Categories Book Reviews, The Week in Words

WiW: Every story whispers

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The Week in Words

It’s my new favorite book. I bought it two weeks ago, and I’ve read from it every night since I got it.

It’s the The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones. I’ve read the first story, the introduction of sorts, at least a dozen times–to several dozen people.

An excerpt from the introduction–the part that convinced me I needed to own a copy:

“No, the Bible isn’t a book of rules, or a book of heroes. The Bible is most of all a Story. It’s an adventure story about a young Hero who comes from a far country to win back his lost treasure. It’s a love story about a brave Prince who leaves his palace, his throne–everything–to rescue the one he loves….

There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.

It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story. And at the center of the Story, there is a baby. Every Story in the Bible whispers His name.“

That’s what I love about The Jesus Storybook Bible.

Every story whispers His name.

Not one story ends without reference to Jesus, to the gospel, to the truth of Jesus Christ come to save sinners.

It’s why I take my Storybook Bible with me to hang out with friends. It’s why I read it to the girls I decoupaged with over the weekend. It’s why I read it to the dementia residents at our care facility during my off hours.

Because every story whispers His name.

As one Alzheimer’s patient interrupted every few paragraphs to exclaim:

“I’ve heard that story before, but I’ve never heard it so clearly.”

I love The Jesus Storybook Bible–but I want to go beyond it.

I want every story that I tell–
every story that others tell about me–
My heart’s desire is that my every story
would whisper His name.

The same precious resident who interrupted me to tell me how clearly The Jesus Storybook Bible told the story of creation and the fall also told me “That’d be wonderful for children, because it’s so clear.”

For my part, I agree–and add “And for the elderly and everyone in between.” I loved being able to share the gospel with a dozen ladies over the course of the hour I spent reading. Each story gave me opportunity to emphasize once again that God loved his children (and THEM) so much that He came to earth and died in order to bring them into relationship with Him.

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

*This was NOT a paid advertisement. I received no monetary or other compensation for this review. In fact, I paid my own money for a copy of The Jesus Storybook Bible. And I recommend that you do the same.

Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: Before I turn into a pumpkin

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My computer starts singing to me at 9:15 every evening. Classical music, telling me that it’s starting to get tired and really needs a long nap.

9:30, when the music turns off, is my cue to turn off the lights and leave my computer to its peace.

Now, as the time runs down and my computer will soon be singing, I’d best enumerate my thanks.

Thankful Thursday banner

This week, I’m thankful for…

…last Thursday’s sleep with my feet up–and the graciousness of girls and their mothers to leave me to it.

…last Friday’s game night at the coffee shop–and the great guys and gals I met/spent time with there

…last Saturday’s baking and a movie with Ruth–and finding out that the oven at the house of dreams wasn’t broken after all (but not until after we’d gone over to Ruth’s to make cheesecake)

…Sunday’s–what did I do on Sunday night? Did I do anything on Sunday night? Ah, turning off the computer exactly when the computer told me to do so. It feels great to be on schedule!

…Monday’s Pizza Ranch and used store fabric shopping

…Tuesday’s steaks and mushroom fries with my sister–topped off with a delish piece of leftover cheesecake (chocolate cheesecake topped with fresh strawberries–scrumdiddlyumptious!)

…Wednesday’s night in bed with a book–when my plans were called off and my sister called to say she was out of town, I figured “Why not?!” So I fell asleep to a novel. Nice!

And, of course, for a nice warm bed to fall into at the end of every night. And for the hope and expectation with which I rise every morning. And for the joyful, non-drugerous (I know, not a word) work that I do every day. And for the beautiful, beyond-my-dreams house I come home to after work. And…

Basically, Cinderella’s got nothing on me.

Because I don’t have a fairy godmother who’s given me a great evening out–I’ve got a REAL God who’s given me a whole great LIFE.

I’m so thankful for the remarkably full life He’s given me.

Now, to bed :-)

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Audrey Niffenegger

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How would you introduce yourself to someone you’ve known almost your entire life, if they’d never met you before in their entire life?

