Where I share my love of books with reviews, features, giveaways and memes. Family and needlepoint are thrown in from time to time.
Showing posts with label Harvest House Publishers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harvest House Publishers. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

First Wild Card Tour: The "What's For Dinner?" Solution (Book Review)

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

My review:  I loved this book - and I can't wait to have a chance to start using some of her organizing tips for a recipe book and the pantry!  Okay, so the first half of the book is dedicated to actually getting your kitchen ready, to make your actual cooking time, if not more pleasurable, then at least more manageable.  She tells what works for her in regards to how she sets up her menu and kitchen.   She tries to set up a monthly menu - but not based on what she will actually cook, but on the cooking style - like freezer food, or crock pot.  Makes sense when you actually think about - to plan your meals based on the amount of time that you have to cook them!  Her recipe binder is then set up according to the cooking style, so that she can easily find what she is looking for.

This might sound like a lot of work - and in the beginning it might take some time to get organized and on a system - but can you imagine the time you will save after you are up and running?  I think this will also make it easier for the rest of my family to jump in and help with meal prep as well. 

So after you have your kitchen organized, your pantry stocked and so forth - she gives you a whole bunch of recipes and tips in the second half of the book to get you going.  I love her chapter on freezer cooking, as this is always something I have wanted to try.  She gives you some good recipes as well as some tips on what should or shouldn't be frozen.  Another category that she has is LOOP (Left-overs on purpose) recipes.  This is one that probably wouldn't work for us, but we usually try to implement a Left over night - where we just take out all the left overs from the fridge and everybody picks what they want to eat.  This usually happens on a Saturday.  It cleans out the fridge from the week for us and makes me feel better for not throwing away food. 

So, pick up a copy of this book, see what works for you and develop your own style for your family.  If you are like me, and cooking isn't your number one pleasure, then I think you will find this book encouraging and informative!
Today's Wild Card author is:


and the book:

Harvest House Publishers (October 1, 2011)
***Special thanks to Karri | Marketing Assistant, Harvest House Publishers for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Kathi Lipp is a busy conference and retreat speaker, currently speaking each year to thousands of women throughout the United States. She is the author of The Husband Project and The Marriage Project and has had articles published in several magazines, including Today’s Christian Woman and Discipleship Journal. Kathi and her husband, Roger, live in California and are the parents of four teenagers and young adults.

Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:

For many women, dread turns to panic around 4:00 in the afternoon. That’s when they have to answer that age-old question, “What’s for dinner?” Many resort to another supermarket rotisserie chicken or—worse yet—ordering dinner through a drive-thru intercom.

In The “What’s for Dinner” Solution, popular author and speaker Kathi Lipp provides a full-kitchen approach for getting dinner on the table every night. After putting her 21-day plan into action, women will

* save time—with bulk shopping and cooking
* save money—no more last-minute phone calls to the delivery pizza place
* save their sanity—forget the last-minute scramble every night and know what they’re having for dinner

The book includes real recipes from real women, a quick guide to planning meals for a month, the best shopping strategies for saving time and money, and tips on the best ways to use a slow cooker, freezer, and pantry.

With Kathi’s book in hand, there’s no more need to hit the panic button.

Product Details:

List Price: $12.99
Paperback: 208 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (October 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736938370
ISBN-13: 978-0736938372

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Girl Meets Kitchen, or Not

Necessarily a Love Story

“Happy and successful cooking doesn’t rely only on know-how;
it comes from the heart, makes great demands on the palate and needs enthusiasm and a deep love of food to bring it to life.”

Georges Blanc, from Ma Cuisine des Saisons


I was not the kind of kid who grew up at my mom’s knee, helping her chop carrots for Sunday night’s chicken soup. I never really helped with any meal preparation, preferring to turn my attention in the kitchen to baking. There was always some social event with friends or a youth group party where I needed to bring brownies. The one memorable time I tried to make instant potatoes? Instead of the specified one-quarter tablespoon of salt, I used a quarter cup salt. That incident happened over twenty-five years ago, and I have yet to stop hearing about it from my loving and encouraging family.

