Winter Butterflies by Kenzie Janzen

Winter Butterflies by Kenzie Janzen was published in 2014 by Hoyal Creek Publishing, LLC

“Winter Butterflies by Kenzie Janzen is a daunting but often amusing pursuit of motherhood. This book takes you on an unimaginable journey. When all hope seems lost, her incomprehensible God makes great changes. Winter Butterflies gives you a new perspective on the unexplained trials in this life. It inspires courage when strength seems fleeting. A cliffhanger story of tribulation, perseverance, and hope … and it’s all true.” From the back cover.

You can’t make this stuff up!! If it had been fiction I would have scoffed at all of this happening to one family – but truth is always stranger than fiction.

Janzen speaks honestly and passionately about her years of yearning for more children. – And how God leads, guides and holds her in His arms during all that happens in this family and the family they are forever connected with.

One of the main ingredients that stood out to me while reading Winter Butterflies was the honesty in which Janzen speaks. I had a tear in my eye as I thought of the lost babies in our family and of the miracle baby my friend Carol has as her grandson.  God always speaks, always reaches out to us – we just don’t always listen. Anytime I read a book and can compare it to my life it is a “win.”

When Janzen ends the book with “Loving God is sometimes not easy. Understanding God is impossible, but He will provide a rainbow after the storm… In His time” I thought this is so true for all of us. No matter what trial we have gone through or are going through we don’t understand and often look up and say, “Really, God. Now what?” But He does prevail – in His time.

Kenzie Janzen is a busy mom to Kate, Brody, and Laney and helps maintain the family farm in Oklahoma. She received her BS in Biological Sciences from Oklahoma State University and a MEd in Secondary Education from Northwestern Oklahoma State University. Before becoming a stay at home mom, Kenzie served as an officer in the U.S. Air Force. She also taught secondary science and math in several rural schools in Oklahoma. From her book

You can learn more about the author here  Kenzie Janzen

I highly recommend this book.

I Am a Church Member by Thom S. Rainer

Sunday, Pastor Brad mentioned this book. I needed something to read and he said the keyword for my life lately – short.

“I Am a Church Member (based on an idea originally taken from author Thom S. Rainer's daily blog) discusses the attitudes and responsibilities of church members. Rainer addresses in detail what congregations should really be focusing on — praying for church leaders, being a functioning member, treasuring church membership, and more.” From Lifeway website.

I got the book on my Kindle about three hours ago and I've already finished it. A perfect example of “good things come in small packages.”  It was a small jewelry box filled with huge gorgeous diamonds! This book is a keeper and one I am sure to use for many future references.

Easy to read, convicting and so very practical. I can see a new Christian enjoying it as well as a seasoned Christian. It’s a great “teaching” guideline for new believers and a very great reminder for those of us who have been around churches for several years.

I not only recommend this book for you as an individual but I highly recommend this as a small group study. If you are not a part of a small group, this book is an excellent way to have a 6 week study with a group of friends. - Invite them to your home, have someone volunteer to bring a simple snack, and go through the book. It teaches itself, all you need to do is facilitate. An added bonus is that the discussion questions are already included!

From the book:

"We may discover that the reason our nation is in such bad shape is because our churches are so unhealthy."  (If I take this comment a step further - I may discover that I am an unhealthy church member.)

“God did not give us local churches to become country clubs where membership means we have privileges and perks.  He placed us in churches to serve, to care for others, to pray for leaders, to learn, to teach, to give, and in some cases, to die for the sake of the Gospel.”

“Thom S. Rainer is president and CEO of LifeWay Christian Resources. He is author of more than 20 books including Simple Church and The Millennials. Prior to coming to LifeWay, he served as pastor to churches in Alabama, Florida, Kentucky and Indiana and was founding dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions, Evangelism and Church Growth at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.” From Lifeway website.

Follow Thom S. Rainer on Facebook or on Twitter

His Blog

Lifeway – where I’ve been able to get some great Bible Studies and Bible Helps.

I highly recommend this book.

The Devil in Pew Number Seven

“The Devil in Pew Number Seven” by Rebecca Nichols Alonzo with Bob DeMoss was published in 2010 by Tyndale House Publishers.

“2011 Retailers Choice Award winner!
Rebecca never felt safe as a child. In 1969, her father, Robert Nichols, moved to Sellerstown, North Carolina, to serve as a pastor. There he found a small community eager to welcome him—with one exception. Glaring at him from pew number seven was a man obsessed with controlling the church. Determined to get rid of anyone who stood in his way, he unleashed a plan of terror that was more devastating and violent than the Nichols family could have ever imagined. Refusing to be driven away by acts of intimidation, Rebecca’s father stood his ground until one night when an armed man walked into the family’s kitchen . . . And Rebecca’s life was shattered. If anyone had a reason to harbor hatred and seek personal revenge, it would be Rebecca. Yet The Devil in Pew Number Seven tells a different story. It is the amazing true saga of relentless persecution, one family’s faith and courage in the face of it, and a daughter whose parents taught her the power of forgiveness.”

