Tag: God

Book Review: Isaiah’s Legacy, by Mesu Andrews

isaiah's legacy
Image belongs to WaterBrook.

Title:  Isaiah’s Legacy
Author:  Mesu Andrews  
Genre:  Biblical fiction, historical
Rating:  5 out of 5

Eight-year-old Shulle only knows a simple life in her small village, caring for her father, who’s different from everyone else. He may be different, but Shulle loves him deeply, and does her best to help him every day. Then her uncle, Shebna, arrives, and asks her to return to Jerusalem to help him teach young Prince Manasseh, who shares many of her father’s oddities, and Shulle agrees to help the prince.

Once in Jerusalem, she befriends Manasseh, who soon grows dependent on her. But Shebna teaches her about the starry hosts, whose power she admires and yearns for, while her father reveres Yahweh, the god of the Hebrews. Shulle tempts Manasseh with powers of the starry hosts, turning the prince away from the god of his fathers.

When Manasseh becomes king at a young age, he insists on marrying Shulle and whisking her away on an extended trip. Assyria’s crown prince turns Manasseh to cruelty—and far from Yahweh’s love. When Manasseh’s cruelty grows, Shulle must turn to the god she never knew as the only one who can comfort her—and save her family.

I loved this story! Mesu Andrew’s writing brings this biblical story to life in heartrending detail and entranced me from the very beginning. She’s a wonderful writer, and I love how she brings biblical stories off the pages and makes the characters living, breathing people. This story is sad in places, horrifying in others, but every word feels truthful.

Mesu Andrews lives in the Appalachian Mountains. Isaiah’s Legacy is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of WaterBrook in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: God Speaks Your Love Language, by Gary Chapman

God Speaks
Image belongs to Moody Publishers.

Title:   God Speaks Your Love Language
Author:   Gary Chapman
Genre:   Christian
Rating:   4 out of 5

Millions of people say The 5 Love Languages saved their marriage. Now Gary Chapman applies those love languages to God and those who follow Him.

Some people see God as an impersonal, far away deity, but He is really an up-close-and-personal Father who chooses to speak to us in the language we are most comfortable with. This book both reveals ways that God speaks to us in each love language and shows us ways we can speak to Him and learn new love languages.

I’ve never read The 5 Love Languages (Yet. But I did just buy it, after reading this), yet the author speaks so candidly and simply that all the concepts are easy to understand and relate to. I loved the sections on different forms of worship!

Gary Chapman is the author of The 5 Love Languages. His newest book is God Speaks Your Love Language.

(Galley provided by Moody Publishers in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Where I End, by Katherine Elizabeth Clark

where I end
Image belongs to Moody Publishers.

When you’re on the playground with your kids, you expect to have fun and be silly. You don’t expect your entire life to change in an instant, when a small boy jumps off the jungle gym and lands on your head, breaking your neck, but that is what happened to Katherine Clark in May 2009.

Katherine was paralyzed from the neck down, and doctors diagnosed her with quadriplegia and said she’d never walk again. She had emergency spinal surgery that night, but the doctors told her husband she was no longer the same person. They expected her to be a burden for the rest of her life. They expected her to feel sorry for herself and accept her new, horrifying reality. They were wrong.

Instead, God worked a tremendous miracle in Katherine’s life. Her time in a rehab hospital was marked with frustration and tears, but her trust in God was accompanied by progress every day. By the middle of July, Katherine had learned to walk again and returned home. She experienced the deep, abiding love of God, even in the midst of overwhelming pain and trouble, and she clung to Him and His truths to see her through.

I wanted to read Where I End because of the similarities to my own medical history (a stroke 4 ½ years ago because of an unsuspected birth defect, given a 98% fatality rate, told by a doctor “You’ll never be normal again.”) It is terrifying when your life changes in a single instant, but the experience can be a profound blessing. Katherine Clark tells her story with openness and honesty, and the reader feels her pain and her fear, as well as her hope and her joy. If you need something uplifting in your life, this is the book for you!

Katherine Elizabeth Clark is a mother, a wife to a theologian, and a writer. Where I End is her true story.

(Galley provided by Moody Publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Recapturing the Wonder, by Mike Cosper

 

wonder
Image belongs to InterVarsity Press.

Mike Cosper is a writer, speaker, podcaster, and founder of Harbor Media. His newest book is Recapturing the Wonder.

I can’t give a “normal” review of a spiritual book, so I’m not going to try. Instead, I’ll say this:  this book was a very good, personable read. It wasn’t a how-to manual, but did offer some wonderful suggestions for seeing the wonder in the everyday of life, like children do. (I miss that sense of wonder.) some of the suggestions were fantastic, including the prayers, but the author’s voice made you feel like you were sitting and chatting with him, not being lectured to. Definitely worth reading if you’d like to re-capture that childish sense of wonder, of seeing God amid the everyday.

(Galley provided by InterVarsity Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Humble Roots, by Hannah Anderson

humble-roots
I do not own this image. Image belongs to Moody Publishers.

Hannah Anderson‘s new book, Humble Roots, came out last month.

In it, Hannah talks about pursuing a life of peace and humility. But this is not a book entirely composed of theological lectures or Bible verses. Though the book is rooted in Jesus’s teaching, Hannah also talks about lessons learned in her life in a small Virginia town as a rural pastor’s wife. From an elderly neighbor bringing gifts of honey to rogue green bean plants, Hannah uses simple lessons from her own life to speak about the value of finding both peace and humility.

This is a peaceful book, fitting since it is about peace. It evokes a sense of calm, as well as encourages the reader’s introspection and exploration into lessons learned from the Son of God.

(Galley provided by Moody Publishers.)

Wild in the Hollow, by Amber C. Haines

(I do not own this image. Image belongs to Revell.)
(I do not own this image. Image belongs to Revell.)

Amber C. Haines is a Southern girl, mother to four sons, and a Christian writer who isn’t afraid to speak the truth about her life, the good and the bad. Her book, Wild in the Hollow, is now on sale.

Growing up in a Southern country family, Amber spent time in church, with people who believed in God, yet she always felt a yearning for something more in her life. Desperate to find what she was seeking, Amber looked for it in all the wrong places, and ended up broken and hurting. In the blackest of moments, she sought God, and found Him. But even knowing God doesn’t mean life will be perfect. After Amber meets Seth, her husband, her life takes a turn she never expected and she becomes a mother to four boys, still searching for more.

Wild in the Hollow is a painfully honest, raw accounting of one woman’s search for fulfillment. Ms. Haines is brutally honest about her life and her choices, but this honesty shines brightly when she meets God and shifts the focus of her life. The compelling truths in this book will have the reader drawn into the pages and unable to put it down.

A beautiful book.

(Galley provided by Revell via NetGalley.)