple of offensive comments. And there was a heavy feminist slant.

But there was also an underlying theme about become “real” (although the narrator had a funny line about trading the plastic of Barbieland for the plastic of L.A., so maybe not totally real after all).

The worst and most disturbing part, to me, was the opening scene, Little girls playing “house” with their baby dolls until the new large-than-life Barbie arrives on the scene. Then they start crashing their baby dolls against the ground while a smiling Barbie looks on, to the tune of the opening music of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I’d never seem that movie, but I’ve read it opens in a similar way: an ape-like creature using another creature’s thigh bone to smash the other bones in the desert. I read somewhere that this was supposed to show that one of the first steps of evolution was to create a weapon. Then the next scene showed a space ship, which, I suppose, is meant to show how far man had evolved. But since I’ve heard that the ship computer goes rogue, maybe it’s saying that man hasn’t evolved very far after all, for all his neat inventions. Or else AI’s next step in evolution is creating a weapon (a scary thought).

Not knowing all that, Barbie’s opening scene seemed at first like an anti-motherhood rant (although later a character concedes that motherhood is okay of that’s what you want). But maybe it’s just meant to show that girls “evolved” beyond baby dolls to more grown-up dolls. I read a comment that this scene was also supposed to show that when Barbie came on the scene, she “smashed” the baby doll industry (although during my entire life, I have always seen baby dolls still for sale).

Also, after the “It’s so hard to be a woman” speech, I thought someone could write how hard it is to be a man in this era as well, especially one in Barbieland.

Anyway. . . enough Barbie philosophizing. 🙂

Reading

Since last time I finished:

I’m currently reading:

  • Be Satisfied (Ecclesiastes): Looking for the Answer to the Meaning of Life by Warren W. Wiersbe, nonfiction
  • The Lazy Genius Way: Embrace What Matters, Ditch What Doesn’t, and Get Stuff Done by Kendra Adachi, nonfiction
  • Lenten Lands: My Childhood with Joy Davidman and C. S. Lewis by Douglas H. Gresham, nonfiction
  • Now and Then and Always by Melissa Tagg, fiction, audiobook
  • Yours Is the Night by Amanda Dykes, fiction

Blogging

Besides the weekly Friday Fave Fives, Saturday Laudable Linkage, and book reviews, I’ve posted these since last time:

Writing

Our critique group will finish its current round through everyone’s turn presenting this week, and we’re gearing up to start a new round.

I did actually get some writing/revising in last month! I hope to do more in the future.

How was your April?

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

Frustrated with God?

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Frustrated with God?

“Do you get huffy with God?”

I had just turned on the radio as I came into the kitchen and heard these words via Elisabeth Elliot’s radio program.

I shifted uncomfortably.

In my more logical moments, I’d say, well, not with Him. With frustrating circumstances, maybe. Yes, that’s it: it’s more like frustration when something happens that He could have prevented.

But in all honesty, I’d have to confess that, in trying moments, sometimes that initial flare-up is directed toward God, followed by much self-chastisement and thought correction.

You know the kind of moments I’m talking about . . .

When you’re running late getting ready for church and drip toothpaste down your front.

When you’re stirring red sauce (why is it always the red sauce?) and some sloshes over onto the stove, floor, and you.

When the computer glitches just before you finish your last task of the day.

When timing matters and you hit every red light on the way to your destination.

When the shortest check-out line contains a customer with a time-consuming problem.

When a much-planned and -prayed for event at church has to be canceled due to bad weather.

When you can’t fall asleep on a Saturday night and you struggle to stay awake in Sunday services.

What’s frustrating about so many of these things is that God could have prevented them. He created the universe and holds it together. He led Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground. Couldn’t He have kept the rain at bay until after the special event? Couldn’t He help us sleep just as well on Saturday nights as any other?

Of course He could. But He doesn’t always.

Some of these situations are our own fault. Toothpaste dribbles and sloshed sauce could be avoided if I were more careful. Red lights wouldn’t make me late if I allowed extra time for travel.