Once I started reading Rebecca Alonzo’s story, I couldn’t put it down. It is mesmerizing. I am amazed at the trauma this family endured.

The author has shown a forgiveness that few of us will ever have to show. – Thank God for that. And I’m so very thankful she has been healed from the trauma of her childhood. God truly is able to accomplish anything.

One of the quotes from the book from her Daddy during a newspaper interview. “During the interview, Mr. Cheek learned about Daddy’s days playing football, his four years in the Navy, and his reputation as a former brawler. I am quite sure Daddy wasn’t kidding when he said, ‘Those boys – I know who they are and they know who I’m talking about – just better pray to the good Lord that I don’t backslide. Because I have never met a man I couldn’t whip.” 

Rebecca’s Momma was teaching her that :

“Forgiveness is close to the heart of God.

Forgiveness is the language of heaven. 

Forgiveness should be a way of life. 

Even when it was humanly inconceivable to do so.”

This is a book that will keep your interest and show you that forgiveness is attainable. – no matter what. I hope you will pick up a copy and read Rebecca’s story.

Rebecca Nichols Alonzo is a speaker on betrayal and the power of forgiveness. She has been involved in ministry for over a decade. If you Google her name, you can be busy for hours reading about this amazing woman’s life!

Bob DeMoss is a New York Times best-selling writer and has collaborated with numerous authors.

This book is well worth your time.

Please consider reading “The Devil in Pew Number Seven.”

Continuing With My Empty Shelf Challenge

28 Books so far.

Have you accepted the Empty Shelf Challenge?

How many have you read this year?

Saturday Night Widows by Becky Aikman

         

     This book was a surprise for me. It wasn’t at all what I thought I was buying. I thought I was getting a feel good book about friendships – which I enjoy reading.

    Instead I got a true book about six women trying to find their way after the death of a spouse. At first I was disappointed, but their lives drew me in and I learned from the book. Very well written and brings an understanding to the term “widow.”

     First and foremost, the “widow” can’t be put into a box. Not all are alike and not all can be treated the same. – Everyone, grieves in their own way and everyone is an individual.

“In her forties – a widow, too young, too modern to accept the role – Becky Aikman struggled to make sense of her place in an altered world.  In this transcendent and infectiously wise memoir, she explores surprising new discoveries about how people experience grief and transcend loss and, following her own remarriage, forms a group with five other young widows to test these unconventional ideas.  Together, these friends summon the humor, resilience, and striving spirit essential for anyone overcoming adversity.

   Meet the Saturday Night Widows: ringleader Becky, an unsentimental journalist who lost her husband to cancer; Tara, a polished mother of two, whose husband died in the throes of alcoholism after she filed for divorce; Denise, a widow of just five months, now struggling to get by; Marcia, a hard-driving corporate lawyer; Dawn, an alluring self-made entrepreneur whose husband was killed in a sporting accident, leaving two small children behind; and Lesley, a housewife who returned home one day to find that her husband had committed suicide.

   The women meet once a month, and over the course of a year, they strike out on ever more far-flung adventures, learning to live past the worst thing they thought could happen.  They share emotional peaks and valleys – dating, parenting, moving, finding meaningful work, and reinventing themselves – while turning traditional thinking about loss and recovery upside down.  Through it all runs the story of Aikman's own journey through grief and her love affair with a man who tempts her to marry again.  In a transporting story of what friends can achieve when they hold each other up, Saturday Night Widows is a rare book that will make you laugh, think, and remind yourself that despite the utter unpredictability and occasional tragedy of life, it is also precious, fragile, and often more joyous than we recognize.”              Synopsis from Amazon

I thought of my friend Debra many times while reading this book. She is a widow and meets with other widows when her busy life allows and I am glad. I've watched her adjust to a new life, while not at all “easy” she has done it. And done it gracefully.

A great book and one I hope you will take the time to read and share with others.

2 Great Books!

While I was dusting the book shelves (which I do once in a while! - whether they need it or not!) I ran across two books that I often reread and pulled them out to reread again!! I love both of them and highly recommend them.

“…And Ladies of the Club” by Helen  Hooven Santmyer was recommended to me by a very dear friend, Beth in 1980 something!  It was first published in 1982 and spans from 1868 to 1932. The author, Santmyer was 88 when her book was published.

The book tells the lifetimes of two women in a small Ohio town and the other members of the Waynesboro Ladies Literary Society. One time, when I hadn’t read it in years, I picked it up and thought, “I wonder if it’s as good as I think it was.”  I reread it – and it was! I could never get my book club to read it because the size was too daunting for a couple of them.

This hardback is a copy I found at an estate sale and I replaced my paperback with it. It’s a thick book so you have to commit to it! Every once in a while I want to pick up a book that will take me awhile to read. – you know, a thick one! And this one is that.

The next one, “The Ladies of Missalonghi” by Colleen McCullough is one of my favorites.




This book is very thin!! It was published in 1987. McCullough is also the author of “The Thorn Birds” – which I admit, I have never read.

“The Ladies of Missalonghi” is set before World War 1 in Sydney, Australia.

