Kaleidoscope by Patsy Clairmont

The book Kaleidoscope by Patsy Clairmont is a book made up of many small, devotion-type entries meant to encourage women in their daily lives. Though many things were good within the book, it was not a devotional that I would refer back to or give any advice to anybody from.

While Clairmont uses her life to help women more fully understand the meaning of some of the Proverbs within the Bible, I was often asking myself where the lesson was within the text. It tended to be more of a story about the things that have happened in the author's life rather than a devotional. While I found these stories interesting, and could relate with a few of them, I just felt like I wasn't getting all that I should have been getting from the book -- I wasn't growing from it. I wanted more from the book than it actually gave me.

I really enjoyed the cover of the book, because I love colors and patterns and such, but the book is not one that I would recommend to a friend who was looking for guidance in understanding the book of Proverbs. I found that the stories didn't really fit with the Proverb being explained, and that many of the analogies never seemed to go back to the main point. I give this book a 1 of 5 stars.

Beautiful Things Happen When A Woman Trusts God by Sheila Walsh

Depression. Hospitals. Sadness. Hope. Truth.
These are some words that come to mind when I think about the latest book I have read, "Beautiful Things Happen When A Woman Trusts God" by Sheila Walsh. Many people in today's society struggle with depression on a clinical level, as well as minor bouts of depression. This is a story of a woman's struggle with depression, and how she turned that struggle into something beautiful for God. Walsh is open and honest about the tough things that have occurred in her lifetime. She uses her struggles to take us on a journey through the Bible, highlighting characters' stories that have helped her learn and grow in Christ.

While my first impression of the book was not a very positive one, as I kept reading, I became more and more intrigued. The beginning of the book seemed to drag on, and I wondered if the promise of exploring people of the Bible was really going to be fulfilled before the last page. It was, however, and I found the contents to be very helpful and insightful. I learned to look at characters of the Bible in a different light, and I also learned about characters I had never read about. While I found the book to be a pretty decent read, I would say this about it: For the new Christian woman, reading this will not only expand your knowledge on characters of the Bible, but it may also give you a glimmer of hope as well. For the christian woman who has believed for a while, this book is a good refresher -- It will remind you of some very Godly women of the Bible, remind you of other characters, and help you see them in a way that may be more applicable to your life.

While the book was a bit hard to keep reading at times, and I often wanted to put it down and start a new book, I learned much from finishing it. If you are interested in learning about people of the Bible, I would suggest this book.

Free Book by Brian Tome

The title of the book Free Book by Brian Tome has a very accurate title -- It is all about how to gain spiritual freedom in a world full of stronghold and bondage. Tome is very straight-forward throughout the whole book, not sugar-coating anything about it. He uses many scriptural references, which enhance the overall message of the book. He is also very tasteful in the presentation of his own opinions, making known that it is in fact just his opinion. Brian took a sometimes difficult to understand message about spiritual freedom, and broke it down into sections that were understandable for anyone to read, Christian or not.

While the straight-to-the-point, cold-hard-truth style of the book caught me off guard at first, I started to enjoy it the more I read. The book was challenged my way of thought, the actions I take, and the way I want to live my life. It was comforting to know that while I was reading the painful truth, the author could relate with the pain by sharing a personal story about the subject, and how he made it through. This is definitely a book that I would recommend, especially if you feel that you are in bondage and want to know the steps to freedom that God has waiting for you.

I am giving this book five out of five stars. As I thought about what to rate the book, I simply couldn't think of a reason NOT to give it five stars. Hope you enjoy it as well!

Serve to Love, Love to Serve

The days here in Painesville seem to get increasingly boring as we run out of things to do to get fully and completely moved here. There are still a few things we must do, and we could probably get them all done in one day, but it helps if we don't because it keeps us busy.

Josh and I have started reading through Oswald Chamber's "My Utmost for His Highest" Devotional book (we realized when we were unpacking our books that we both have a copy of it). As I was re-reading January 17th's devotional. It was about service, and how when we have a flourishing and intimate relationship with Christ, service should be the overflow of love and devotion. It was pretty convicting. I want to share a bit that I wrote about it from my personal journal:

"[The devotional says that] there is no specific call to service, but it is the overflow pouring from a life of love and devotion. The part that got me though, was the next line -- it says that service is what we bring to the relationship. Woah. This is some heavy duty stuff. My first though was, ' Well, I guess I better get serving! Gotta get that overflow going and moving to make me love God more'. Then I thought about it some more and realized that I had completely missed the point. Service is what we want to do when our relationship with Christ is blooming and flourishing. It shouldn't be a thing we do to try and make us love God more. Because we love God so much is why we want to serve! Because we love him so much that we are willing to go the next step, or even the next mile, to help and please our Lord God".