Some irritations come from living in a fallen world. God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45). We all get some of God’s blessings, like air to breathe, sunshine, and needed rain. But we all also have to deal with the thorns of life that begin with the fall of mankind.

We also have an enemy of God and of our souls who tries to disrupt God’s work and disturb our peace. God could thwart or restrain the devil at any given moment, but sometimes He doesn’t.

Even though God could, and often does, intervene in these situations, many times He doesn’t. He has a higher purpose in mind.

I found Elisabeth’s radio program on BBN’s site and tried to transcribe a few paragraphs (1).

Do you get huffy with God? Do you just get mad at the world in general? You think maybe God doesn’t have anything to do with this, but you just get peeved, put out.

I think of the words of the Orthodox morning prayer: “In unforeseen events let me not forget that all are sent by you.”

Would God send such a picky little thing as no first class seats, no air conditioning, no choice of meal [situations she had mentioned earlier in the program]?

You really want to know what I think? I think He does. I know He does send such things to me because God is working on shaping in me the image of Christ.

Now, how am I going to learn acceptance, humility, and contentment if my acceptance, humility, and contentment depend on the way I think things are supposed to be going?

She goes on to define contentment as “positive acceptance of conditions we can’t change.”

She quotes Ephesians 3:20, which says God “is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.” Some translations say “more than we can imagine.” Our imagination likes to focus on deliverance and everything going just like we want. But God’s version of doing something above our imagination might be not changing the situation, but using it to develop in us patience and Christlikeness.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Even in a slow check-out lane or on the highway when someone cuts us off.

It seems easier to trust God with the big trials of life—maybe because they are larger than us or our capacity to handle them. We can’t do anything but entrust Him with them.

But we feel like we should be able to handle the little things. I like what Amy Carmichael once wrote:

The hardest thing is to keep cheerful (and loving) under little things that come from uncongenial surroundings, the very insignificance of which adds to their power to annoy, because they must be wrestled with, and overcome, as in the case of larger hurts. Some disagreeable habit in one to whom we may owe respect and duty, and which is a constant irritation of our sense of the fitness of things, may demand of us a greater moral force to keep the spirit serene than an absolute wrong committed against us (2).

Those little irritations reveal our flesh to us: our sense of entitlement, our selfishness, our impatience. They show us that we need God’s grace and help for everyday frustrations as we do for everything else.

Thank God there is forgiveness with Him, His mercies are new every morning. If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9).

God invites us to “with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16).

Maintaining time in the Word so He can speak to me through it, yielding to His control throughout the day, memorizing verses in the areas I am having trouble with, sending out a quick prayer for help when I feel that agitation and frustration building up will all help in gaining the victory.

Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:16).

__________
(1) BBN Radio keeps the recordings for Elisabeth’s programs up on their website for the week they aired. Some of them are also on the Elisabeth Elliot site, but I couldn’t find this one. BBN lists this program title as “More Questions and Answers (A Simpler Life- Power of Christ #10.” It aired April 11.

(2) Houghton, Frank. Amy Carmichael of Dohnavur. (Fort Washington, PA: Christian Literature Crusade, 1983), 86-87.

(Parts of this post have been revised from the archives.)

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

Laudable Linkage

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Laudable Linkage

Here are a few of the good reads seen online this week:

Borrowing a Death, HT to Challies. “When was the last time you were at a funeral when someone didn’t take the opportunity to talk about their own life when eulogizing the person who has died? We all do it. It’s nearly impossible not to.”

What Is the Ache You Can’t Get Rid Of? HT to Lois. I was very moved by this piece. “What is the ache you can’t get rid of? Whatever it is, listen to it. It might be divinely inspired. A magical calling. Make it your creative offering, and you just might change the world.”

Spiritual Mothers Point Us to Christ, HT to Challies. “The average married couple realizes at some point in their marriage that their spouse will not meet all their needs. As a single woman, I have learned in a different school. God has used Spiritual Mothers to teach me this lesson. Spiritual Mothers are a gracious provision in our lives given by God to both meet needs and to point us to Christ.”

