…the Laura Ingalls Wilder Reading Challenge begins!
More information is here. I hope you’ll join us!
Book Review: Serenity
I picked Serenity by Harry Kraus, M. D., out of the clearance section of Christianbook.com for a couple of reasons: I have a little great-niece named Serenity, and I thought her mother (my niece) and grandmother (my sister) would get a kick out of a book with her name; and it’s set in North Carolina, and I love books set in the Carolinas, having lived in SC for 26 years. It turned out to be a really good, keep-the-pages-turning book!
It’s a little confusing at first because it is obvious that someone is impersonating a doctor, but the names of the two men are similar and it was hard to keep them straight initially, but after a while it doesn’t matter because the names are then referring to the same man. By the time they’re referring to two different men again, the reader has them straight.
Andy comes into the sleepy seaside town of Serenity, NC, impersonating Dr. Adam Tyson. We’re not sure why he is impersonating the doctor at first, but he chose Serenity because it was supposed to be an easy practice, primarily a tourist town, with major cases being sent elsewhere. But his first day on the job he is slammed with a number of challenging cases and quickly earns a reputation as a kind and excellent doctor.
Beth Carlson is the new director of nursing, having come to Serenity for a fresh start with her teen son. They’re living with her father, who has advancing dementia but is not so far gone that he can’t live at home.
Fairly soon it’s apparent that Dr. Tyson isn’t the only one with whom things aren’t as they seem as strange things start happening around town. I’d like to tell you more of the story — but I don’t want to spoil it for you.
Author Harry Kraus is an M.D. himself, so the technical areas of the story ring true, yet they’re not so technical that we average readers can’t follow along. He’s also an excellent story-teller, unfolding just enough of each character’s situation along the way to reveal more interesting information, yet not enough to give away what’s going on too soon, while weaving an underlying theme of identity throughout, especially one’s identity in Christ.
I’m so glad I came across this book, and I plan to look up more of Harry Kraus’s books as well.
(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)
The Week in Words
Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.
Here is my collection for today:
From a post titled Are We Required to Attend Church on the Lord’s Day? via Challies:
The key to a Christian use of the Lord’s Day is not drawing up a list of what can and cannot be done, but to give the whole day to basking in God’s Word, loading ourselves up with the treasures of Christ.
This was similar to the conclusion I came to after seriously encountering Isaiah 58:13-14: “If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.” It dawned on me that the OT regulations about not working on the sabbath weren’t so much about rest from work, though that was a part of it, but about having a day for God. I’m not going to get into the arguments of the OT sabbath vs. the NT Lord’s Day or OT Jewish regulations vs. NT Gentile practices of the day — that would be another whole post. But the key part of this quote for me was that it points out our tendency to draw up our little lists when instead we need to get to the heart of the matter and do whatever we do as unto the Lord.
This was from Robin Lee Hatcher’s Facebook:
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. ~ Annie Dillard
Sounds obvious, yet it’s so easy to think about what we’re going to do with out lives “some day” while forgetting this day’s contribution to our lives.
And finally, from a the Facebook page of a friend who is a teacher:
“To get the best out of someone, you’ve got to give the best of yourself.”
Good reminder for anyone who invests in the life of another…which is all of us. 🙂
You can share your family-friendly quotes in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below.
I hope you’ll visit the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder. And don’t forget to leave a comment here, even if you don’t have any quotes to share.
Tebow-mania
I am not a football fan in any way, yet even those of us who don’t watch football can’t help but hear about Tim Tebow. From everything I hear he seems like the real deal, a genuinely nice Christian young man. Of course, what most of us “know” about him is only hearsay, but this post from a well-known Christian man who does know him backs up that perception.
But a public professing Christian can cause strange reactions in other Christians who observe him. A friend on Twitter shared the link to Can We Please Stop Being Weird About Tim Tebow? and made some excellent points. One of those weird responses is Tebowing, striking his characteristic pose — some students who were suspended for doing so were not being persecuted for their faith, as some thought: they were clogging up busy halls.