I know that I don't feel like serving all of the time, and sometimes when I am serving, my heart is not in this kind of place. I am not thinking about why I am doing it. I want to think about how much I love God while I serve. I want to remember that He is the reason for the action, and He is the reason I am even able to serve. I want to have such a strong. loving, devoted relationship to God that I am willing to serve no matter when or where, no matter what type of service it is.

Everything New

These last few days haven't really been too busy, but they have been a bit tiring. Sunday was a great day, it being the first day that we were officially here and Josh led worship for the first time at church, and it was just fun. Afterward, we just came home and took a VERY long nap, then did absolutely nothing for the rest of the day (hey, we spent a long time-- like the two days before that -- unpacking... it was nice to just rest :P).

Monday was more unpacking, and getting starting to venture out and get all the things done that you apparently have to do when you move out of state. Thats what we did today, too. Today, we got our Ohio licenses, which, I would like to tell you, are not very attractive. (Not because of the pictures on them either... :P) To describe them in one word, I would use tacky, but I will also say that they are a light shade of red (Which makes them look pink) with yellow, and weird markings all over them too. And, to top it off, I wanted to keep our MI licenses just for scrapbooking purposes, or something, but they wouldn't let us! Ah well, I guess.

Heat

I am super excited to move. I think that the location will be a big change, and it will be fun to experience a lot of new different things. Here is a list of just a few things I am excited about:

• We will be a hop, skip, and a jump away from the town square.
• There is a town square.
• We both have jobs where God can use our passions and grow us too.
• Our apartment has a fireplace (we can't use it, but it's super cute, and has a mantle!!)
• We can turn the heat up and not have to worry about how much it is going to cost!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• The bathtub in the bathroom has an older style shower curtain bar that goes all the way around the tub.. hehehe
• The master bedroom is HUGE, and it has a little nook/cove type thingy.
  
• We will be living right next to our landlord, who seems pretty cool.
  
• the college is right across the street
• The have a Gabriel Brothers store there!!!!
• We will be living pretty close to the drummer and his family (drummer for the church, that is...)

I am sure that there are more things, but this is just a small list of the things that I am pumped about. Also, Our families are being awesome and helping us move! Yeah to parents :)

Merry Christmas :)

Christmas and such

So, I am pretty excited about this upcoming season. It will probably be super crazy, and so I thank everyone in advance for dealing with the craziness and helping out :)

Tomorrow, Josh and I are doing our own mini-Christmas together.. I am really excited!! We are using some Christmas gift money that we got from some relatives to buy one or two things for each other. Also, we are going to do dinner and a movie: we have free tickets to any show we want to see as well as a gift card to Red Lobster. Mmmm. It should be a pretty relaxing day gong into a pretty crazy weekend.

This weekend, we are headed down to Ohio to talk with the people of the church, and just hang out with them for a weekend. The pastor and his wife are letting us stay with them and their five kids, and already have the whole weekend pretty planned out for us! We are meeting with someone from the church on Saturday afternoon (this guy is the drummer for the church, so him and Josh will probably talk a lot of music stuff) and then we are going to check out some apartments that Mike(the pastor) has arranged for us to look at. Sunday is filled with church activities, including set up and a little farewell luncheon type thing for their current worship leader and her husband. Then, we go check out some more apartments (just one) that Amy (Mike's wife) has arranged for us to scope out. Later that night there is an evening thing at the church for families and such, and then we go back to the pastor's home for some dinner, some sleep, and we leave the next day. Action Packed Weekend, here we come!

Last night, when Josh got home from Midland, he had a guitar lesson with Moses, and so I went along with him (If I didn't go, that would mean having to wait at the church until later, and I had already been there all day.) I was a little curious as to what I would be doing, but when I got there, I instantly remembered that Moses had three younger siblings :) So I got to play "house" and "babydolls" with the two little girls while I talked to Anna (the mom!) for a while. She was very interested about the details of our upcoming move and stuff, so it was good to get some encouragement from her and to have someone to talk to that was older than 8 :)

I was telling Anna about how Josh put a video up of both of us singing on his blog for the Ohio church members to watch.. And I didn't know he was going to put the part of me singing with him in the video... I said something like "he was being a stinker" and Moses' brother was playing with Legos over in the corner of the room. I had no idea that he was even listening, and all of a sudden, in a very matter-of-fact sort of way, he says this, "Yeah, those husbands can sometimes be stinkers!!" I laughed super hard. It was really cute, especially since he is only eight years old!

So, that's my story for now, and I am going to clean the house than go do some more Christmas shopping. Woot Woot.

PS - Pumpkin begs for food now from us. It is really weird.