Loosening My Grip. “Maybe you have experienced the same inner war, yearning to risk it all to serve the Savior you are learning to love more and more, but still clinging to the safe and certain.”

For Everything There Is a Seasoning, HT to Challies. A poignant reflection on the loss of a parent.

Taking up our cross

The taking up of the cross is not going to be something heroic or dramatic or enviable.
It’s going to be a daily practice of acceptance of small duties which you don’t really like.
— Elisabeth Elliot

Friday’s Fave Five

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Friday's Fave Five

It’s Friday once again—time to share the blessings of the week with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story.

1. Time with Timothy. My son and daughter-in-law had a meeting that lasted all of Saturday morning, so they brought Timothy here. He and his granddad did some of the experiments from the National Geographic Completely Gross Chemistry Set Tim had gotten for his birthday. 🙂

Gross chemistry

Then they played games on their tablets, then made mini pizzas on gluten-free tortillas. Jason and Mittu came home just in time for lunch.

2. Lunch with Melanie. We usually get together every few weeks, but it had been two months since we last did. I had some Red Lobster gift cards, so we enjoyed good food and a nice long chat.

3. Bible Study. Our ladies’ Bible study ended its trek through Isaiah with a particularly good discussion. We have one more wrap-up meeting and potluck next week, then we’ll break for the summer.

4. Naps. Sunday afternoon naps are the best. 🙂 I’d actually rather not take them on other days, but sometimes that’s the difference between being functional or not the rest of the day.

5. Good books could be listed every week. I finished one recently that I am sure will be a favorite of the year, Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes (linked to my review).

That’s my week—how was yours?

Two Books on Isaiah

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Isaiah is the OT book most quoted in the NT and foretells Christ’s first and second comings as well as His death for our sins.

Isaiah has some of the most well-known Bible passages:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called  Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6).

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:5-6).

Isaiah contains some of my own personal favorite verses, in addition to those above (just to name a couple):

Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand (Isaiah 41:10).

For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15).

But Isaiah is not the easiest book in the Bible to read. It shares prophecies and histories that are a little hard to decipher. An understanding of the historical context is needed to fully comprehend some of the book.

Our Wednesday night Bible studies went just through Isaiah using Tim Chester’s Isaiah for You. I’ve been using Warren Weirsbe’s “Be” commentaries on my current trek through the Bible, but I thought it might be too much to use two sources along with the ESV Study Bible notes. However, the two worked well together.

Isaiah is a long book of 66 chapters. A detailed commentary on every verse would be quite a tome. I’m sure there are some out there. Wiersbe provided short commentary on each chapter. Chester wrote detailed commentary on some of the pivotal passages but briefly summarized the chapters in-between.

Be Comforted, Wiersbe commentary on Isaiah

Wiersbe’ book is Be Comforted (Isaiah): Feeling Secure in the Arms of God. He draws his title from Isaiah 40:1: “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.”

The English word comfort comes from two Latin words that together mean “with strength.” When Isaiah says to us, “Be comforted!” it is not a word of pity but of power. God’s comfort does not weaken us; it strengthens us. God is not indulging us but empowering us. “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength” (p. 11, Kindle version).

The need for comfort arises from the bad news of the first several chapters. Israel has sinned in turning to idols, in worshiping ritually rather than from the heart, and in looking to pagan nations for help instead of God. Because of their unrepentant sin, God had to judge them, and He did so in various ways.

But God’s judgment is meant to be restorative, not just punitive.

The name Isaiah means “salvation of the Lord,” and salvation (deliverance) is the key theme of his book. He wrote concerning five different acts of deliverance that God would perform: (1) the deliverance of Judah from Assyrian invasion (chaps. 36—37); (2) the deliverance of the nation from Babylonian captivity (chap. 40); (3) the future deliverance of the Jews from worldwide dispersion among the Gentiles (chaps. 11—12); (4) the deliverance of lost sinners from judgment (chap. 53); and (5) the final deliverance of creation from the bondage of sin when the kingdom is established (chaps. 60; 66: 17ff.) (p. 25).

