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You know we are SUCH HUGE FANS of date nights, and we're also huge fans for finding fun new ideas for them! Need one? Check out this sweet flow chart for helping you pick the perfect date night for your mood!
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It's been a while since I told you about a book! About a month, actually! I'm not sure what happened to me in the month of May. I think all the surprise partying and turning fortying and vacationing and transitioning into summer got the best of me. I was working my way through a book that whole time but just could not push myself to finish it. That makes me nervous to tell you about it!
Let me begin by saying my inability to finish the book in a timely manner should not be a reflection on the book itself. I was excited about it when I picked it up, I think it was well-done, and it has a good message. But I just don't know that it was the right fit of a book for me for this month of my life. If it had been a book I picked up on my own, I would have happily set it aside and waited for God's nudge to pick it back up when it fit me better. Alas, it's a book I promised to review, and I know it recently released to the world, so I need to uphold my end of the bargain.
When God Says Go by Elizabeth Laing Thompson caught my eye because I turned 40. (Seriously.) I told you a few weeks ago that I wanted to be as purposeful with this new decade as I was with my 30s, and I wanted to be sure I was right in the middle of wherever God wanted me to be. I wanted to offer my heart fresh perspectives on listening to His voice and perhaps understanding better if I needed to ramp up things I'm doing now or even try something entirely new. This book seemed to be a good companion to that heart-request, so I picked it up.
Elizabeth is a good writer and actually, her style reminds me of my own writing style in many ways. (I'm not saying that to pat myself on the back at all, but just to affirm why I thought I might really connect with her!) Each chapter of this book begins with a fictionalized Bible story and then moves into modern day application. (By fictionalized Bible story, I mean that she chose accounts in Scripture and wrote them out as though we stood beside the people from those moments, hearing conversations and feeling the full moments with them.) I've written similar things myself, so they don't offend me, but for some reason I had a hard time flipping back and forth in my head between Bible fiction and modern day application. I wanted to stay in one mode or the other, and I wrestled with flipping back and forth.
Having said that, Elizabeth did a great job of showing how we can learn from each of those people we read about in the Bible and how we can apply the principles to our everyday lives. One thing I really appreciated about the book was the way she didn't shy away from hard topics, like understanding the difference between actually hearing the call of God on your life and getting lost in feelings and peer pressure that can feel like the call of God on your life. That's not an easy thing to tackle, and I thought she did it very, very well.
Throughout the book, she explained how God's call on us to go and do something could be scary, could be against everything you planned for your life, could be very mundane, or could actually be a call to stay when you want to go. She included so much encouragement for people who are scared, unsure, bound by their past, or confused.
Despite my struggle to get through the book in a timely fashion, I underlined so many things and took a good amount of wisdom with me. I'd love to come back to this book in another season when it perhaps is more applicable to me than it seems right now. It's worth keeping and rereading, because it's quality work!
** Shiloh Run Press sent me a complimentary copy of this book, and the (too-delayed) opinions are all my own. **
2 comments:
Watermelon cake is so fun, cupcakes are even more fun!
Love the T-shirts. Thanks for sharing.
Gaylene
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