Nonfiction:
If God Is Good: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil by Randy Alcorn (review posted here)
Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches by Rachel Jankovic
Messy, Beautiful Love by Darlene Schacht
Currently Reading:
The Patmos Deception by Davis Bunn
Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud
God’s Love: How the Infinite God Cares for His Children by R.C. Sproul
Bridge to Haven by Francine Rivers
Well, apparently it is now 2015! I could fill this post with all the cliches about how quickly time passes, and how unbelievable it is that a new year is starting. But while all that is insanely true, I will forego those points.
2014 was a crazy year for me. Full of…a lot. I have grown in some incredible ways that I never would have foreseen. I have quite a few blog posts stored up that I am hoping to share. My journey has been incredibly personal and I am hesitant to share some posts. At the same time…this journey has defined me and made me who I am today. And if anything I have to share could be of benefit to someone else, it makes it worth it to me.
So I ask that you bear with me this year as I open up and share some of what God has been teaching me. Please extend grace toward my difficulties, which I feel are rarely talked about in the church.
I pray that this year will be one of great growth. Continued growth for me spiritually and as an individual. Growth for this blog (so excited to finally get my own domain and my new awesome theme!). And I pray that some of my posts might be somehow used by God to bless and encourage a reader.
So Happy 2015!! Embrace the changes that this year will bring in your life!
-Bonnie
I interrupt my blog break for this book review. I look forward to seeing you all back here in January when I resume blogging! 🙂 Have a very Merry Christmas!
Lately I have been wrestling with a lot of questions about Christianity and the Christian walk. When I saw this book come up as an option for reviewing, I was hesitant. I am SO thankful that I ended up requesting it!
Randy Alcorn does a fantastic job in his book If God Is Good. It was quite a bit longer than I was expecting (494 pages) and it was definitely daunting when I began it. It turned out to be an easy read, however, and I loved how Randy treated the topic fairly. Far too often I have heard Christians dismiss questions like this, saying that it is just a distraction that people throw out to avoid the real issue (them not wanting to respond to salvation). Sometimes this is a real question that people have, taking them to the very nature of God (a most important issue to have straight when it comes to salvation!)
While this book does not answer all my questions, it answered many things that I have asked in the past as well as gave me more peace with the fact that I will not ever know fully the answer to suffering and evil (if I knew all, I myself would be God, and that is impossible). Randy caused me to grapple with my assumptions, my fears, and my reason.
Randy Alcorn gently gives readers the opportunity to ask the tough questions that so often people are afraid to voice.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who has asked questions about how faith and suffering mix together, or to anyone who is currently walking with someone through this.
Note: I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
-Bonnie
Hi friends! Just wanted to stop on real quick to say that I am going to be taking a blogging break.
Things have been pretty upside down here lately and I need to just step back and let things settle a bit. I am hoping that once we get moved into our new house, I will have some time to spend writing some posts about things that have been on my mind.
I’m not sure how long of a break it will be, but I definitely plan to be back and posting by the new year. I have several specific topics that I am both excited and nervous about. 🙂 If you haven’t subscribed to our blog, feel free to do so on the right hand side so you can be notified when we start back up again!
Blessings!
-Bonnie
I recently was flying by myself with the Wingman. Traveling with children can be pretty unpredictable. I was pretty nervous about it, and could just see us being “those people” who make the flight miserable for everyone.
I did my best not to worry about it, though I will say that I stuffed my backpack full of anything and everything that the Wingman might enjoy.
And I kept thinking that if all else fails, my tricks go out the window, and the baby doesn’t like anything I brought….it would only be for a few hours. It will only be a few hours out of our trip.
He ended up doing really well! We didn’t end up being “those people” although I’m not quite sure how considering the fact that Wingman was so exhausted and of course he wouldn’t fall asleep until 5 minutes before we began the descent. But somehow we made it!
What are your tips for traveling with young children?
-Bonnie
I love discovering ways to bless my husband! I love it when I can make him smile or make his heart happy. Here are 5 things I have been thinking about lately!
1. Need him. Find ways to let him know that he is indispensable to you. Ask him for help on a project. Tell him how much you adore him and how thankful you are for what he does for your family.
2. But don’t need him too much. In other words…don’t be needy. I challenged myself to go 3 days without asking him for anything. I have realized how lazy I am. I am ashamed to say that there have been a few times many times where I have asked him to do something for me that I was perfectly capable of doing myself. I just didn’t want to.
3. Try new things. Now I have very limited experience in the husband department, as I obviously only have one. But from what my husband has said and from what I have heard from others….our men love it if we are open to trying new things or just owning what we do. I have succumbed to so many lies about how I fail at pretty much everything. I have been scared to try things on my own. I have been learning to be confident and to just try things. Learning to learn is a skill…and so is learning to allow yourself to fail sometimes.
4. Make his day with something random. Surprise him with his favorite dessert. Kidnap him for a date. Give him a whole night to play Battlefield. Plan a movie night and go all out with themed decor. Send him a random text (like maybe one of these!) during the day.
5. Kiss him. Here are 10 kinds of kisses every marriage should have!
-Bonnie
Feeding Someone in Grief: Tales from the Trenches – Great thoughts on taking meals to someone.
The Most Important Article You’ll Ever Read on Child Safety – Amazing, amazing post about child safety and the many fears of a parent.
Telling Your Kids About Your Past – Great points about how much to tell your kids about your past.
Joy and Theology – On reconciling joy and theology and the roles that emotions play in Christianity.
Video: Incredible speech to the drumbeat of the 3,315 babies aborted daily in America – Very sobering and oh so powerful.
God is painting his grace on the canvas of human souls….we are God’s brushes. He wants to soak us on the palette of his grace and paint more of his goodness on yet another soul.
-Paul Tripp in Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hands
When I made my 101 in 1001 list, I decided I wanted to make a busy bag for the Wingman. When my sister suggested doing a busy bag swap, I was so excited!
My sisters and I each made three sets of two different busy bags. One set we kept for our own kids and the others we mailed to each other.
After scouring the internet, I finally decided on the two that I wanted to do. This post was my first inspiration and what made me decide to make foam shape puzzles.
Supplies needed:
I couldn’t find self-adhesive foam shapes, so I just bought a pack of half sheets. I definitely understand why the lady in my tutorial recommended the self-adhesives, though!! It was painstakingly time consuming trying to trace and cut out these shapes.
Being the uncreative person I am, I based most of my patterns off of the ones shared at Tot School. When I ran a Google image search, I came across this post at Vista Woman. I love her patterns as well!
I was able to get two puzzles out of each sheet of construction paper. If I had it to do over again, I think that I would purchase full sheets of foam (unless I can locate self-adhesives…then I would definitely do those!!) and use full sheets of construction paper. Some of my foam puzzle pieces ended up being quite small and I can imagine they might be easily lost.
Here are my final puzzles! I folded them in half, which served to help me to keep the patterns only on one half. Plus it makes for more compact storage.
Wingman is still a ways away from being able to understand how to do this project. But I am excited for when he is able to!!
-Bonnie
Nonfiction:
Saved Without a Doubt by John MacArthur
Uneclipsing the Son by Rick Holland
Fiction:
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling
Murder at the Mikado by Julianne Deering
-Bonnie
Life with You 