Another overreaction is that some Christians get very defensive and almost cultish of their idol object of fandom. One of my sons expressed a difference of opinion on Facebook recently about one of Tim’s actions, and my, you would have thought he blasphemed God Himself by the response he got. Derision, sarcasm, scorn, being called a fool — and that by a church leader in our former church, who apparently conveniently forgot what the Bible says about that. I thought it very odd that some of these people would treat someone they know like that in defense of someone they don’t know, and all over a difference of opinion that that one is not alone in.
As Christians, we should be able to handle differences of opinions with more grace than that. Another interesting article that came up this week is How to Disagree Online Without Being a Total Jerk. The author makes some great points about remembering that the Christian brother we’re disagreeing with (online or off) is a brother, someone created in the image of God, part of the body of Christ, someone for whose soul we should care for more than the argument we’re in.
When many Christians get into any kind of disagreement, especially online, all thoughts of Galatians 6:1 (Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.) and II Timothy 2: 24-26 (And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.) fly completely out of mind. It’s almost a feeding frenzy. Whether the other person is mistaken, misinformed, wayward, or downright wrong, belligerence, condescension, and put-downs are going to drive that person away from the truth and the people who profess to proclaim it rather than to it and them. I think sometimes we’re more concerned about defending our “right” views and putting down anyone who edges a toe across the line than meekly discussing differences of opinion and helping others see the light if they are truly in the wrong. And some differences of opinion need to be left there, as simply differences, while we “agree to disagree.”
But back to Tebow. Tebow Time: 10 Thoughts and a Cloud of Dust is an excellent post sharing many things to admire about Tebow and many reasons to be concerned about “Tebow-mania.” Personally, I want to give Tebow the benefit of the doubt. I think he’s a good guy who wants to glorify and honor God. Everyone may not agree on all his methods of doing that, and that’s fine. He can’t really help the “mania” that has arisen about him. But while he is in the public eye we should pray for him, for wisdom for him in maintaining his testimony before the eyes of a watching world, and for protection from the Enemy who does not want God glorified and who would seek to trip His representatives up. We can rejoice that the phenomenon around him might cause some to think about God and pray that they’d find the truth about Him and come to know Him personally, not just as Someone who helps win football games but as Someone who saves from sin and becomes a Friend and Shepherd for life. And we should carefully guard our own testimonies while we talk about Tebow (and anyone else), especially with those who might disagree here and there with particular things he does. We can cheer him on, but we need to be careful not to exalt him above measure. In our conversations around him, instead of exalting him, if he’s the man I think he is, he would want us to exalt God and use those conversations that arise about him to be a stepping-stone to conversation about the God he serves.
Friday’s Fave Five
Welcome to Friday’s Fave Five, hosted by Susanne at Living to Tell the Story, in which we can share five of our favorite things from the last week, wonderful exercise in looking for and appreciating the good things God blesses us with. Click on the button to learn more, then go to Susanne’s to read others’ faves and link up your own.
It’s been an overcast week here in eastern TN with the possibility of snow tonight. No accumulation expected, though many students, as well as parents and teachers, hope that part of the forecast is wrong! (Update: that part was written yesterday afternoon. We did get a bit of snow, but only got a 1 hour delay for school.)
Here are some of my favorite things from the last week:
1. Audiobooks. Wow, that has really transformed driving time! I’ll say more about it when I finish the first one.
2. Looking through a box of his mom’s old pictures with my husband. Jim’s sister had sent it just after their mom moved to be near us and we had been meaning to get that down from the attic for a long time so she could help us identify some of the people in them, but thankfully Jim knew who most of them were. We found several of his mom as a child, which Jim had never seen before, and several with her sister, who had passed away many years back.
3. Twice-baked potatoes using this recipe. I’ve had them a couple of times, but this was the first time I made them. So good! And though I am not the best planner in the kitchen, I did even plan ahead for this by making extra baked potatoes for a dinner earlier in the week.
4. These:
They say you shouldn’t go shopping when you’re hungry. They’re right. :blush: I dashed in for some supplies for Jim’s mom, saw this, and grabbed it. It’s a layer of brownie with a layer of chocolate chip cookie on top. Wonderful.
