Hope For Today

Dear Friends, I recently finished reading 'Made Like Martha' by Katie M Reid.  This book is based on a passage in the Bible about two sisters, Martha and Mary. The account of these two sisters can be found in Luke 10:28-42.  In her book, Katie, who would describe herself as a Martha character, explains how being made like Martha is not actually a bad thing. For too long Martha has been described in a negative way as opposed to her sister, Mary, who is held up as the ideal. Katie's book shows how we can learn good things from both these characters.  Katie writes: "Jesus never asked Martha to be Mary, and he didn't ask you to be either. he simply pointed out that you do not have to serve from a place of striving and worry, because he is already enough for you."   That will come as a relief to many of us! In her book, Katie writes about two mentalities. First, the hired help mentality which is a wrong mindset many of us have. We believe we...

Dear Friends, The book "Lies Girls Believe and The Truth That Sets Them Free" by Dannah Gresh is aimed at girls between the ages of nine and twelve, although I think it would also be good for young teenage girls too. It’s definitely a book I wish was available when my daughter was younger.  Whilst your daughter reads this book, you would find it helpful to read the companion book “A Mom’s Guide to Lies Girls Believe”. (See my review of this book  here )  This book looks at lies about God and lies about myself such as I’m not good enough, and God doesn’t love me all the time. It also covers lies about sin, my family and other relationships, being a girl and about the future. It gives help on recognising the lies and replacing them with God’s truth.  What I like about this book is that it is interactive. It’s not just a book to be read but a book for your daughter to work through and write her thoughts in.  In the book, your daughter will me...

Dear Friends, "A Moms’ Guide to Lies Girls Believe" by Dannah Gresh is a book to help  Mums plant truths in their daughters’ hearts whilst they are young. We can’t make our daughters embrace God’s Word but we can plant seeds of truth in them.  There are three parts to this book:  Part 1: Getting Ready to Help Your Daughter – challenging the lies Mums believe.  Part 2: Lies Girls Believe and the Truth that Sets Them Free – planting truths in your daughters’ hearts (main section of the book).  The author has researched the material for her book and carried out a survey of over 1,500 girls aged between seven and twelve years of age. The author identified from the survey the twenty most common lies girls believe and has included them all in this section. Such as lies about God, themselves, sin, relationships and the future.  Part 3: The Truth that Sets her Free – how to identify lies and replace them with truth . This is explained w...

Dear Friends, What I particularly liked about Susie Larson's book, "Fully Alive" is that she writes so honestly and openly about the storms she has faced in her own life and how she has, with God's help, come through them. She shares in her introduction how “The storms reveal the lies we believe and the truths we need.”  In "Fully Alive" she writes that maybe you need an emotional miracle, a physical one, or a relational one, and how this book can give us the help, if we need it, to change our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual mindset.  I like how each chapter follows the same structure. Each one starts off with personal experience from Susie as she shares about what she has learned herself; ‘Put it into Practice’ in which the reader applies what they have read; Soul Searching in which there are questions for reflection; Spiritual Reset – a time for prayer; Digging Deeper which includes reading some passages of Scripture and more time ...

Dear Friends, "Of Fire and Lions" is another great Biblical fiction novel penned by Mesu Andrews, this time it is based on the book of Daniel in the Old Testament.  The majority of the book is told through the eyes of Belili (the fictional wife of Daniel). Belili (or Abigail) is one of the young people who is taken into exile to Babylon, along with Daniel and his friends.  The book begins with Belili and Daniel in their old age, having lived many decades in Babylon. As they look back over the years and remember their past, we get to learn about their experiences of living in exile and the cost of being faithful to God in a land where he is not worshipped as the one and true God.  Belili is such a relatable character. We see her as a child and her early encounter with God which forges her personal faith, but then because of circumstances against her, we see how she drifts away from God for a time. However, God always has his hand on her and draws her ba...

Dear Friends, I first came across Malcolm Duncan’s #niteblessings via his Facebook page and Twitter. He shared on these sites that his blessings were going to be put together as a gift book. So, when his book became available to request through NetGalley in return for an honest review, I jumped at the chance to read it. I was not disappointed. There are 365 blessings to be read.  They have the day and the month so you can either can dip into the book and read whichever one you like or, as I prefer, read the blessing for that day. They are not dated for a particular year so they have the added bonus for being suitable for any year which means they can be read and re-read. I read this on my kindle but, in my opinion, it is far better as a hardcover book, especially as it includes photos throughout. I like the idea of having it beside my bed for easy reach as I settle down for the night so that it is the last thing I think about before I shut my eyes. For the majority of...

Dear Friends, I heard Cris Rogers speak at Spring Harvest in April 2018 and then again at the CRE at Sandown in October 2018 about his course, “Making Disciples”. It was because of this and because I knew our church would be running his course in 2019 that I wanted to read his latest book, “What if we knew what God knows about us.”  On more than one occasion in his book he tells us that:  “What we think about ourselves will ultimately govern what we do with ourselves.”   What we believe to be true about us will determine our choices and behaviour.  We so often believe the lies we have told ourselves, for example, we believe we are weak, not able, not gifted etc. We also believe the lies that have been said over us about who we are. Cris writes:  “There is a danger that we believe certain things about ourselves which then stop us from stepping into becoming the person we were saved to be.”  In his book, Cris looks at “who God ...