Seeing the Good in Life

Looking through Netgalley for my next book to read, I saw the book, "See the Good" and thought, "Yes!" I mean, who doesn’t want to “see the good” in life? After years of... Living in a pandemic, Consuming a daily diet of doom-and-gloom news, Fearing rising prices and supply shortages Sign me up! In his…

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Always “Pray First”

I watched Chris Hodges speak on the topic, “Pray First” before reading an advance copy of his book, "Pray First: The Transformative Power of a Life Built on Prayer." I wish I'd thought to do a search for him speaking sooner. He's from Louisiana and said he's Cajun, which made for fun reading. I now…

You don’t have to hide

Christian author and podcaster Jasmine L. Holmes grew up Black in a predominantly white evangelical community. A pastor's kid and the oldest of 9, she went through puberty in front of the watchful eyes of her church. She said she often felt like wore a mask. She tried to live up to the image of…

Winning the War on Worry

Family members used to tell me I reminded them of my Grandma Mae because of my tendency to worry. I often battled "what-if" thinking and had months of anxiety attacks that seemed to come out of nowhere. I’m a Christian so I know I wasn't “given a spirit of fear,” but sometimes worry hijacked my…

The Beauty of Forgiving Others

In “It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way,” Lysa TerKeurst wrote about handling life’s disappointments, detours, and derailments. Lysa had been enduring a separation from her husband who had been unfaithful, while also dealing with serious health concerns that almost killed her. True to form, Lysa didn’t hide her feelings. She spoke as if someday…

A return to medieval times…

While reading Lady At Arms, Tamara Leigh kept dropping breadcrumbs, hints for the reader to continue reading Baron Gilbert Balmaine's story. Why did Lady Graeye (pronounced Gray) Charwyck give him so much trouble? I could not wait. I had to find out why in "Lady of Eve, Book 2,". The scene opened with Lady Graeye…

A most unusual read

I recently repainted this faded garden gnome. I hadn't realized at the time these fairytale mushrooms were probably Amanita muscaria. Before reading a book about Jeremy Downs' near-death experience, I couldn’t have told you anything about Amanita muscaria mushrooms. And yet my outdoor garden gnome sat among them all this time. They were featured in…

A review of Tamara Leigh’s “Lady At Arms: Book One”

I have long enjoyed reading Tamara Leigh’s contemporary romances, but I had not read her historical ones – and she’s written quite a few now. I wanted to go back to her beginnings and read her first works of historical fiction. I learned those were the “Bride” novels (no longer in print) rewritten as the…

Must-read novel for fall

If this novel ever finds its way onto the screen, Kristina McMorris' "The Ways We Hide" would have these descriptors: “strong female lead, WWII drama, suspense, based on true events and mature audiences.” McMorris wrote her novel from the perspective of Fenna Vos, a Dutch-American woman living during World War II, a time known as…

Defending the faith in the manner of Jesus Christ

Dallas Willard, taken fromChristianity Today article I first learned about the works of American philosopher Dallas Willard reading John Eldredge's book on resilience that I reviewed here. Dallas experienced a painful childhood. His mother died when he was 2, and his father remarried a woman who exiled him from the home. (I still haven’t learned…