Suffice to say, I was a bit ill-prepared for the cooking adventures that lay ahead as I lived on my own for the first time. And to complicate matters? My first apartment was in Uji, Japan, approximately seven thousand miles from my mother’s loving embrace and her pot-roast recipe (as if I could afford beef in Japan).

The recipe cards were stacked against me. No cooking skills to speak of, living in a foreign land where most of the time I couldn’t identify what I was eating much less figure out how it was prepared, a kitchen the size of my coat closet back home, and an oven so small it made me long for the Easy-Bake one of my childhood.

I was terrified going to the supermarket without an escort and a translator. I didn’t speak the language (as a short-term missionary teaching conversational English, speaking Japanese was actually a disadvantage in my job), and as unfamiliar as I was with food shopping in the U.S., shopping in Uji was like watching a foreign movie without subtitles and then having to write a paper on the plot.

Oh, and eating out? So not an option. While my cooking skills were limited, my food budget was near nonexistent.

A few things were easy to recognize. The bread in Japan was amazing. It was buttery and flaky and perfect. And there was some really lovely cheese and ham. So, for the first three months of exploring this exotic new culture, I ate ham and cheese sandwiches every single night for dinner.

As I started to get to know some of my students and coworkers better, I had this urge to invite them over to hang out with me. But I had a sneaking suspicion they would want to be fed. I knew that my students would love some authentic American dishes. The question was, Who would I get to cook them?

Another short-term missionary, Diana, had a cookbook called More-With-Less. This wonderful little book produced by the Mennonite community had tons of recipes that used simple ingredients most cooks would have in their kitchen. While I didn’t have a lot of pantry staples in my four-story walk-up, I was now armed with a grocery list as well as an English-to-Japanese dictionary for my trips to the store.

I started to look for simple things I could make: salads, sandwiches, curries, and mini-pizzas out of English muffins and ketchup. (I promise, my culinary skills and taste have gotten better over the years.) As I grew braver in all things cuisine, I started to ask my mom to send some of my favorite recipes from back home.

In fact, when I threw a Christmas celebration with my friend Spenser in my micro-sized apartment, we managed to make a fondue-potless version of my mom’s Pizza Fondue. Shopping for the ingredients proved challenging, even for Spenser who spoke near-fluent Japanese. After several attempts to translate cornstarch into the native language (One would think corn + starch = cornstarch, right? Wrong. It’s pronounced korunstarcha.), we headed back to my kitchen and made one of the best meals I have ever eaten—lots of tomato sauce, some ground beef, loads of cheese, and just the right amount of korunstarcha.

Pizza Fondue
(Connie Richerson)

½ lb. ground beef

1 small onion, chopped

2 10½-oz. cans pizza sauce (I use marinara sauce)

1 T. cornstarch (or korunstarcha, if you prefer)

1½ tsp. oregano

¼ tsp. garlic powder

2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

1 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 loaf French bread

Brown the ground beef and onion; drain. Put meat, sauce, cornstarch, and spices in fondue pot. When cooked and bubbly, add cheese. Spear crusty French bread cubes, then dip and swirl in fondue. This is also delicious with breadsticks. Serves 4 to 6.

From that point on, I was hooked on collecting my favorite recipes. I bought my own copy of More-With-Less when I got back to the States, and when I got married a few months later, I received my very first copy of everyone’s favorite red-and-white-plaid Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, with every recipe an emerging home cook could want.

I think most of us home cooks have a similar story to tell. OK, you probably didn’t have your first significant cooking experience in Uji, Japan, but I bet the first few times you got dinner on the table all on your own, you might as well have been in a different country.

Maybe your mom had you peeling potatoes before you could walk. Maybe you have a rich heritage of recipes passed down from your grandmother. None of our cooking histories are going to look the same, but we do have one thing in common: We all need to get dinner on the table.

