One.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!?!? A tiny house coffee shop? Sigh. Of Love.
Two.
Three.
Still loving my capsule wardrobe life {though I have not talked about it on the blog for a while} and still loving glimpses of how others wear their staple pieces. I love this post by Audrey {whose style I adore} on dressing for patriotic occasions!
Four.
I have to tell you about this really cool birthday present I got this year! My mother-in-law Lynn gave me gift cards to her favorite coffee shops in town. Since I'm new here, and I love coffee, she wanted me to know how to get to the coffee shops and some of her favorite things to try there. She even included directions from our house to the coffee shops. It was thoughtful and kind and a terrific gift for a coffee lover like me!
Five.
At the beginning of this year, Ryan and I decided we wanted to be more intentional about doing daily devotions together, so we elected to work our way through a book to guide our study. It is with a slightly red face that I confess it took us almost FIVE months to work through a THREE month book. Some weekends and, you know, a major move, caused us to miss some days. But that little detail aside, our book for the first portion of this year was Beth Moore's 90 Days with Jesus the One and Only.
If you know me very well at all, you know I love me some Beth Moore. I've done several of her in-depth Bible studies and have learned incredible wisdom from her teaching. But it's true that her studies can be intimidating if you're not excited about a deep time commitment to spend in study. So if that part scares you, but you'd still like to learn from Beth's wisdom, this book would be a great place for you to start.
Beth wrote a book {which I've not read} called Jesus the One and Only, and this devotional is pulled from that original work. Divided over 90 days {obviously}, each chapter is either one or three pages long, and is accompanied by two or three reflection questions. If you read this book on your own, you'll find the questions helpful as you think about the topic for the day, and there are even blanks in the book to write your answers. If you do this as a study with someone else, as we did, these questions work really well as conversation starters. Each chapter also concludes with a prayer and some additional lines for journaling.
I learned things about Jesus and about the original language of the Scripture text that I had not known. As always, Beth made me think about aspects of God's character I wouldn't have thought of on my own. Her own familiar voice and occasional humor pop up throughout the book, but for the most part, the focus is kept firmly on the life of Jesus and His unfailing character.
The book is hardback with deckled edges and a ribbon bookmark, so it has beautiful presentation and would make a great gift! This is a book I already had on my shelf, and I have one other book in this Personal Reflections series that I'm excited to explore with Ryan soon! {Beth has similar 90 day studies, also based on other books she wrote, focused on the lives of David, Paul, and John.} I should add that this book was published back in 2007, so it's not new at all, but that's the beautiful thing about the studying the life of Christ: it's always current!
Six.
A book that is brand new and passed through my hands this week is Dee Henderson's newest novel, Traces of Guilt. This was my first time to read Dee's writing, but she is a New York Times bestselling author, so this is far from her first book.
Traces of Guilt finds Illinois State Police detective Evie Blackwell arriving in the small town of Carin, Illinois to take on her first assignment of a new task force to solve cold cases. Two missing-persons cases bring her to town: a six year old girl, and a family of three, both vanished years earlier, seemingly along with any clue of why.
Evie meets the Thane family: the retired sheriff and his prayer-warrior wife, along with their three grown sons, one of whom is the current sheriff. As she begins to study the cases, look for clues, and follow leads, Evie develops a friendship with every member of the Thane family. She leans on them for assistance in her quest, and they lean right back, desperate for closure on these two cases that have settled too close to home for too many years.
The book is marketed as romantic suspense, and it is indeed suspenseful, but it's more of a steady-suspense than a heart-stopping suspense. Unlike what you see in solved-in-an-hour TV shows, cold cases are cold, because they involve years of dead ends and frustrating disappointment. The book does not hide that, and some of Evie's ideas are just that: promising and then gone in an instant.
The book has a strong faith element, but it's not sugary in any way. The depravity of crimes and the level of grief are accurate to the struggles of real life and a reminder of the truth that sin can't stay hidden forever.
Even though the book wasn't fast paced, I enjoyed the steady suspense, and I loved the family camaraderie of the Thanes and the friendships I saw developing among the characters. I hope there are more books to come about Evie's adventures in detective work!
Thanks, Bethany House, for providing a copy of this book for me to read in exchange for an honest review!
3 comments:
I just did a major closet purge, it felt good. I think capsule would be hard for me bc of my work vs regular wardrobe, but I'm trying to not hold onto the "maybe one day I'll wear it items"!
That post by Kristen Strong was so good. Made me teary eyed and appreciate the fact that my first born is not quite old enough to fly the coop; I need to be cherish the next few years with him before he heads off to college.
Tamar - Your clothes are always SO CUTE!!
Maria - Years left to make memories - I love it! :)
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