Such was the predicament in which Clare Abshire finds herself in The Time Traveler’s Wife.

I know, I know. You’ve all read the book–or at least seen the movie. All this is old news to you.

I had done neither, and it was certainly not old news to me. Not having seen the movie or heard a plot summary of the book (or been a fan of science fiction), I found the entire premise of the book (apart from the hint that is the title, that is) to be completely novel.

The novel follows Clare and Henry (the time traveler) in their various interactions with one another, jumping back and forth from time to time.

Clare simply moves in a linear fashion through time, meeting a middle aged Henry while still in elementary school. Henry, on the other hand, travels spastically through time, turning up (completely nude) in all sorts of places.

So the middle aged Henry might be time traveling to a certain time and meeting the young Clare, while at the same time his young self is going about his day to day life completely unaware that the time traveling older Henry is also on earth at that specific time.

It’s a bit to wrap the mind around (at least for me).

Anyhow, at some point, Clare and Henry actually meet in “real time”–not as a freak accident of Henry’s completely unplanned time travels. When they meet, they have sex. Lots and lots of sex.

Which brings me to the major drawback of this novel. It is absolutely stuffed with sex (I can’t decide whether it’s gratuitous or not. Certain scenes seem to play a role in the development of the characters and plot, but others just don’t. Not that the sex is particularly graphic–it’s just omnipresent.)

If it weren’t for that, I would have completely loved this book.

The story was engaging and well-told. The characters were interesting. And the occasional metaphysical questions the characters raised (such as: can a person traveling into the past change the present and the future? Is the universe determined or chaotic?) were intriguing to this particular mind. But the sex. I’m just not sure if I can really recommend the sex.

Rating: 3? stars
Category:Women’s Fiction
Synopsis:Two people, one a time traveler and one not, find their lives inextricably intertwined–although somewhat oddly, since their life experiences (even of each other) rarely match up.
Recommendation: If it weren’t for the voluminous sex, I’d give this five stars hands down. It’s a well told story. However, I have to urge readers to exercise caution. Know your boundaries when it comes to gratuitous sex and decline if the ever-present sex in this novel is going to cause problems.

Categories Homemaking

Bargain Fabric

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Once upon a day, sewing your own clothing was cheaper than buying it pre-made.

Now?

That’s not always the case.

At four or five bucks a yard for fabric plus notions, you can easily shell out thirty or more bucks for a dress–not to mention the time you’ve taken to put it all together.

Starts to make you wonder if sewing your own is a fanciful hobby for the comfortably-well-off.

Thrifty seamstresses, don’t lose heart.

It just so happens that I know JUST the place to find bargain fabric.

Goodwill. (Or Salvation Army. Or whatever your nearest second hand shop is. Garage sales are also great.)

Bedsheets. Tablecloths. Curtains. All of these are wonderful sources of large sections of fabric that can be obtained at a fraction of the price a fabric store would charge.

Fabric and yarn

My Goodwill charges $3.25 per sheet.

A twin sized bedsheet provides a little over four yards worth of fabric (it’s wider than a bolt of fabric, of course, so you’ll have to rearrange your pattern on the fabric a bit–but inch for square inch, it’s over four yards worth of 45″ fabric.) That’s less than a dollar a yard!

A king sized bedsheet provides a whopping seven and a quarter yards of fabric! And at my Goodwill, a king sized sheet costs the same as a twin. So that’s less than 50 cents a yard!

Garage sales often have great fabric sources for even cheaper.

I have grand plans for my newly purchased bargain fabric.

I’ll be using the white fabric on the left to make new pillowcases–using the pretty lace edging to also edge my pillowcases.

Edge fabric

I’ll be saving the next two for use as quilt backings or quilt components (can never get too much solid gender-neutral colored fabric!)

The blue check and pink stripe will become pajama/lounging pants.

Fabric and yarn

And the pink floral (jersey knit) will become a medium length summer nightie.