I am not a professional cook. Tom Colicchio will never be critiquing my braised kale and chocolate with bacon foam on Top Chef. But over the past twenty years I have put dinner on the table almost every single night. And while my family still likes a pizza from the neighborhood shop, our kids who have left home really look forward to coming back for a home-cooked meal.

That is all the reward I need.

Why This Book?

So, you discovered my deep dark secret—I’m not a professional chef. I don’t have my own show on Food Network, my own brand of spatulas, and I’m not going to be appearing on any morning show making a frittata for Kathie Lee Gifford.

Still, I’m required to feed our large family almost daily. So when I come across a cookbook, I have an unnatural need to own it. I’m always looking for new recipes to keep dinner interesting at our house. I have an entire bookshelf in my kitchen for my ever-growing collection.

But to be honest with you, most of the money I’ve spent on those cookbooks could have been better spent on a good set of knives or a heavy iron skillet.

I have found that most cookbooks are aimed at the fantasy life many of us aspire to—entertaining regularly, having unusual and exotic ingredients on hand, and hours and hours in the kitchen to create these masterpieces, from scratch.

And then there is my reality. Yes, sometimes I like to spend a Saturday afternoon cooking up a big feast for friends and family. But most days? I want to get a delicious, healthy meal on the table quickly.

My test when I’m purchasing new cookbooks? I flip to a half dozen or so recipes throughout the book and ask myself, Can I imagine cooking this recipe in the next couple of weeks? If most of the recipes fail the test, the book stays at the store.

I want the reality. I want dinner on the table every night without being seduced by pictures of stylist-arranged food that—let’s be honest—I’m never going to prepare.

While those books offer up a lot of grilled-chicken-in-a-peanut-sauce-in-the-sky dreams, I need some reality. It’s not just about the recipe; it’s about all the aspects of getting dinner on the table.

By the end of this book, my hope for you is that you will be able to:

save time, money, and energy when it comes to
preparing meals
have less stress when it comes to shopping
get your kitchen prepared for battle
learn some stress-free ways to get dinner on the table
get out of your cooking rut
This book is all about the process, the how of getting dinner on the table. It reflects the collective wisdom of hundreds of women who don’t have prep cooks or a crew of interns trying out new recipes. We are the women who spend a significant part of our days thinking about, shopping for, and preparing dinner. And all these wise, wonderful women are going to show you a better way to get dinner on the table no matter what your cooking background or skill level.

This is the book I wish I’d had when I first started cooking, as well as when I was raising my brood of pint-sized food critics.

Don’t worry, there will be plenty of recipes. We all love to find that one recipe that is going to become a family favorite! But this book has much more than that. My hope is that you will be able to use the recipes you already have, the ones in this book, and the new ones you find along the way to set a big, bountiful table for your family.

Thursday, September 15, 2011

My So-Called Life as a Proverbs 31 Wife by Sara Horn (Book Review)

Title: My So-Called Life as a Proverbs 31 Wife
Author: Sara Horn
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers


About the book: Me? A Proverbs 31 wife? Yeah, right.

Sara Horn always admired the Proverbs 31 wife. . . from afar.  But when she became a busy writer and mom, that image began to look like an impossible ideal.

Or was it?

With humility and humor, Sara set out to immerse herself in all things domestic just to see if the Proverbs 31 woman could exist in the twenty-first century.  But when her family's situation changes and she must return to a full-time job, she's forced to look at the Proverbs 31 woman from a whole new viewpoint.  Through cooking experiments, Cub Scout campouts, failed attempts at knitting, and other household challegnes, she discovers:


  • a new way to define being a godly woman, wife and mom
  • how investing in family and faith brings surprising (and happy!) results
  • how mistakes are opportunities for growth . . . and laughter


Join Sara as she offers you full access into her one-year domestic experiment to see if this biblical model can be embraced by a modern woman -- even one who can't sew.


My thoughts: I think I was expecting a "how-to" guide when I started reading this book.  You know - how to be a good wife, how to be a good mom, how to be a good Christian.  This is not what this book is about - and was I glad. 