Isaiah didn’t preach God’s judgment with glee. “Isaiah was a man who loved his nation. The phrase ‘my people’ is used at least twenty-six times in his book” (p. 16). He also “interspersed messages of hope with words of judgment” (p. 19).

Isaiah for You by Tim Chester

Of course, Chester makes many of the same points and observations that Wiersbe does in Isaiah for You: Enlarging Your Vision of Who God Is. He sees Isaiah as something of “a bridge between the Old Testament and the New Testament” (Location 38).

Before, when I’ve read Isaiah, I’ve gotten a lot out of key passages like chapters 9 and 40 and 53, but I’ve gotten a little lost in some of the details in-between. I found Chester’s short chapter summaries to be very helpful in keeping the narrative and timeline of Isaiah in view.

Chester perhaps emphasizes application a little more than Wiersbe does, though Wiersbe brought out a lot of application as well. One point Chester brings out repeatedly is how these truths in Isaiah should inspire evangelism. God’s ministry with Israel was meant to be a light to other nations as well as their own, and the coming kingdom is one that will include every nation, tribe, and tongue.

They were to live under God’s rule expressed in the law in such a way that the nations would see that it is good to know God (Deuteronomy 4: 5-8). Isaiah himself uses this kind of language in Isaiah 2: 2-5: “Come, descendants of Jacob, let us walk in the light of the Lord.” Why? So that “many peoples will come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord’”. The people of Israel were to attract the nations to God (Location 2321).

Chester also brings many parallels that I hadn’t previously seen before between the exodus of Israel from Egypt and our salvation. He includes Israel’s release from Babylonian captivity as another kind of exodus.

Isaiah doesn’t just deal with Israel’s problems current at the time. He tells them some of what’s coming in their future as well as ours.

And Isaiah lifts us out of the cares of this life to point us towards God and His glory.

And here is a glory that we do not have to earn or create or build. It is the glory of God, and he shares it with us. All we need to do is look! We simply contemplate God’s glory, and, as we contemplate it, we are glorified. So where do we look? God’s word continues: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ” (2 Corinthians 4: 6). We look into the face of Christ. That is where you will see the glory of God, and that is the look that will transform you (Location 1001).

There’s so much more that could be shared, both from Isaiah and these two books. Let me encourage you not to be afraid of reading Isaiah. It provides a rich study, and both of these resources help us understand it.

Review: Whose Waves These Are

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Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes

Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes begins in September, 1944. Identical twin brothers in a small Maine village, Ansel-by-the -Sea, have just turned eighteen. Enlistment in military service has been closed “to protect the home-front work force,” but the draft is in effect. A letter arrives from the President ordering one of the twins to report for duty. Robert Bliss assumes, hopes, the letter is for him. He’s single, ready to go. His brother, Roy, is married to Jenny–the girl Robert has loved for years but didn’t speak up for soon enough. Roy and Jenny have just discovered they’re going to be parents.

But, no. The letter is for Roy.

Robert proposes that he could go in Roy’s place. They’ve stood in for each other many times. But Roy argues that it’s his turn to help save others.

Then we’re whisked to Chicago in 2001, where Annie Bliss crunches numbers. She was an anthropology major, but her first assignment to help a small village ended in disaster. In her current job, at least she can’t hurt anybody.

Then she receives news that her “Grandbob” back in Ansel-by-the-Sea is in grave condition in the hospital.

Annie speeds back to Maine, where she had visited as a child when her parents’ deployments overlapped and they left her with Bob. There she is known as “Bob’s Annie.”

While Bob is unconscious, Annie gets reacquainted with the people she knew. There’s one newcomer since she lived there, a quiet, brooding postman and EMT named Jeremiah Fletcher, or Fletch. Annie discovers boxes of rocks in a closet in Bob’s house. Jeremiah shows her even more in the boathouse. Bob has left her a key, but no word about what it belongs to. As Annie asks around town, people either don’t know or aren’t sharing what Bob was up to.

