Begin the Week with Words: For Jack

This weekend a really good friend of mine ended up in an emergency surgery that will require more surgeries and up to a year of recovery time. Besides parents and siblings and one other high school friend, Jack has been my friend longer than anyone else in my life, past or present, including my husband. Twenty years holds too many memories to recount, but I'm sure most people can imagine or have similar friendships.

Scrolling through social media and playing mindless games of Solitaire, unable to sleep, I came upon a post by Lysa TerKeurst and immediately thought to use it for this week's Sunday Sentence. I screen shot it because I also wanted her status with the image quote.

Praying for you Jack and believing in God's perfect plan for you in the year to come.

The Hardest Peace

Source: Amazon.com

The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard, By Kara Tippetts

Publisher: David C. Cook

Publication date: October 1, 2014

Category: Biographies & Memoirs, Religion & Spirituality 

Source: I received this book from NetGalley in consideration for review.

What can anyone say about this book? I took it at the suggestion of the publisher because the title reminded me of Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts, which I love. However, I hadn't made the connection between a more recent blog post of Voskamp's I was saving to read and the author of The Hardest Peace, Kara Tippets. Once I started the book it clicked: Voskamp's post titled How to Recover the Lost Art of Dying Well was about the death of Kara Tippetts on March 22, 2015.

The Hardest Peace, published by Tippetts in October 2014 before her death, is about having grace and dignity in death. As a pastor's family, the Tippetts (with four kids) had moved and were living in a new community when Kara discovered she had relapsed into cancer. Regardless the amount of treatment, the cancer continued to pop up, sometimes in new places. Although the book mentions the cancer, cancer is not the focus of the book. The timeline seems to lapse as you read and you become caught up in Kara's thoughts on dying and what that really meant to the here and now.

She essentially asks, "Is Jesus really good in the awful of cancer, fire, heartbreak, and devastation? In the face of all that is broken, is God good?" And with numerous examples of her experience she answers, "I see through the lives of so many facing brokenness they never dreamed and learning again that maybe, just maybe, brokenness is not to be feared but humbly received. Maybe it is our culture that is wrong. No, not maybe. I know it is wrong."

Kara Tippetts fully takes on the idea that "everything happens for a reason" and shows how thinking that presents Christianity as a way to only see the good and only be joyful in the good is false. She found God present in the hardest of times and Jesus her source of grace and peace where no one would ever think such things could be found.

I found her insights amazing...you want to experience what she speaks of and yet, if something like cancer is what it takes, do you? Kara Tippetts leaves us with the idea that it doesn't take cancer to experience peace and grace. We find ourselves up against struggles in many ways and her insights apply to all of it. 

My connection to Kara Tippetts's words come through my own mother, who received a clean bill of health from her year long fight with breast cancer the very month Kara Tippetts passed away. I remember the night before my mom went in for her first chemo. She expected to be nervous, upset, etc., especially after a tough session placing her port. Instead she found herself inexplicably at peace and remained so despite the hardness chemo brought to every minute of every day. 

Rest in peace Kara Tippetts. Thank you for sharing your wisdom of grace, peace, and dignity. If you are interested in more of Kara's journey, she blogged throughout at Mundane Faithfulness.

Begin the Week with Words: My Classroom

The end of the school year is upon us! I have eight days left, only two regular days, a couple of days of finals, and some half days. So the room packing has begun, which made me realize, duh, my classroom is full of quotes I've never used here. So, here is a mini tour of some of my classroom quote decor.

These two plaques sit on my whiteboard.

Sits along the register in the back of my room.

The two plaques above sit on the windowsills to the left of my room.

Every English classroom needs a little Emerson on the windowsill.

Hopefully this one sounds familiar. Propped on my countertop,
I hope students take heed.

Repeat (and my love of time travel)

source: Amazon.com

Repeat, by Neal Pollack

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing

Publication date: April 21, 2015

Category: Entertainment, Fiction

Source: I received this book from NetGalley in consideration for review.

Everyone has their favorite types of books and generally there are a few. Sometimes there is one type of plot that will draw you in every time. I have one of those...time travel. Or anything along the lines of time travel, such as repeatedly being born over and over, reliving life with or without knowledge of the previous lives. You know, the Back to the Future movies and books such as The Time Traveler's Wife, Life After Life, and The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August. Why? I think it's because time travel - and how the author chooses to set it up - gives the plot opportunities to twist. And as I've said here numerous times, there's nothing I like better than a good plot twist or twist ending.

And this is why I requested Repeat from NetGalley the very first time I heard of its premise, without further detail. Brad is a washed out writer with a small family to care for. They live in a dump and upon hitting his 40th birthday, he has nothing great to claim to his name, except his family, who also seem like a burden at times. A total mess, Brad goes to sleep the night before he turns 40 with the aid of a "potion" his wife has concocted.

From that point on Brad is destined to relive his life from the womb, starting over the night before he turns 40. With each incarnation the world's history plays out the same, but Brad has a second, third, fourth, etc., chance to change his own previous decisions; therefore, changing the life he lives.

At what point does starting over become tiring? At what point do you start looking for an end? Ultimately, what is the point? Eventually Brad is faced with these questions and spends lifetimes looking for the answers. This is also the part I liked best about Repeat - there is a lesson being taught in it all. For those who would wish to know, there are some rough parts, where Brad talks about sex and such, that I didn't think were always as valuable to the story (although they fit Brad's character). All in all though it had a different tone (more laid back?) from the like novels I mentioned above and it did have the lesson at the end. I don't star rate books often, but in this case I think it helps clarify where I stand. I'd give this one three stars.

Your favorite plot set up readers?

Bout of Books 13 Update

For a number of reasons, mostly to do with time, I decided to write an overall update post instead of numerous posts throughout the week. So here was my week of Bout of Books 13.