5. Finished projects. Jim’s mom’s new place has a shadow box outside each resident’s door for photos or whatever. My main project this week has been working on a collage for that (thus the looking through old pictures mentioned above). I wanted to include some older ones and some more recent ones. I got that finished yesterday — but forgot to take a picture of it! But here’s one of my favorite pictures of his mom:
And this is hot-off-the-press just finished last night — I haven’t even rinsed or pressed it yet:
Normally I like to use as much as floss as possible and not leave any white space behind the Xs, but this was a kit and I didn’t know if there would enough floss to use more strands than called for, so I just followed the instructions. But I like it overall.
Hope you have a great weekend in your part of the world!
Book Review: Belonging
I’ve been wanting to get Belonging by Robin Lee Hatcher ever since it was published a few months ago, but I had enough books stacked up to last til Christmas, so I put in on my Christmas list and made myself wait til then, when I did indeed find it under the tree.
If the book had been authored by anyone but Robin, I probably would not have picked it up based on the plot of a new schoolteacher coming west to make a life for herself. When I first began reading Christian fiction some 30 or so years ago many books had this element to them. But I’ve enjoyed others of Robin’s books, and they have a soft spot in my heart because they’re frequently set in Idaho, where my husband grew up. But just a few pages into this one I forget about any other plotline involving going west.
Felicia Kristofferson lost her mother at a young age and was sent with her brother and sister on an orphan train until they were each taken in to separate homes in separate cities. Felicia grew up in the home of an older couple where no love was expressed: she was really more of a housekeeper and caretaker. She went to college to become a teacher but afterward stayed with the Kristoffersons til their deaths. When she hears of an opening for a schoolteacher in Idaho, she heads west despite the small amount of pay, trusting God to lead and keep her.
Colin is a widower with a young daughter who is not happy about the school board hiring an inexperienced young single female teacher. He assumes she’ll marry at the first opportunity, leaving the board and the students in another upheaval to find a new teacher. But his daughter, Charity, takes to Felicia immediately, and he reluctantly decides to give her a chance. Colin is also not on the best of terms with the God who took his wife from him.
Though Colin has no desire to marry again, he can’t help but notice the attractive widow Kathleen has been especially friendly toward him (at her mother-in-law’s urging). It would make sense for them to marry in many ways, yet he can’t help finding himself attracted to the new schoolteacher in spite of himself.
Felicia, meanwhile, doesn’t understand why Colin is warm toward her sometimes and gruff and distant at others or why her friend Kathleen’s mother-in-law seems to be sowing seeds of discord against her.
Felicia, Colin, and Kathleen each have issues to work through, which, of course, makes up the plot of the book. I did enjoy their journeys, especially Colin’s. I love how Robin doesn’t write “just” a romance story, but rather a “life” story, dealing with the deeper issues in people’s hearts and their walk with the Lord.
(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)
Book Review: Anne’s House of Dreams
I am so glad Carrie set her annual Lucy Maud Montgomery Reading Challenge to occur in January. I picked up where I left off from last year’s challenge with Anne’s House of Dreams, and it’s such a cozy read. This was one of my favorites the first time I read the books, next to the first, Anne of Green Gables.
In this book Anne and Gilbert finally 
marry and move to Four Winds Harbour where Gilbert takes over the medical practice of his uncle. The first few chapters are given over to preparations for the wedding and then the wedding itself, and it’s a joy to see Diana (grown, married, with young children), Marilla, Rachel Lynde, and all the rest. One of the most poignant scenes to me was when Marilla stood at the gate as Anne and Gilbert drove away after their marriage.
The house they rent as newlyweds is truly a house of dreams, with all the delightful things Anne loves as well as a lighthouse and it’s keeper, Captain Jim, as near neighbors. The eccentric Miss Cornelia (whom I frankly got a little tired of in places), “Susan at the helm,” and the mysterious, beautiful, yet initially aloof Leslie Moore with her tragic lot in life round out the main cast of characters.
I like, though, that LMM didn’t make the whole book idyllic and fairy-taleish. Anne faces her first deep sorrow of her adult life, and she and Gilbert have their differences of opinion in places. But they are happy overall. It’s fun to see Anne “grown up,” still passionate and dreamy yet more mature.
It was funny to read that Anne wasn’t sure if she liked the idea of Avonlea being “spoiled” by the “modern inconvenience” of the telephone. Every new technology will have its detractors. 🙂
There were a couple of things I didn’t like, namely the china dogs being referred to as the “household gods,” and references to ghosts, but overall it’s a sweet book with just the right blend of delight and pathos.
