The Saturday Six

One.

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I've seen versions of this floating around Pinterest, but I like this one because it comes in a version completely ready to print! A map that you can use to overlay pictures from your travels to each state! How cool is this??


Two.

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I've been reading more about writing a verse or two each day to begin implementing new ways to hide the Word in your heart. Melanie posted this list for the month of February - and all the verses talk about love. If you've not done a Scripture-writing challenge before and would like to try, here's a list to get you started!

Three.

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I am excited to share this post with you today for two reasons: one, it is just full of truth you can relate to, and two, the author is my real life friend. Emily was one of those spiritual encouragements placed in my path all the way back in high school. She encouraged me to bring my Bible to study hall and we'd get in trouble passing notes back and forth as we tried to be iron sharpening iron. And we studied a couple of the New Testament books on our own time outside of school. She was encouraging me as a teenager, and she's still encouraging me now. Hopefully now I can spread that to you, too!

Four.

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Not much makes me want to break out into an old fashioned "I declare!" more than the drama that seems to encompass Facebook lately. The place I once loved to share for the sake of sharing and giggles and encouraging seems to have become a junior high cesspool of grownups who use everything for mudslinging against each other and it completely exhausts me. It makes me sad, too, because I think this internet space is such a fabulous tool for lifting one another up and drawing each other closer to Jesus. And because of it, I offer you this internet-breath-of-fresh-air post from the delightful Kristen Strong.  

Five. 

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I'm such an overgrown kid. {You knew this.} I get as excited about giving Valentines to people now as I did in elementary school when you had to write one out for every kid in your class, so you could drop them in their little hand decorated lunch sacks. So when I found this on Rachel Wojo's site - free printables with Bible verses - I started getting ideas swirling already! Cute!

Six.

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My love of small town stories {of course!!}, home renovation shows on TV, and a good little bit of mystery all converged to pique my interest on a new novel called Where She Belongs by Johnnie Alexander. This is actually the first book in a new series called The Misty Willow Series.

The story is that of Shelby Kincaid, a young widow and mother of two little girls, who wants to leave behind her big city life to return to the only place she ever felt like she belonged: Misty Willow. The family homestead is in severe disrepair after being neglected for years by AJ Sullivan, the young man who inherited it from his grandfather. He didn't want the property in the first place and did absolutely nothing to maintain it, a neglect that breaks Shelby's heart.

As she moves back home and tries to create a new life for her broken and grieving little family, she finds that AJ is both maddening and alluring, and the push and pull of her feelings toward him keep her wrestling with her own emotions. She also discovers that the whole transition of the homestead out of her family and into AJ's family is laced with much mystery. Love triangles, love lost, love gained...odd that so much love could seemingly lead to so much destruction.

As is typical for me with small town stories, I wasted no time in falling in love with Misty Willow and with all the people of the surrounding community. The family dynamics were the same kind of frustrating in the book that they are in real life for many people, and while the story was not void of conflict, it was also not void of love and faith. I appreciated the important life lessons Johnnie wove in without allowing them to be overly preachy.

While I wouldn't call the book suspenseful in a heart-stopping sort of way, it does have a good bit of mystery that keeps you reading. The love stories are tender, and there are plenty of unanswered questions to leave room for the next book in the series, due out this fall!

Thanks, Revell, for sending a copy of this book my way in exchange for an honest review!