Monday 5/11: Participated in the Twitter chat, which is always a good time. It helped that my iPad kept up with the madness! The questions were really good and I met new book people. I began reading Man, the Dwelling Place of God by A.W Tozer. I'm reading this with a friend though, so only two chapters for this week.

Tuesday 5/12: Finished Travelogue of the Interior by Karen Dabaghian, wrote and posted my review of it. Received later in the day a wonderful email from both the author and the publisher. My review was used on the NetGalley title page of the book and David C. Cook Publisher gave me instant access to any future galleys. Spent the evening our for coffee with a friend.

Wednesday 5/13: Reading this evening was somewhat hampered because I watched Survivor - twice. Yay DVR. But earlier in the day I started reading Repeat by Neal Pollack. I also read a little more in Born Survivors by Wendy Holden.

Thursday 5/14: Ummm, yea, not much reading. Spent the morning at my daughter's academic honors breakfast and then five hours shopping for the best deal on a lease, to replace my husband's dead car. He ended up with a beautiful royal blue 2015 Chevy Cruze and a payment for under $200, with no money down...I was pretty excited. Spent the evening watching Season 2 of Survivor with a fellow Survivor fanatic friend...yes becoming slightly more obsessed. All are happy...except for no reading. 

Friday 5/15: Made progress on Repeat. It's getting interesting and I read almost 20% of the book today. Spent another evening with another friend, talking books and life. 

Saturday 5/16: Made a little more progress on both Repeat and Born Survivors. Spent the evening out with friends at a new Casino that opened locally. No, I don't have a gambling problem, I promise, first time ever at a casino. As soon as we recovered our $20 spending money (plus $8.50), we quit. We had a really nice dinner too.

Sunday 5/17: Church, lunch with my family, and took kids to Nitro Circus Live in Pittsburgh, which is a stunt bike show. Tickets were free from my brother, couldn't turn it down. So again, no reading.

Oh yea, and my pool is open...if only the weather would cooperate so we could swim. Overall, I finished one book, got halfway through a second, and a little further in a third. Not too bad considering I did a lot with individual friends and my family this week. Come on summer! Not counting today, we have 12 days left...and then let the serious reading commence.

Begin the Week with Words

Like last week, I have quotes from Travelogue of the Interior, by Karen Dabaghian for this week's Sunday Sentence. The book has been amazing, if you didn't see my review, you can read it here. I have never highlighted an ebook as much as this one.

I like this first quote because it kind of speaks to last week's quote about your true voice atrophying after pretending for people for so long. What you feel inside and what you show others outside are sometimes two different things and after suppressing feelings and thoughts for so long, you sometimes can't help but fall apart. Everyone has their moments, but not everyone has reliable friends.

"What do we do when our insides don’t match our outsides? Some of us can pretend for only so long, until the pain begins to weaken our resolve, shatter our courage, our perseverance, our hope. It forces us to be real, to feel and to express those feelings. Our true selves leak out at inopportune times and in awkward places. People who once coveted our companionship now run the other direction, anxious because they don’t know what to do with a person coming apart at the seams."


Ever feel like you are going full tilt at something just because you feel you should? That's the feeling this quote gives me, another good one from Travelogue of the Interior.

"It would take every ounce of courage I could muster to allow God to unmake me and begin from what felt like scratch to form a new person from the ruins. Teeth-clenching courage. The courage that lets you run headlong into ruin, not because you are confident of the outcome but because you would rather die than live a false life." 

A Travelogue of the Interior

source: NetGalley 

A Travelogue of the Interior: Finding Your Voice and God's Heart in the Psalms, by Karen Dabaghian

Publisher: David C. Cook

Publication date: April 15, 2015

Category: Christian, Religion & Spirituality 

Source: I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

From the time I've started this blog, I've always said I don't believe in coincidence. I believe things happen for a reason, even the hard things. I can't always explain the why or see it at the time, but I've had enough 20/20 hindsight to tell me there are reasons for everything. All that to say, I didn't technically request this book. David C. Cook emailed me asking if I'd like to review it as an ARC, which I could find through NetGalley. Not crazy to most book bloggers, but I have very few personal connections with publishers, requesting the majority of my review copies through a third party, like NetGalley or Edelweiss. So it seemed random and, feeling special, I thought, "Sure, looks good enough." It was definitely meant to be.

The book in question, A Travelogue of the Interior, is about author Karen Dabaghian's journey through her study of the book of Psalms in the Bible. What she thought would be a simple class about the Psalms of the Bible became a personal year long discovery. At one point in the years before this specific piece fell into her journey, Dabaghian says that she knew courage would be needed. She states: "It would take every ounce of courage I could muster to allow God to unmake me and begin from what felt like scratch to form a new person from the ruins. Teeth-clenching courage. The courage that lets you run headlong into ruin, not because you are confident of the outcome but because you would rather die than live a false life."

Yes! I've hit a place where I'm done with life/myself as is. I guess that means I feel the need for change. I don't know what it entails, but I feel it and relate to Dabaghian's statement on courage. Actually, for me, most of Dabaghian's feelings, discussion, and statements were like mind reading. If I were writing in the book, "YES!" would've been the most used sentiment. (Thank God for ebooks that allow note-taking and highlighting!) 

The book of Psalms itself is a roller coaster of emotion. From high praise to deep lamenting, it is more than meets the eye and more than many of us have been taught to expect or experience. Dabaghian says that "We learn early and well that truth-telling, especially concerning our souls, comes with painful consequences, and in response we become so adept at speaking falsely that we wake one day to discover our authentic voice has atrophied." I hope to have such an experience - a change in myself as a person and follower of Christ - as Dabaghian had.  I want my authentic voice and all it takes to find it and use it as I was made to.