Sara writes with humor as she uses the wife described in Proverbs 31 (or Martha 31 - as she calls her) to try to set an example for her.  She aspires to be like Martha 31 as a wife, mom, businesswoman and in her relationship with God.  Things don't always work out as she hoped and a lot of times the situation she finds herself in with her family are somewhat out of her control.

With her husband leaving on a deployment, a house to sell, a new job to start, and a little boy to take care of, she wonders how Martha 31 did it all.  I don't know that I had ever really thought about trying to aspire to all the qualities of the women in Proverbs 31: 10-31.  It starts out with - A good wife who can find?  Sounds to me like the woman who can fulfill all of these qualities are rare.  Does this mean that we should forget about trying to be like her?  I don't think so, I just don't think we should beat ourselves up if we can't do it all.  But most important to remember from these verses is - A woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.  If you can remember that one, then He can help you with the others.

There is a 10-Day Challenge in the back of the book that looks interesting.  I am not sure that I could do it in 10 consecutive days, but I might give it a whirl.  I am definitely going to try out some of the recipes that she shares in the back!

Visit my post for First Wild Card Tour to learn more and read the first chapter!

My So-Called Life as a Proverbs 31 Wife
Publisher/Publication Date: Harvest House Publishers, Sept 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7369-3941-6
204 pages

Thursday, September 8, 2011

First Wild Card Tour: 52 Things Kids Need From a Mom (Book Review)

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

My Thoughts: I love reading this book, but more importantly, I love using her suggestions.  She starts out by telling you that this is not "checklist".  That there are many things that different moms could come up with to do.  She just hopes that this list gets you to be creative.  What I got out of it was to "be present" in your children's lives. 

One of the chapters was "Kids Need a Mom. . .To Make Them Sit Around the Table. . .and Linger". This is something that we already do, and we all take turns telling about our day.  She suggests though, to have everyone tell a high and a low.  I think this is a great idea, because you might find out some things going on in your child's life that you wouldn't hear about (the lows).

Another chapter is "Kids Need a Mom. . . To Wait on Them Hand and Foot...When They are Sick.  I am putting this one into practice today!  My daughter is home sick and just a little while ago I was thinking that I had never been up and down the stairs so often!  But now she is upstairs sleeping and I get a few minutes to sit! 

The chapters are all just a couple of pages long so it is really simple to read a snatch of it here or there.  Much of it might be common sense to some of us, but sometimes we all need a reminder!  I think the moms in my Mops group would really love this book.

Today's Wild Card author is:


and the book:

Harvest House Publishers (September 1, 2011)
***Special thanks to Karri James | Marketing Assistant | Harvest House Publishers for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:




Angela Thomas is a sought-after speaker, teacher, and bestselling author of Do You Think I’m Beautiful, My Single Mom Life, Prayers for My Baby Boy, and Prayers for My Baby Girl. She inspires thousands at national conferences, workshops, and through video studies that she filmed and wrote including When Wallflowers Dance.

Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:




Bestselling author and mother of four Angela Thomas delivers a helpful, encouraging gathering of 52 inspiring ideas for moms who, in the whir of busyness, long to connect with their kids. Moms will learn to lead with God’s love in the small moments that make up an abundant, intentional life.



Product Details:

List Price: $12.99
Paperback: 224 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (September 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736943919
ISBN-13: 978-0736943918

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

Kids Need Their Mom…

To Pray in Secret
with the Door Open


In my first years as a mom, I desperately wanted to keep a passionate spiritual life with God. I wanted to read the Bible. Sit quietly and pray. Maybe even write a few things in my journal. It’s just that my little people would not cooperate. I had four babies in seven years, and not one of them was willing to go along with my plan. My heart kept longing to go back and have a spiritual life the way I’d always had. Alone. It took me a while to realize that being a mom means you might never be alone again.