From the cover flap:

“Missy was a part of the Hurlingford clan and she was ‘manless’, she was bullied, pitied, exploited, patronized, and utterly unimportant in the clan’s scheme of things.

No sensible mentor would have dreamed of advising Missy to consult a wildly romantic novel for the answer to her plight. But luckily Missy’s mentor was a librarian with a taste for purple prose and a scandalous past, who understood that beneath Missy’s drab exterior there beat the heart of an enchanting and adventurous woman.”

This is a light hearted and warm book.

I enjoy old books. I enjoy new books. I just enjoy books!

Empty Shelf Challenge

I’ve started several book over the last few months that I just couldn’t get “into.” Trust me – it’s not the books – it’s the reader! 

So I’ve been rereading. That seems to be working right now. I started the year with Agatha Christie and then moved to “The Cat Who….” series and have read 10 of those. I’m comfortable with Qwill and his 2 Siamese cats so that’s what I’m reading right now. I’ve done many reviews on these books so am not going to rehash them here.

However, I do have a couple of quotes from “The Cat Who Sniffed Glue.”

Qwill was talking with a bibliophile and their conversation went like this:

Qwill: How many of these do we have to dust? (talking of a  HUGE personal library)

Eddington: I do a few hundred each time. I don’t hurry. I enjoy handling them. Books like to be handled.

Qwill: You’re a true bibliophile, Edd.

Later in the day:

Qwill: I’m amazed at your knowledge of books, Edd. I wish I could remember everything I’ve read and come up with a trenchant quote for every occasion.

Eddington: (looking guilty) I haven’t done much reading, I took Winston Churchill’s advice. He said, ‘It’s a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.’

Love both of these.

And remember your books like to be handled.

The Cat Who Could Read Backwards

by Lilian Jackson Braun

    

 “The world of modern art is a  mystery to many. But for Jim      Qwilleran, it turns into a mystery of  another sort when his assignment to  the art beat for The Daily Fluxion  leads down the path to murder. A  stabbing in an art gallery, vandalized  paintings, a fatal fall from a  scaffolding--this is not at all what  Qwilleran expects when he turns his  reportorial talents to art. But  Qwilleran and his newly found  partner, Koko the brilliant Siamese,  are back in their element--sniffing  out clues and confounding criminals  intent on mayhem and murder.”

Synopsis from Amazon

I’ve been a fan of Lilian Jackson Braun since my friend Kris introduced her to me many years ago. I had seen her books around for years but to be honest I thought they sounded “silly.” Then Kris recommended them so I tried one and was hooked.

I’ve done another review on Lillian Jackson Braun H.E.R.E.

If the first three seem v.e.r.y. different from the rest the reason is because Braun wrote the first three books between 1966 and 1968 then she disappeared from the publishing scene for 18 years. In 1986 a publisher reintroduced her books to a new generation of readers and within the next two years she wrote four more books. Her 29th book  was published in 2007.  She died at age 97 in 2011.

If you like cozies this is a great series. I’ve read them several times and will probably read them several more. – but I’m a rereader! – and I like cats! Especially the ones in Braun’s series.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

I have been an Agatha Christie fan since the early 70’s.  I believe the first Christie book I read was “Murder On the Orient Express.” I was hooked. My favorites are the books with Miss Marple. I do have a secret crush on Hercule Poroit but Jane Marple – LOVE that woman.

In the past few months, I’ve had a hard time finding good books that keep my interest. (it's not the books - it's me.) This is a bit concerning to me because of my love of reading. So, I decided to revisit some of my old favorites that I have enjoyed in the past and I dubbed 2014 my year of “cozies.” I plan on revisiting some of my old favorite authors and introducing myself to some new ones.

Cozies are a sub-genre of crime fiction in which sex and violence are downplayed or nonexistent. The crime and detection take place in a small intimate community. I prefer cozies over the more graphic crime and detection books.

So, I began 2014 with “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” when Hercule Poroit was first introduced to the world. This book was first published in 1920. 

“The heiress of Styles has been murdered, dying in agony from strychnine slipped into her coffee. And there are plenty who would gain from her death: the financially strapped stepson, the gold digging younger husband, and an embittered daughter-in-law.

Agatha Christie's eccentric and hugely popular detective, Hercule Poirot, was introduced to the world in this book, which launched her career as the most famous and best loved of all mystery writers.”

Synopsis from GOODREADS.

 

One thing I enjoy about Christie’s books is that they move quickly. She doesn’t get bogged down in unnecessary information. She doesn’t over explain. Sometimes I can figure out who the murderer is – sometimes I can’t.

 

In “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” I was looking for a murderer that wasn’t too obvious. I was a bit surprised to find – Oh well, I don’t want to give it away. You may want to read it. So I’ll stop here.

 

"Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend," observed Poirot philosophically. "You cannot mix up sentiment and reason.” From “The Mysterious Affair at Styles.”

 

I hope you will try a few cozies this year. I think you will find them easy to read and fun.

 

I recommend any books written by Agatha Christie.