When I first read this book, I was hoping that the Anne films by Kevin Sullivan & Co.would continue until they got to this one. I was so happy to hear they were going to make a film about Anne and Gilbert’s first years as a couple — until I saw it. It’s a travesty. Instead of this sweet story that LMM wrote, Sullivan took the characters and placed them several years ahead, to the time that corresponds with Rilla of Ingleside, a later book, and incorporates some of that story.
I got to wondering if Four Winds harbour was a real place and had fun looking around “The Geography of Four Winds, Glen St. Mary, and Ingleside.”
I enjoyed rereading this book and visiting with Anne and Gilbert again.
(This review will also be linked to Semicolon‘s Saturday Review of Books.)
The Week in Words
Welcome to The Week In Words, where we share quotes from the last week’s reading. If something you read this past week inspired you, caused you to laugh, cry, think, dream, or just resonated with you in some way, please share it with us, attributing it to its source, which can be a book, newspaper, blog, Facebook — anything that you read. More information is here.
Though I didn’t plan it this way, all the quotes I have for today are good for starting the new year and putting those plans, resolutions, and goals into practice.
Seen on Lisa‘s Twitter:
What is not started today is never finished tomorrow. -JW von Goethe
I forgot to note where I saw this:
The way to do a great deal, is to keep on doing a little. The way to do nothing at all, is to be continually resolving that you will do everything. ~ Spurgeon
I read this in Anne’s House of Dreams by L. M. Montgomery:
“Welcome, New Year,” said Captain Jim, bowing low as the last stroke died away. “I wish you all the best year of your lives, mates. I reckon that whatever the New Year brings us will be the best the Great Captain has for us.”
I hope the same for you, friends, “that whatever the New Year brings us will be the best the Great Captain has for us.”
You can share your family-friendly quotes in the comments below or write a post on your blog and then put the link to that post (not your general blog link) in Mr. Linky below.
I hope you’ll visit the other participants as well and glean some great thoughts to ponder. And don’t forget to leave a comment here, even if you don’t have any quotes to share.
Still, My Soul, Be Still
Our assistant pastor introduced this song to us several months ago, and I was struck by the richness, depth, and Spiritual base of the words as well as the hauntingly beautiful music.
Still, My Soul, Be Still
Still my soul be still
And do not fear
Though winds of change may rage tomorrow
God is at your side
No longer dread
The fires of unexpected sorrow
God You are my God
And I will trust in You and not be shaken
Lord of peace renew
A steadfast spirit within me
To rest in You alone
Still my soul be still
Do not be moved
By lesser lights and fleeting shadows
Hold onto His ways
With shield of faith
Against temptations flaming arrows
Still my soul be still
Do not forsake
The Truth you learned in the beginning
Wait upon the Lord
And hope will rise
As stars appear when day is dimming
~ Words and Music by Keith & Kristyn Getty & Stuart Townend
No matter what happens in our lives, if we know God, we can “trust and not be shaken” and rest in Him alone.
If you don’t know God in that way, please read this.
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3).
And may those of us who do know Him not “forsake the truth we learned in the beginning” and rest in Him continually.
Laudable Linkage
Here are some things I found interesting online the last couple of weeks. Perhaps some might be of interest to you as well.
What to Do If You Wake Up Feeling Fragile.
The Importance of Superficial Reading the First Time Through. I put the book mentioned on my TBR list.
Bible Reading Plans. You may have seen many posts like this the last few weeks. I think there is a plan for any personality, temperament, or way of thinking. The important thing is to be in the Word regularly.
You’ve probably seen a lot about resolutions, too. I put links to the posts I’d found thought-provoking at the bottom of this post where I tried to work out some of my thoughts about it all, but a couple more are Teenage Resolutions and Resolutions on Growing Old With God.
Four Tips for Scripture Memory.
Making a take-out menu binder. Neat idea. I have a folder for menus and coupons, but this takes it a step further.
Tips for getting organized in the new year. Lots of really neat ideas.
I’ve pinned a number of crafty, organizational, or food-related posts on my Pinterest boards recently, probably too many to list here, but if you’re interested in more of those things, I invite you there. 🙂
And a couple of funny pics:
Happy Saturday!
Stray Thoughts 