Books are so fun and inspiring!
Let’s browse through six books on this Saturday morning! They’re all recent books I’ve had either to review or as part of the launch team.
Everyday Generosity
This book is all about living a lifestyle of generosity. It spurs us to think about giving in a variety of ways to help others and reach beyond ourselves. Giving happens in all areas of life and stretches far beyond dollar bills.
This book is written by Drew Formsma, a sixteen-year old young man, and I think that’s totally awesome! His father, Brad Formsma is the founder of I Like Giving and has a great book with the same title. Drew began speaking at events with his father when he was fourteen.
If you like giving or want fresh inspiration about giving, I highly recommend both of these books. They’re both great reads for kids too, whether reading them on their own or together as read-alouds.
Each chapter is titled as a question.
A few of them….
Chapter 1. What is Generosity?
Chapter 3. Where Do I Start?
Chapter 6. Do I Have to be Generous?
Chapter 7. What Do I Really Have to Give at My Age?
Girls’ Club
This lovely book from Sarah, Sally and Joy Clarkson releases February 5th. Did you know pre-orders are a great way of giving a gift to authors? Pre-orders help boost a title and help make booksellers and websites aware of a title and the demand of pre-orders helps them stock plenty. These are a few of the tings I’ve learned about pre-orders as I’ve been part of launch teams and received books to review. 🙂
If you’ve been thinking about purchasing this book, a pre-order is awesome!
The Life-Giving Home and The Life-Giving Table by Sally Clarkson are a couple of my favorite books about creating an atmosphere of home. I was excited to receive a copy of Girls’ Club from Tyndale.
It hasn’t disappointed. All three of the Clarkson ladies join together to share their hearts about friendship and the work and intentional cultivating of relationships.
This quote at the beginning of Chapter 5 says it quite well ~
“True friendship is a very helpful thing indeed….and we should have a very high ideal of it, and never sully it by any failure in truth and sincerity. I fear the name of friendship is often degraded to a kind of intimacy that has nothing of real friendship in it.” ~ L. M. Montgomery
I love viewing friendship and mother/daughter friendship through the eyes and experiences of Sally, Sarah and Joy Clarkson. We’re all going to have our unique way of living life and experiencing things, and I love how we may glean inspiration and ideas from others to add to our own lives with our unique twist on it.
Whether you have long-time friendships, are seeking a kindred spirit friendship or have your own little daughter, this book will bless you.
Emptied
This is a beautiful book about a marriage and from our earthly perspective it begins with a sad story that isn’t written in between the covers. Written by Jonathan and Wynter Pitts, they share their story and show how marriage is an emptying of your self-focused motivations and God pouring in to your life as you learn to serve and love each other.
The sad prelude to the publishing of this book happened like this. The very day they submitted their manuscript to the editor, Jesus also called Wynter home to Him. A few hours after submitting their story, a sudden heart attack ended Wynter’s story on earth, and her most glorious story began. She was 38 years old and Jonathan and Wynter were blessed to share 15 years of marriage.
Death hurts and Wynter’s family misses her. Their lives are forever changed. Yet, God is faithful and we can feel His timing in the preparation and work on this book.
I would never wish for anyone to go through this, yet as I read this book about marriage, knowing their union was now separated by death, it reminds me to focus even more on emptying myself out and choosing to chase the good in my man and my marriage.
Brave Love
One of the first blogs I read over ten years ago, was Lisa Leonard’s. She also wrote for (in)Courage and I would see her there as well.
I was excited when I found out she had a book coming!
Brave Love takes a deeper look at making space for yourself. Of realizing you can’t be everything for everyone and perfectionism will eat you alive.
Self care can pendulum swing two ways. One end is all-about-me, poor-me, I’m-s-so-stressed, I-need-a-break, treat-yoself, versus continually caring for everyone else and ignoring your own needs, and shoving down any identity of your own until you wake up one day and the fruit in your life is bitterness and resentment and everything else is choked out.
Lisa Leonard offers us a very vulnerable look at her life, her heart and her tipping point. If you’re in need of a fresh reminder to rest, to give up the need to prove you can do it all and in this find yourself loving others better and more bravely, you’ll enjoy sitting with Lisa in this story.
And speaking of pre-orders, there are still a few days to pre-order this book. It releases January 29. IF you pre-order, you can snag the yellow keychain in the picture as a free gift. Hop over here to submit your pre-order!
You Are
This cute little board book speaks life-giving words to your child as you flip through the pages. I love how affirming it is and love speaking this into children’s lives from the time they are small.
The Marriage Knot
This book shares the story of Ron & Jody Zappia. Close to the end of their first year of marriage, they found the knot they’d tied was unraveling and frayed and dropping them towards the brink of divorce. But by choosing to let God work in them and their marriage, by choosing forgiveness, by choosing intentional work in their marriage, it survived. Not only survived, but thrived and today they share what they learned to bring hope and help to others.
I love this sentence from the book.
“They quickly learned that great marriages don’t happen by accident.”
Any relationship we have is greatly impacted and determined by the choices we make, for better or for worse.
That’s why I love the names of the chapters in this book.
They all begin with Choose.
Chapter 1. Choose to Grow Spiritually
Chapter 2. Choose to Love Unconditionally
Chapter 3. Choose to Serve Sacrificially
Chapter 4. Choose to Please Regularly
Chapter 5. Choose to Persevere Persistently
Chapter 6. Choose to Communicate Respectfully
Chapter 7. Choose to Bless Abundantly
This book is written about marriage and it’s a beautiful testimony and encouragement for marriage relationships. But the concepts quite honestly can be invested in all areas of our lives and grow us in living in Christ and glorifying Him with our words, actions and bodies.
It’s a great read! Conversational and easy-to-read, but filled with depth at the same time.
What have you been reading recently? I’d love to hear!