Frustrated. Probably even mad sometimes. I remember shaking my head and just fussing on the inside about my crazy, chaotic predicament. I am trying to be with God so that I can be a better mom. Anybody with me here? As you can imagine, being alone rarely happened. And I’d feel guilty about my crumbling spiritual life. And the only ones I knew to blame were them, the ones I loved so dearly, who needed me every minute.

I’d love to tell you that the answer for my struggle came to me in a moment of brilliance. But I was too tired to be brilliant. There was just an afternoon. I think I put on a video for the kids to watch and went upstairs to my bedroom. For some reason I kept the door open and sat down on the floor to read my Bible for a minute, and then I stretched out, facedown, on my carpet to pray. I guess I had been praying for one whole minute, and then they came.

I could hear them coming down the hall, but that day, instead of stopping what I was doing, I just kept lying there, praying. Of course, they walked right in, and I’m sure you can guess what they did. They crawled on top of me. And they played with my hair. And they wiggled their little faces up to mine.

“Hey, mama,” one whispered.

“Hey, honey,” a gentle, not frustrated, voice spoke from inside of me.

“Watcha doin’?” they said in unison.

“Praying.”

“Oh…it looked like you were sleeping,” an honest observer said.

It’s been known to happen, I admitted to myself.

Do you know what they did next? Those little toddling children lay down beside me and mostly of on top of me and prayed too. Oh, they prayed squirrelly prayers that lasted for only a couple of minutes, but they prayed. My babies were praying because they had seen their mama praying.

After a few minutes they were done, but I just kept lying there while they ran in and out. Back to the video. Then back to check on praying mom. And God settled something inside of me that afternoon. The days of being a college coed with lots of time to be alone to pray were over. That chapter was closed. And honestly, I didn’t want to go back. I just longed for the sweetness of how I used to spend time with God.

But lying on my bedroom floor that day, I knew I heard Him speaking to me:

This is how I want you to pray now. Pray in secret—with the door open. I want them to see you being with Me. I want them to catch you turning to your heavenly Father for guidance. I want them to learn from you how to walk with Me. No dramatic presentation needed. No fanfare required. Angela, this is a new season with a new way. And this new way for your heart pleases Me.

I remember being so very humbled. And grateful. My uptight, “everything must be right” personality could have kept me away from God for years. Trying to get it all together. Trying to be just right before I could spend time with Him. But that day God so tenderly walked me step-by-step through one of the most powerful lessons about grace I have ever known.

Come to Me messy.
Come when you’re tired.
Let the children lie on top of you.
Let them interrupt you.
You do not have to be perfect…just come to Me and let them see.

A woman stopped me last night. She said she’d heard me tell this story a few years ago and it completely changed her as a mom. She too had been trying to keep the rules and do things neatly, in order, the way she always had. She told me, “I do my Bible study sitting on the bathroom floor while my kids are in the tub. Most of the pages are warped by splashes of water, and some of my notes written in ink run, but those messy, imperfect books are treasures to me now.”

My kids are older now, but the lesson remains. They still need to catch me praying. They should walk past my room and know I’m reading my Bible. They need to find the notes I’ve taken lying on the counter in the kitchen. They need to overhear me praying with a friend on the phone.

I bet your kids do too.

It seems that the lessons we so want to teach our kids are transferred—and not because we sit them down in the living room, pass out ten pages about being spiritual, and then give them a long-winded lecture about how our family is going to follow God. The thing that shapes them more deeply is that you and I pursue God in the everyday of living—that our spiritual lives become the backdrop for their childhood. Bibles left open are normal. A kneeling, praying mom is an ordinary sight. Bibles studies done at bath time, routine.

Reaching Their Hearts

One afternoon I had gone to pray in secret, but God so beautifully taught me that my “secret” needed to be seen. Jesus said in Matthew 6 that we are supposed to keep a secret life. To give in secret, pray in secret, and fast in secret. But I think that when we become moms, for a season those sets of eyes sent from heaven to watch you need to see what you do with God in your “unseen” moments.