The point of view switches back and forth between these two time frames. The older one unfolds what happened with the brothers during the war and the years afterward. As one grieves the loss of the other, he writes the only poem of his life asking for rocks to represent people lost during the war. He plans to build something to represent hope and healing. But another tragedy halts his efforts.

The twenty-first century timeline shares Annie’s story and shows her discovering the pieces of her history that she had not known.

I loved this book. I just wanted to sit and hug it after finishing it. It left me wishing I could visit Ansel-by-the-Sea, if it were a real place and these people lived there. I love books with a strong sense of place, whose stories could not have taken place anywhere else.

I loved the characters. I loved the way the author unfolded and wove together everyone’s stories.

I also loved many of the author’s turns of phrases. A few:

A wake is a ripple left after a departure (p. 41).

He said it was time to be part of the unbreaking, of the making of something. He told me there was a Carpenter who was going to build me right up, too (p. 75).

She looks at Bob lying there, face mapped in wrinkles carved from compassion (p. 79).

She’s used to city life, rich in its own way, with an energy and bustle from the lives there, but where eye contact is a safety issue and a good neighbor is your insurance company’s tagline (p. 87).

Annie tries for small talk. Which, as she’d learned, could sometimes lead to large talk. Which made the small talk bearable (p. 131).

Don’t get stuck in the dark . . . There’s a whole lotta light . . . Go there instead (p. 171).

Saluting—a stance of the fiercest heartache schooled into firmest respect (p. 173).

The song she offered up was all the more beauitful in its wavering and brokenness. Courageous, and offering. The laying out of her broken heart before her God (p. 188).

Words begin to light up, pour right through, like someone turned on a faucet and he’s just trying to catch them. They’re not his, really, he’s just the one scratching them out (p. 188).

He slaps courage back into himself and goes to church (p. 202).

I choose to believe there is some shred of light left in him. A light I pray he fights for (p. 238).

His thoughts are becoming more like an ongoing conversation with heaven, these days—usually more questions than anything else. And this was a big one. What now? (p. 249).

He looks like someone who’s been cut loose to drift and hasn’t found shore (p. 252).

Not healed . . . but held. Like the pieces of him have been gathered right up, and that is enough for now. The rest will follow (p. 275).

The strength of the storm does not change whose waves these are. There is One mightier still (p. 348).

I was motivated to read this book because I had seen high praise for it. That praise was well-deserved. I’ll be looking up more of Amanda Dykes’ books to read.

Review: You’re the One that I Want

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You're the One that I Want by Susan May Warren

You’re the One that I Want is the sixth book in Susan May Warren’s Christiansen family series set in Deep Haven. Minnesota.

Though each book involves the whole family, each focuses primarily focuses on one of the adult children. This time it’s Owen’s turn, the fifth child and youngest brother.

Owen had figured heavily in the first two books as well, especially the second. He had played hockey since his earliest childhood and excelled through the ranks until he landed a spot on the MN pro team. The fame, acclaim, and money all went to his head, however. He became something of an entitled jerk until a tragic accident took the sight in one eye, derailing his career.

Exploding with anger and grief, Owen roamed about, working different jobs, leaving a trail of one-night stands behind him.

What he doesn’t know is that one of those encounters resulted in a pregnancy. The girl in question later met and fell in love with Owen’s brother, Casper.

If that sounds kind of soap-opera-ish, yes, even one character admitted as much. However, people do get themselves entangled in such messes, though maybe not within their own family.

As this book opens, Owen’s anger has been spent. He’s cleaned up his act, more or less, no longer involved in reckless behavior. He’s on a crab-fishing boat in the Bering Sea with a reputation for kindness and hard work. He just takes life a day at a time, too ashamed to go home.

Scotty is the captain’s daughter and first mate. Her mother had died in childbirth. Her father makes her call him Red rather than Dad and suppresses emotion. Scotty has been on the boat most of her life. She’s had to be tough to command the men in her father’s stead and ward off any unwanted attention.