I also found the yarn for a steal ($7.50 for the whole lot). I haven’t made plans for the sparkly acrylic to the left, but the cotton on the right will make wonderful washcloths and face cloths.

Now…I used to be not at all queasy about used store stuff–whatever it was.

Then I learned about lice and scabies and bedbugs.

And frankly, it’s made me a bit wary.

But, as you can see, that doesn’t mean I’ve quit buying used store fabric.

Why not?

Because all it takes is a little space and a little time and you can wave goodbye to the little buggers that bite in the night.

Fabric

Just dump your new (old) fabric in a trash bag, tie the top (so that the bag is airtight), and throw it in a closet for two weeks. When the two weeks are up, pull it out, open it up, dump the contents into the washer, and wash in hot water.

Voila. Bug-free fabric.

So…

Come one, come all, come pick up some bargain fabric–coming soon to a used store/yard sale/second-hand shop near you!

Categories The Week in Words

WiW: Work in Progress

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The Week in Words

“…I can understand the impatience of many with the halting progress made by new democracies around the world. From our vantage point, our own democracy and government may appear to have come easily. But they did not.

Thirteen years after America declared its independence, we had to completely revamp our government.

And though in 1789 we started with a near perfect document, the Constitution, it took decades, even centuries for us to build a more perfect country. It took over seventy-five more years to achieve the abolition of slavery. It was fifty-five years after the surrender at Appomattox before women earned the right to vote and another forty-five years beyond that before real civil rights came to our own nation.

Only in hindsight do we feel the onward rush of progress and think of it as inevitable and unstoppable. In the moment, it looks like something else indeed.”

~Laura Bush, in Spoken from the Heart (paragraphing my own)

She posed the question to the whole class. “But what about when you want to do the right thing, but you just keep sinning again and again?”

I could identify.

I write a noble preamble with the best of intentions.

“We the people of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect union…”

And perfection doesn’t come.

Slavery. Sexism. Racism.

I find myself far from what I want to be.

Divided. At war with myself. Many battles and few victories.
And even the victories that come are such broken, bittersweet victories.

For I am at war with myself–how can I win?

One war won and another rises to take its place.
The steps of progress painfully slow.

I want it to be instantaneous.

I want to write my constitution and be perfected.
I want justification to mean immediate sanctification.

But it doesn’t.

Looking at another’s life, I feel that sanctification comes naturally, quickly.

But it doesn’t.

“Only in hindsight do we feel the onward rush of progress and think of it as inevitable and unstoppable. In the moment, it looks like something else indeed.”

Maybe it’s only in hindsight that the fight loses its pain, that the struggle seems easy. But I’ll keep my eye on the Preamble–and the promised end.

I shared it with my classmate, and I’ll remind myself again:

“O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
~Romans 7:24-25

Don’t forget to take a look at Barbara H’s meme “The Week in Words”, where bloggers collect quotes they’ve read throughout the week.

Categories Faith

Agents of Grace

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I wonder what you thought you were doing when you sang the chorus that impressed me with wonder at God’s reign.

Performing, probably–

But you were an agent of grace to me.

I wonder what you thought as you wrote the books that touched my heart, stimulated my mind, moved me to give glory to God.

Perhaps you longed for greatness or for self-expression–

But you were an agent of grace to me.

I wonder what you thought as you debated the Constitution that would make me a free woman in a free land.

Maybe you had mighty ideals of how a country should be ruled–

But you were an agent of grace to me.

I wonder what you thought as you passed my resume along after a teal-suited interview.

Were you just doing a favor?–

But you were an agent of grace to me.

I wonder what you thought as you built the road that transports me safely to Grand Island and back.

Maybe you were just getting the job done–

But you were an agent of grace to me.

Common grace, bestowed freely
The grace unexplained
Wielded through conduits unsuspecting
Unbelievers, agents of God’s grace to me.
Categories Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday: A fall

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I wasn’t thinking when I stepped out her back door into the place the deck used to be. I wasn’t thinking about how the deck was no longer there.