May it be so for you and me. And may the children who witness our prayers learn to pray more powerfully because they catch us being with God.

Monday, August 29, 2011

First Wild Card Tour: Life-Changing Bible Verses You Should Know (Book Review)

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!



You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

My thoughts: Regardless of where you are in your spiritual walk, this book will no doubt be of some help.  If you have felt the desire to start memorizing scripture, but did not know where to start, this book will help you find some starting places.

Each chapter is about something that relates to Christian living, whether it be grief, redemption, temptation, anxiety - and gives you 1 or 2 verses that pertain to that topic.  The authors then explain why they think this verse(s) capture this subject.  At the end of each chapter are some discussion questions, which you can either contemplate on your own or use as the basis of a small group Bible study. 

There are 40 topics - so 40 chapters.  You can pick and choose which ones that you would like to memorize.  At the end of the book are some supplemental verses broken down under the topics. 

When I was a teenager, I was on a Bible quiz team and so memorized verses all the time.  Can't say that this has been a large part of my life since then.  I am one of those people that need a list to work off of, and this gives me a great list to start with.  I usually write the passage out on a 3X5 card with the Chapter and verse reference on the back.  Then I stick it in my purse or on my mirror or on my fridge - somewhere that I will see it alot. Hopefully by the end of the week I have it memorized.

How do you memorize Bible passages?




Today's Wild Card author is:



and the book:

Harvest House Publishers (August 1, 2011)
***Special thanks to Karri | Marketing Assistant | Harvest House Publishers for sending me a review copy.***



ABOUT THE AUTHOR:



Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer, Senior Pastor of The Moody Church since 1980, is an award-winning author of more than 20 books including Walking with God. He’s a celebrated international conference speaker and the featured speaker on three radio programs that are heard around the world. Rebecca Lutzer has used her gifts of hospitality, mercy, and teaching to minister to many women. She is an RN and enjoyed working as a surgical nurse for several years. They coauthored a book on the women in the life of Jesus and how He changed their worlds titled Jesus, Lover of a Woman’s Soul. They have been married for 35 years, live in the Chicago area, and are the parents of three married children.





SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:





Erwin Lutzer, senior pastor of the Moody Church, and his wife, Rebecca, encourage readers to reap the blessings of memorizing Scripture in this gathering of relevant verses, 35 topics, insightful explanations, and engaging questions. This foundation of wisdom inspires readers to experience God’s Word in powerful ways.







Product Details:



List Price: $12.99

Paperback: 208 pages

Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (August 1, 2011)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0736939520

ISBN-13: 978-0736939522



AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:




Adversity



Psalm 46:1—God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.



1 Peter 1:6-7—In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.





When we think back to the devastating earthquake in Haiti that killed nearly 200,000 people, many images come to mind, but one image that stands out well above the others is that of a young mother being interviewed on television as she held a baby in her arms.



“I lost my son…he died in the rubble.”



“Did you get to bury him?”



“No, no chance; his body was crushed in the rubble; I just had to throw him away.”



Just then the camera zeroed in on her backpack as she prepared to board a bus. Stuffed in a side pocket was a Bible. As she boarded the bus she could be heard, speaking to no one in particular, saying, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble…” Her voice trailed off as she disappeared from view.



When the report was over we just kept staring at the television for a while, pushing back tears and letting what we’d just seen sink into our souls. A dead child with no chance to plan a funeral and pay respects to her precious little one, a baby in her arms, and she was boarding a bus that was going she knew not where. Yet she still expressed belief; she still trusted that God is her refuge and strength.



Faith in adversity!



This mother—God bless her—began quoting Psalm 46, which was written as a praise song after God spared the city of Jerusalem from an invasion by Assyrians who were threatening to annihilate the inhabitants. In the midst of a harrowing escape, the Israelites found God to be an unshakable pillar.



God is our refuge. A refuge is a safe place you can run to for shelter when life’s storms are swirling around you. No wonder this dear mother found solace in this psalm, which continues, “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging” (verses 2-3).