When Scotty is swept overboard in a storm, Owen jumps in to save her. They spend a night in a life raft until they’re rescued, nursing injuries and telling each other their lives.

Casper and Raina had worked out their issues in the fourth book. Casper wants to marry Raina and raise her daughter as his own. But he feels the right thing to do would be to track down Owen, tell him the situation, and bring him home. He wants to get Owen’s blessing and ask him to sign over his rights to his daughter.

Meanwhile, Casper is unaware that he’s wanted for questioning in the murder of Raina’s old boyfriend, Monty. He and Casper had an altercation the night Monty was killed, and Casper seems to be the last one who saw him alive.

When Owen and Casper try to fly home, Casper is taken into custody. Scotty, who has taken a job in the police force in Alaska since her dad is selling their boat, agrees to accompany them back to Deep Haven in an official capacity. Owen is thrilled to have more time with her.

There, Scotty encounters the love and loyalty of a family like she has never known. Though she’s drawn to them, she’s also not sure she would ever fit in. She’s had a very different upbringing and has no use for faith—even though she did break down and pray through Owen’s injuries.

If that sounds like a lot of drama for one book—it is! I’ve mentioned before that though these books fall into the romance genre, they’re something of a family drama as well.

Reading, or listening to, six of these books in a row, one catches some of the writer’s repeated quirks. Here are a few:

  • Several of the female characters are said to catch their lip in their teeth.
  • All the males are “sculpted” and “chiseled.”
  • Most of the kissing scenes involve saying what one or the other “tastes” like, usually involving whatever they last ate or drank (yuck) and and then adding that they taste of “freedom” or “summer days” or some such.

I roll my eyes at some of that, but that seems to go with this genre—one reason I don’t read it much.

I did like how the series wrapped up, though. Amid some of the silly moments were embedded some deep truths about faith, grace, and forgiveness.

Some of my favorite quotes:

In order to live without the haunting voice of regret, you must learn to forgive yourself, to embrace mercy, to open your eyes and see God in your past and His grace in your future. Your mistakes don’t define you. Your past doesn’t define you. You are not the sum of your bad decisions. You are the decision you make right now.

Fresh-baked cookies do not make a successful marriage . . . It’s knowing each other, valuing the same things, being what the other person can’t be, making each other better people.

So you made some bad choices. Some of God’s best players were His imperfect, broken prodigals. In fact, iffy players are God’s best picks. He specializes in short-tempered, reckless, flawed people to accomplish his plans.

God is constantly using broken, messy people to restore the world and bring glory to Himself, to touch other people.

Once you became a Christiansen, you had to get used to being loved large, to belonging to a family that didn’t have it all figured out, but weathered life by holding on to faith.

Unfortunately, the audiobooks didn’t include author’s notes, and Susan didn’t have any notes or background information on her website for the last two books in the series as she did for the previous ones.

Besides these major books in the series, there’s a prequel novella focused on the relationship of the parents, John and Ingrid, as well as two Christmas novellas. There’s also another collection of novels set in Deep Haven written after the Christiansen family series with other authors. However, though I enjoyed the series, I want to get away from romances for a while. I’ll probably read John and Ingrid’s story just to finish out the series and save the Christmas ones for December.

When People Don’t Understand

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When People Don't Understand

Whenever Hannah’s story is taught from the Bible, one phrase stands out to me that I rarely hear comment on.

Hannah dearly longed for a child. In those days, men had more than one wife, and her husband’s other wife did have children. That would have been hard enough, but this rival wife “used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb.” This went on for years.

It seems understandable that Hannah would be grieved. But her husband, Elkanah, said, “Hannah, why do you weep? And why do you not eat? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?”

This is the part of the story I don’t hear teaching about. Elkanah seems a little clueless here. At the worst he sounds arrogant: “Hey, you’ve got me. What else do you need?”

To give him the benefit of the doubt, he may have been thinking of the shame associated with childlessness in that day, or the concern that a childless widow would have no one to care for her after her husband died. Perhaps he means, “Don’t worry about those things, Hannah. My status and provision are enough.”

