For those of you NOT eating clean this summer, I have two words: THIS MILKSHAKE.
Two.
I had to giggle at this! Are you volunteering at a VBS this summer? If so, you might identify with this funny little article. Ryan and I have both volunteered in the past, and we know! It can sometimes consume you and leave you, well, humming the theme song for weeks on end!
Three.
I thought this post spoke well of something we don't like to think of as truth {or even if we do, we certainly won't admit it out loud.} Sometimes we really don't want to be well from whatever spiritually ails us. WHAT?! Except...it's true. Take a look!
Four.
Convicting stuff, right here. Nine sins the church is surprisingly okay with as long as you love Jesus. Sadly, I think this is pretty spot-on.
Five.
While I am not an interior designer or decorator at all, I thought this article was really interesting in terms of struggling to know how much to charge for things like time and talent. I am SO TERRIBLE at that and am trying to learn to do better as I branch out into using my gifts that have to be labeled with a value in some way!
Six.
The book I read this week is not a new one, but it's new to me. Earlier this year, when I spoke at the Women's Break Away in Chilton, Wisconsin, Jennifer Sands was the conference keynote speaker. I was familiar with her from a time Lynne interviewed her when I worked at the station, and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing her speak that weekend {we didn't get to hear her until the day after the conference when she shared her talk again at the church we attended}.
While at the conference, I purchased all three of her books, and this week I read the first one: A Tempered Faith.
If you're not familiar with Jennifer, she is a pharmacist from New Jersey, and her husband, Jim, was killed in the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. {Much more has happened in her life and story since that day, but this was the focus of the first book.}
I want to mention up front that the book is not another angle of coverage of 9/11. It's not an unpacking of the events of the day from a new perspective, not a documentary on the day that changed the world. It's a story of deep love and tender grief after devastating loss.
At the time of the attacks, Jennifer's faith was present, but immature. She prayed every day and attended church regularly, but she believed if she simply prayed, she would get what she asked for. And up to that point in her life, it seemed the tactic worked. She prayed regularly and everything turned out just as she asked - even the big things. But the morning of 9/11, she prayed for Jim's safety as he left for work, and her first big no shook everything she had ever understood about God and faith.
A Tempered Faith follows Jennifer's journey throughout the year or so after the 9/11 attacks, from her initial devastating grief and extreme anger toward God, through her many questions and eventual gentle understanding of the truth that God loves and sustains us even when we do not understand why He has allowed tragedy to befall us.
Jennifer introduces us to her husband, Jim, by allowing us to peek into their soul-mate marriage, and we also meet the friends God sent to her life to carry her through the hardest days she has ever known.
While most of us are not in the group of people who would understand the loss of a loved one to a terrorist attack, Jennifer's words address loss in general and are powerfully true in giving an explanation to the debilitating levels grief can reach.
The final chapter of the book wasmy favorite: a vulnerable peek into Jennifer's journal entries from the year following 9/11. After knowing the story and the timeline of her grief, questioning, and understanding, it was beautiful to watch her faith grow slowly in entry after entry. It was much like watching a baby grow through time lapse photography condensed into a few minutes. To read of her faith blossoming over the course of that year was inspiring.
The book is an easy read, conversational, and filled with hope in the middle of tragedy. I'm looking forward to reading the second and third books in the trilogy!
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