So my step led me right into the gap between the makeshift steps and the house.

When I fell, I pushed the door open, letting the rest see what had happened.

Thankful Thursday banner

This week, I’m thankful for…

…friends who come running

…a sister who lifts the stairs away, freeing my trapped leg

…a short drive home (since my right foot was having a hard time with accelerating and braking)

…a bathtub to soak in

…pillows to elevate my legs as I slept

…blissful sleep even as tears of pain slipped down my cheeks

…cruise control to lessen the stress of my drive into Grand Island

…open chairs at almost every nurse’s station, meaning I was off my feet for most of the day

…my favorite resident (I know, I probably shouldn’t have favorites, but I do) hoping I’ll feel better soon

…understanding mothers who don’t blink an eye when I cancel sewing with their daughters at the last minute

…friends again, who text to see how I’m doing

…the God who shows mercy amidst my every fall

What are YOU thankful for today?

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “The Story of the Bible” by Larry Stone

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After the the first book I agreed to review from a publisher turned out to be a dud (in my opinion, humble), I told myself that maybe I just wasn’t cut out for the “review copy” thing. I should go back to just reviewing the books I check out of the library. It’s much less pressure that way.

Then I saw The Story of the Bible from Thomas Nelson’s BookSneeze program–and saw that the foreword was by Ravi Zacharias.

Surely if Ravi wrote the foreword, it’s got to be okay, I told myself. So I went ahead and requested it without reading another word.

What a fortuitous impulse!

The Story of the Bible arrived outside my front door, I opened it up, and was immediately hooked.

For the next couple of weeks, I never went anywhere without my copy.

“You need to see what Thomas Nelson just sent me,” I’d say as I pulled it out of my tote to pass to friends, family, and strangers. (Lucky me, I carry a nice large tote that can hold the jumbo-sized coffee-table-style book.)

“It’s the story of the writing and canonization and preservation and translation of the Bible.” I told them as they rifled through the pages.

Then, lest they miss the most exciting part, I’d direct them to the vellum envelope pages found within every chapter. “Go ahead and take it out” I’d urge.

Dutifully, they’d pull out the odd sized papers found in the various envelopes.

One started reading the writing:

Great Isaiah Scroll
The only complete Dead Sea Scroll is the Great Isaiah Scroll, discovered in 1947 by Muhammed Ahmed el-Hamed and pictured on page 25….

I could hear the quizzical expression in my friend’s voice as she read aloud. “Why on earth is Rebekah so excited about this?”

“Turn it over,” I urged.

And that’s when she discovered what I was so excited about.

Each scrap of paper within the vellum envelopes is a life-size full-color replica of a Biblical text.

A page from the Dead Sea Scrolls, pages from the Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus, Wycliff’s Bible and Gutenberg’s. The list goes on and on.

It’s like a museum in one glossy paged volume.

I can’t be more excited.

The text itself is in well-written, engaging prose. I had no difficulty getting through the pages–or dipping in for a paragraph here and there in casual perusal (both of which I did.)

The author writes with an evangelical bent and an obvious reverence for the Word of God. This is no dull historical story of how men have preserved a book. This is a living story of how God has spoken a book, preserved His words, and communicated His heart to the nations of the world throughout the centuries.

This book is a definite keeper!

Rating: 5 stars
Category:Christian history
Synopsis:A museum in a book, telling the story (and showing the documents) of the writing, canonization, preservation, and translation of the Bible.
Recommendation: 5 stars

For the sake of full disclosure, I received this book for free via the Book Sneeze blogger program at Thomas Nelson. All views expressed in this post are my own. I received nothing for this review beyond the book I just reviewed (which is a reward of great worth, if I do say so myself!)

Categories Homemaking

I take pictures of my toilet

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I do.

You don’t believe me?

Here’s proof:

back of toilet bowl

My toilet had been running continuously, so I set out to replace the flapper.

