Category: Book Reviews

Hope & Encouragement in the Waiting

Published on by sarahbradenLeave a comment

The close of 2017 might have left you wanting. Perhaps you have a dream yet to be realized, and you look to the new year with expectation, yearning, longing, and hope. Maybe it’s for a new desire, fresh vision invigorating your heart, or, on the other hand, maybe you have been waiting on the Lord’s movement for weeks, months, or even years.

For our family, the past five years has been filled with waiting of different kinds. Being in a long, arduous, international adoption process, we have prayed each year would bring us closer to bringing home a little girl from Bulgaria (you can read more of our story here: Our Adoption Journey). At other times, we have waited for God to bring healing in relationships, our loved one’s bodies, and for family who are hurting and broken.

For you, maybe you desperately desire to have a biological child of your own. Perhaps your season of waiting is for a spouse, a new job opportunity, a relationship restoration, or for your illness to be cured. For others it might be waiting to see how God will work things out for good, when your circumstances seem hard, isolating, and unchanging.

Whatever your wait, In Due Time might be the book for you.

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“Talking to Jesus” Book Review and Giveaway

Published on by sarahbraden8 Comments

Maybe, like me, you grew up in Sunday School hearing the same Bible stories over and over again. The men healed from leprosy, the faith of the Centurion, the paralytic and his persistent friend, and Peter walking on water are so ingrained in our minds that we, oftentimes, gloss over these accounts, excusing them away as stories of our youth, over-used in our journey with Jesus. Perhaps, like me, you go through seasons of feeling your prayer life becoming dry and your communication with God stale. We both could also use a fresh perspective on how God’s word opens the lines of communication with our Creator; the One who masterfully wired our hearts for deep and ongoing connection with Him.

Jeannie Blackmer’s book, “Talking to Jesus”, might be exactly the tool we need.

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“Alongside” Book Review and Give Away

Published on by sarahbraden16 Comments

Casserole makers. Card senders. Flower arrangers. Prayer warriors. When crisis strikes, we want to help. Deeply desiring to care for one another, we, oftentimes, come up short on appropriate words or actions. Having little idea of the person’s needs, we become frozen in our ability to help in a way that is a blessing, not a burden, to us or to them.

Deep down I believe we all have good intentions. We care. We empathize. We want to help. We just need to be taught how.

Mom was dying, and I was completely overwhelmed by the demands before me. Not having close family nearby, we were left to navigate this season on our own. Caring for our three young kids while being Mom’s primary care giver, I needed help. Honestly, I couldn’t survive without it. During this time of need, a core group of people stepped in to bless, serve, and encourage our family in ways I never could have imagined. Their selfless service to my family and Mom is a debt we can’t repay. Developing a bond that drew us together, this community took our burdens as their own, helping us focus on the path ahead. Their service modeled the love and nearness of Christ in a dark and desolate season. Not everyone played the same role; not everyone could. Depending on the closeness of our relationship and their own time and circumstance constraints, people used their gifts to serve us in a way that was a blessing, not a burden, on either party. There were others in our community who didn’t reach out at all. Deeply knowing and loving these people, I firmly believe is wasn’t due to lack of compassion, rather an inability to assess the needs and know what role they could play.

What is our role when we find someone in our community suffering? What is the appropriate way to reach out, to love, to care for them? Sarah Beckman has written a book that is a must read for anyone desiring to be a blessing during a difficult season.

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“Give Your Child the World” Give Away

Published on by sarahbraden2 Comments

Growing up my parents sent me and my sister on trips across the world. Starting at the tender age of eleven, I began participating in international peace camps through an organization called Children’s International Summer Villages (CISV). My travels took me to far away places such as Brazil, Sweden, Belgium, and Slovakia. Living for a month at a time with children from around the globe, I fell in love with various cultures, people groups, and places. Beginning to see other cultures in light of my own, differences weren’t obstacles to our friendships. Skin color didn’t determine the depth of our relationship. Language barriers couldn’t stop lifelong bonds from forming.

Experiencing the world at a young age helped me to value all people. Most specifically those different from my mainstream, upper-middle class, white, American, Christian self.

Camps like these are rare and hard to come by. I don’t take it for granted that my parents sacrificed much to give us these opportunities. Besides a semester long stint in Switzerland, my kids haven’t grown up with the same opportunities I had. Longing for them to experience other cultures, we have had to actively seek ways to help them touch the world afar. It sounds like a great goal, but it is hard to know where to start. So the question becomes, “how can we spark a love for other cultures in the hearts of our children, when it is so far removed from our every day lives?”

Author, Jaime Martin, has found a way.

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