Even with the best of intentions, Elkanah didn’t seem to understand the longing of his wife’s heart, not just for status or elder care, but for her own child to love. Her yearning for a child did not lessen her love for her husband.

So what did Hannah do? She went to the temple to pray.

Normally this would be a good thing to do. We’re often told these days to draw close to our spiritual community. But sometimes our community rubs salt in the wound instead of helping.

This story occurred during the time of the judges, when “everyone did what was right in his own eyes,” leading to some of the most bizarre behavior recorded in the Bible. This was a low point in Israel’s history. Apparently, the priest, Eli, had seen so little fervent prayer that he thought Hannah was drunk and rebuked her.

So what’s a woman to do when her loved ones and her spiritual community don’t understand her, and, in fact, add to her burden?

Hannah poured out her heart to the Lord. She “was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.” She could safely share the depths of her feelings and cares with Him. She knew He was the only one who could meet her need.

She answered kindly. When Eli accused her of being drunk, she didn’t lash out at him. She just explained a little about her heart’s burden. There’s no record that she responded to her rival in kind or fussed at Elkanah.

She did not become bitter. She could have harbored negative feelings against everyone involved, but there’s no record that she did.

She had faith. After she prayed and asked the Lord for a son, she promised to give her child back to God to serve Him. And then “her face was no longer sad.” She left her burdens at His feet. When God did answer her prayers with a son, she kept her vow and gave Him the glory and praise.

In our day, we have more of the Scripture than Hannah did. So we have an extra layer of help. Hebrews 2:17-18 says, “Therefore he [Jesus] had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” The writer of Hebrews goes on to say in 4:15-16: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

Jesus is more than our example: He is our Lord and Savior. But He has also suffered the same things we do and shown us how to cope with them.

I don’t know if anyone in history was more misunderstood than Jesus. His family, his disciples, and his community all questioned His teaching and His mission.

What did He do?

He kept sharing truth. He knew some would never understand. He knew His disciples wouldn’t understand much until later. He kept sharing truth anyway, trusting that one day it would make sense to them.

He prayed frequently to the One who did understand and could help others understand, His Father.

He kept loving and working with people even when they misunderstood.

He forgave those who wronged Him. “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23).

When others misunderstand our hurts and concerns, it’s easy to pull away and wrap a protective cloak around ourselves.

Though He often does give us human helpers to counsel, encourage, uplift, and empathize, sometimes they fail us. We need not hold it against them: they’re only human. We fail others sometimes, so we shouldn’t be surprised when others fail us. And sometimes He takes them away so that we may draw closer to Him.

We can do what Hannah did: pour out our hearts to the only One who can truly understand our heart’s longings and our deepest needs. As the old hymn says, “No One Understand Like Jesus.” He may not answer our prayer exactly like we want. But we can trust He knows best.

Because He has been in our place, we know He empathizes with us. He understands thoroughly; He cares intimately; He alone has the power and the wisdom and the grace to meet our needs in the best possible time and way.

1 Kings 8:39

(Parts of this post have been revised from the archives.)

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

Laudable Linkage

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Laudable Linkage

Here’s my latest roundup of good reads found online:

Courage for Those with Unfatherly Fathers. HT to Challies. “This is our Heavenly Father. Though our earthly dads were meant to reflect him, he in no way mirrors them. Take courage, and run with abandon to the open arms of your Father.”

Should Ethnicity and Race Never Cross Our Minds When We Meet Another Believer? “The notion of being ‘colorblind’ doesn’t lend itself to oneness but to blindness. It suggests that if we recognize or admit differences, we would be forced to say some are better than others. No, we should recognize the differences and celebrate that God’s image-bearers come in all shapes and sizes and colors, and we are the beneficiaries of His providence in creating us this way.”