Flapper replaced, I filled the tank (sans the space taken up by my Dorothy Lynch dressing bottles of water) with water and added food coloring.

Toilet bowl with blue dye

Unfortunately, the blue food dye quickly leaked into the bowl, indicating that my fix had NOT solved the problem.

So I disassembled the toilet again and did some troubleshooting.

Maybe it’s that hard water deposit on the what’sit there.

My Xacto knife came out and I scraped the deposit off.

I refilled the tank and added red dye this time.

back of toilet bowl

Nope. That wasn’t it either.

Then I broke the ceramic urn thing I keep on the back of my toilet.

So I super glued it back together.

Then I super glued a ceramic figurine I’d broken months ago back together.

Then I discovered that I’d super glued my fingers together.

Xacto knives are great for removing excess glue from random surfaces–but be careful when removing excess glue from fingers.

Postscript: My pastor preached out of Proverbs 31 this Sunday–and I can’t help but think of Mrs. 31 as I go about my not-always-routine day-to-day tasks. Did Mrs. 31 ever have to deal with a toilet that just won’t be fixed? I know Mrs. 31 wouldn’t leave half of her dishes over to the next day. But then again, Mrs. 31 didn’t have to spend 8 (or 10) hours at work each day, did she? I vacillate between inadequacy and pride as I compare myself. Which completely misses the point, I remind myself. FEAR GOD, Rebekah. That’s what make you a Ms. 31 (not whether or not you leave dishes on the counter or succeed in fixing your toilet.)

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: “The Garden of Eden” by Ernest Hemingway

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It’s a rare day that I put down a book after the requisite 50 pages because I no longer want to keep reading. (I’ve done that with maybe a handful of books.)

It’s an even rarer day that I put down a book that I want to keep reading but that I mustn’t keep reading.

Yet this is what I have done with The Garden of Eden

This is the story of a young writer and his new bride, on their honeymoon in the French Riveria. It’s written with Hemingway’s typical terse prose. From the beginning, the interpersonal dynamics between the girl and the writer are fascinating–all the more fascinating by the way Hemingway tells his stories.

Unfortunately, the story starts off with quite a bit of sex (not surprising for a honeymooning couple–or for Hemingway)–and denigrates further as the story progresses.

First the girl cuts her hair like that of a boy.

Then she wants to be more experimental in the bedroom. (Given Hemingway’s somehow less-than-graphic prose in this segment I made it past this part.)

But when she starts taking on with a girl she meets–and when she practically orders her husband to sleep with the other girl–and when I realized that what was coming next was that she too would be sleeping with the other girl–

I knew I had to close the book.

Writing it out like this, so cold on my computer screen, it’s hard to believe that the story thus far was as engaging as it actually is.

It’s a perverted, immoral tale.

So why did I want to keep reading?

I wanted to keep reading because Hemingway truly is a master of his art, and he is tremendously masterful in this particular story.

The writer intrigued me and puzzled me. He very clearly had no desire to be involved in what his wife was drawing him into. He was uncomfortable with it from the first. Yet time after time, he accedes to her wishes. He tells her he likes her hair when he doesn’t. He cuts his hair in the same style as hers. He kisses the other girl.

Why?

Why does he continue this wicked little game?

I won’t ever know. I don’t need to know.

Yet I feel somewhat like Digory Kirke, standing by the bell and wanting so much to ring it.

Thankfully, the book was due back to the library the day I decided, so the temptation to read the rest will subside with the opportunity to do so less accessible–and I will not live to regret having rung a bell that could not be unrung.

This “review” is somewhat unusual among my reviews in not having a summary statement at the end. I feel it unnecessary to rate or provide a short synopsis of this title. On the other hand, I do feel it valuable to give my recommendation: don’t go near this particular bell. And if you find yourself hearing the warning of the Holy Spirit, as I did, over a book you’re reading–please put it down. The paradise this world offers is but a pale imitation, a twisted shadow, a tormented image of the Paradise God offers. Let the vision of the One cause you to turn your eyes from every deformed other.