Yes, the mountains did give way and fall into the heart of the sea, but God is unaffected by the fluctuation on events of earth; He is always there, solid, unmoved. When the mountains are shaking and the ground beneath you is quaking, run to God, and He will meet you. Yes, even when our world falls apart in the aftermath of a horrendous natural disaster, God is unchanging and remains with us.



In the midst of the devastation, God is our source of supply. The psalm continues, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells” (verse 4). Most likely that refers to a tunnel that had been built some time earlier to bring water into the city in case it was ever besieged. The people of Jerusalem saw this provision as God giving them specific help at their time of their need.



Then the psalm gives us a command: “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth” (verse 10). Let us cease striving and let God be God. Even in adversity He is there; or perhaps we should say especially in adversity He is there!



Adversity should not drive us away from God; rather, it should drive us into His arms. He is there for the grieving mother, and for the family that has experienced indescribable loss. The psalm ends, “The Lord Almighty is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress” (verse 11).



God wants to be believed. And our faith is more precious to Him than gold, which perishes. When we continue to trust Him even when there appears to be no reason to do so—and we go on believing God’s bare Word, our faith will “result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” (1 Peter 1:7).



Reverend Henry F. Lyte was a pastor in Scotland who battled tuberculosis most of his life. On his final Sunday, September 4, 1847, amid many tears the congregation sang a song he himself had composed, “Abide with Me.” It spoke of the unchanging God in an ever-changing world:



Abide with me; fast falls the eventide;

The darkness deepens; Lord, with me abide.

When other helpers fail and comforts flee,

Help of the helpless, O abide with me.



Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;

Earth’s joys grow dim; its glories pass away;

Change and decay in all around I see;

O Thou who changest not, abide with me.



Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes;

Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.

Heav’n’s morning breaks, and earth’s vain shadows flee;

In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.



The young mother in Haiti—who was clutching an undernourished baby in her arms and had no time to mourn the tragic death of her son—found solace in the God who was still beside her when the earth gave way. “God is our refuge and strength,” she said amid her grief and uncertainty of the future.



In times of adversity, our faith can hold fast. And God is both honored and pleased.





Taking God’s Word to Heart



Reflect on the account of the Haitian mother who tragically lost her son. How has Psalm 46 been a source of strength for you during adversity? What other Scripture passages do you turn to for help in difficult times?

What does it mean to you that God is your refuge? In life’s journey, why is God’s unchangeable nature a source of strength for us?

Recall an instance when God provided timely help for a specific need. What did that experience teach or confirm for you about God’s character?

What are some ways God has used adversity to shape your life?

Why is God honored and pleased when we exercise faith in times of adversity?

Thursday, August 4, 2011

First Wild Card Tour: 52 Ways to Wow Your Husband by Pam Farrell

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

You never know when I might play a wild card on you!

My thoughts: I have been reading this book for the last week, while trying to keep it hidden from my husband, which I was able to do successfully.  Then tonight, I sit down to write this post with the book beside me and my husband comes over and picks it up and says "Have you read this yet?"  with a big smile.  He then told me I wow him everyday . .    :)  I just couldn't believe that after I had hid it all week he see's it tonight!  But anyway - let me tell you about the book.

This book has 52 chapters - (52 weeks) - with a different idea for something special you can do to "wow" your husband.   You can get a better idea of this by reading the first chapter below.  For me, the book just opened my eyes  to how little I know about certain areas of my husband's life.  I remember doing all sorts of fun stuff outside the house before our youngest son came along and how quickly our together time has been squashed for family time.  Family time is important - but we need to be strong together before we can be strong together as a family.  I am going to be spending the next few weeks really paying attention to what my husband does in his free time, what he does to relax, what some of his favorites are - and then I am going to be preparing some "wow" dates.  I have already started devising some things I can do in October - as that is the month that we started dating.  This book definitely has the ability to draw us closer together, and I am looking forward to it!