4 Reasons You Shouldn’t Be Colorblind. This was referenced in the above post but was so good I wanted to list it separately. “I’d like to suggest that we aren’t colorblind, we don’t need to be colorblind, and we actually should strive to not be colorblind. Colorblindness leads us in the wrong direction. Instead, I want to encourage us to be colorsmart.Here are four reasons why.”

Theology and the Eclipse. “An eclipse is more than a cool phenomenon of nature. It is an extra gift that God built into the structure of the universe to arrest the attention of humans amid their busy little ant-like activities long enough to listen to creation’s silent, speechless declaration of the Creator’s glory (Ps 19:3).”

What to Expect When a Loved One Enters Hospice. “With a million and a half people in the U.S. receiving hospice care annually, many families will walk this troubling road, suffering doubts and heartache along the way. How do we shepherd caregivers and families as they aim to love the dying? How do we walk with them through the valley of the shadow of death, reminding them all the while of the Good Shepherd whose love covers them when the light dwindles (Ps. 23:4)?”

Lessons Learned from a Wolf Attack, HT to Challies. “Some of the most painful lessons of ministry are learned when a wolf in sheep’s clothing infiltrates your church. We had a wolf once, a local man I’ll call Ahab*, and it has taken me years to know how to write about it. The things we learned from exposing him, trying to counter him, and then responding to the carnage he caused have been forever branded on my soul.”

It’s Okay to Be a Two-Talent Christian. “There is no shame in being a one-talent servant when God gave you one-talent ability. There is no need to compare yourself unfavorably to those who have achieved more success on the basis of their greater gifts. And that’s because God’s assessment of you is made on the basis of what you did with what he gave you.”

Hospitality Is not a Personality Trait. “If you limit your idea of hospitality to what can be flawlessly presented in social media squares, you’ll miss her: the woman who is more comfortable working a spreadsheet than a room full of people . . . the woman who is analytical and introverted and a hospitable force for the kingdom of God. “

“Quite . . . Able to Communicate,” HT to Challies. A sweet story from Brother Andrew’s book, God’s Smuggler, about a time when he and his contacts didn’t speak the same language.

Robert Murray McCheyne

No amount of activity in the Father’s service
will make up for the neglect of the Father Himself.
– Robert Murray McCheyne

Friday’s Fave Five

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Friday's Fave Five

I’m joining in once again with Susanne and friends at Living to Tell the Story to share the blessings of the week.

1. Timothy’s birthday! My grandson turned 10 this week! Double digits!

Grandson's birthday

He wanted a banana split pie instead of cake, and Mittu made a gorgeous and tasty one. And he also wanted a Buc-cee’s themed party. He loves that place, which, if you don’t know, is basically a gas station that advertises the cleanest bathrooms ever, but also is something like a mini mall. I guess a lot of other people like it as a party theme, too, because there were party plates and decorations with Buc-cee the beaver all over them. 🙂

2. Play and dinner. The school associated with our church was putting on a play of Winnie the Pooh and invited the church folks to come for a free showing of their last dress rehearsal Tuesday afternoon.

Winnie the Pooh play

3. Dinner out. After the play, we tried out a new Mexican food restaurant. We hadn’t actually eaten in a restaurant in a long time: we usually get takeout to bring home. It was really noisy, but otherwise enjoyable.

4. A rediscovered turntable. We have our medications in a corner cabinet in the kitchen. There’s a lot more storage on either side of the cabinet door, but it’s hard to get to. So we have Lazy Susan turntables on one shelf for our prescription medications. The shelf below has nonprescription medicines and supplements, and we were getting so many that I was frustrated having to move containers around to find what I needed. Then I remembered I had tucked away in the pantry a turntable I had bought for another cabinet but which was too big to fit there. Thankfully, I hadn’t given it away yet, and it worked perfectly for the stray medications.

5. Tooth removal recovery. Last Friday I had just had a problem tooth removed. I was envisioning chipmunk cheeks, living on broth and applesauce, and constant pain. It did hurt, and I was on soft foods and Tylenol for a few days. But it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. It’s still a little tender, but thankfully, there have been no complications.

And that wraps up another week! I hope yours has been enjoyable, too.