Today's Wild Card author is:


and the book:

Harvest House Publishers (August 1, 2011)
***Special thanks to Catherine Miller, Marketing Assistant, Harvest House Publishers for sending me a review copy.***

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:


Pam Farrel and her husband, Bill, are cofounders and codirectors of Masterful Living, an organization that provides practical insights for personal relationships. The Farrels are also regular relationship columnists. As coauthors their books include Men Are Like Waffles—Women Are Like Spaghetti, The 10 Best Decisions Every Parent Can Make, and Red-Hot Monogamy. In addition Pam has written Fantastic After 40! and The 10 Best Decisions a Woman Can Make. The Farrels have been married more than 30 years and have three children and a daughter-in-law.

Visit the author's website.

SHORT BOOK DESCRIPTION:



With her trademark humor and godly wisdom, bestselling author Pam Farrel inspires women to add the wow-factor to their marriages and lives through 52 clever ideas for dates, meals, getaways, and daily expressions of love. A spark of fun and refreshment for newlyweds, married with kids, or empty nesters.




Love Wise Intro from Bill & Pam Farrel on Vimeo.


Product Details:

List Price: $10.99
Paperback: 160 pages
Publisher: Harvest House Publishers (August 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0736937803
ISBN-13: 978-0736937801

AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:

WOW 1

The Recharger Box


What a man finds romantic is a woman who will lower his stress! In Men Are Like Waffles—Women Are Like Spaghetti, I explain that men go to their favorite easy boxes to rest and recharge. God helped us women recognize these easy boxes in that most of them are shaped like boxes—the TV screen, the newspaper, the garage, the Xbox, the computer screen, the football field, the baseball diamond, the basketball court, the refrigerator, and the bed. The bed box (also known as the sex box) is a husband’s favorite box to go to when he is stressed out. This box or square is kind of like the center square on a bingo card, and a man can get to that box from every other square on his waffle.

Wow Assignment

Find out your man’s favorite easy box he goes to for recharging. Here are some ways to discover this vital information:

If given thirty minutes of dead time, what does he do?
If he were given a day off, where would he like to go?
What does he do now when stressed?
What does he watch on TV when relaxing? (Sports? Movies? Adventures? Fix-it shows?)
Kendra Smiley and her husband, John, wrote Do Your Kids a Favor…Love Your Spouse. John was wowed unexpectedly by Kendra with his all-time favorite box:

I’ve been a Green Bay Packers fan for years and transferred that enthusiasm to our three teenage sons. I never imagined I would actually be able to see a game at Lambeau Field because legend has it that the only way to get tickets is to inherit them when someone dies. But legends don’t stop Kendra! She called the ticket office, asking about the purchase of five tickets for the last home game of the season. After the laughter died down (I guess there was some truth to the legend), they referred her to an agency offering “Weekend Packages.” She knew we couldn’t afford all the extras of a package, and somehow she managed to convince the woman at that office to simply sell her five tickets. She gave me a gift that took her time, her effort, and a little bit of her charming persuasion. What a great model for our kids!

My man’s favorite easy box is: ________________________

Wow Wisdom

Pray and thank God for your husband. Often we women push, push, push our spouse to be more productive or work on our “honey-do” list even on his day off. If you keep pushing, he might begin to see you as a mother or a boss, not a wife and lover. A husband who gets pushed to do too many things he doesn’t enjoy will exhaust himself emotionally and grow distant from his wife. Think about how much better your life is when you are connected with your lover!

Instead of resenting your “waffleman” for needing to recharge, thank God he has a box to recharge in so he can maintain the energy to keep up with you! As Paul reminds us, “In everything give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:18 nasb).

Wow Date

Make him breakfast in bed and serve waffles. Give him a note for one free day off to do whatever he wants—to enjoy his favorite “waffle box(es).” Include a gift card for something that helps him recharge. While you’re there in bed, why not enjoy some “bingo”? Remember, for most men, bingo is the number one recharger box.

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