The Heart Mender by Andy Andrews - Copy Available

I was introduced to Booksneeze.com by Matty on her blog Lazy Bee Farm. Receiving free books in exchange for a written review sounded like an interesting proposal. So I joined up and just received my fourth book to read and review. I selected The Heart Mender by Andy Andrews because I love historical fiction and this one sounded so interesting. From the cover:

“In the classic storytelling style of The Noticer and The Traveler’s Gift, New York Times best-selling author Andy Andrews now delivers an adventure set sharply against the warm waters and white sands of the Gulf of Mexico in WWII America.

Saddened and unable to abandon her resentment toward the Nzi war machine that took her husband’s life, the young and attractive Helen Mason is living a bitter, lonely existence. Betrayed and left for dead, German U-boat officer Lt. Josef Landermann washes ashore in a sleepy town along the northern gulf coast, looking to Helen for survival.

The Heart Mender is a story of life, loss, and reconciliation, reminding us of the power of forgiveness and the universal healing experience of letting go.”

I am anxious to get started reading this story. And if you think you’d like to read it, too, send me an email telling me so at Saquilter1@aol.com. Booksneeze (Thomas Nelson Publishers) has given me an extra copy to give away on my blog. As I really don’t have a ton of blog readers; nor is this something I’ll be doing regularely, I’m using a simple sysytem of gathing emails from those of you who might be interested in having a copy of this book. On Saturday, May 15th, I’ll drop them into a basket, stir them up and then have Jim draw one out. So if you want to be a part of this drawing, send me an email and let me know. (If you want to link this post to your own blog for your own readers, feel free - but it is not required for entry.)

I'll be reviewing this book here when I have finished it. 

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Monday Morning Coffee

"All you need is love. But a little chocolate [and coffee] now and then doesn't hurt."  ~ Charles M. Schulz

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Nor be Afraid!

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!'"
Robert Browning

Today, May 7, is the birthday of Robert Browning (1812). While the first part of this quote is one we see often, it's the last of this quote that is the best. Trust God: See all, nor be afraid!

Let's celebrate today and what is yet to be!  I'll put the coffee on!!

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Morning Thought

Prayer wonderfully clears the vision; steadies the nerves; defines duty; stiffens the purpose; sweetens and strengthens the spirit.
~ S. D. Gordon

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Morning Coffee

As I’ve written here many times before, I love the writings of A.W. Tozer. And currently I’m reading And He Dwelt Among Us – Teachings from the Gospel of John. This morning I read this passage:

“Always remember that God is easy to get along with, and if your heart is right, He is not too concerned about the formula. God is kind and good and gracious, because there are some of us that are just too hard to get along with. If God were as hard to get along with as we are, there would be one perpetual quarrel between our souls and God. God has to be easy to live with, and if He knows you mean right, He will let you make all sorts of mistakes and will not care.”

Isn’t that encouraging? How patient and kind He must be to put up with someone like me. It would be good for me to remember that the next time my impatience wants to manifest itself in a very ungracious verbal barrage.   That might just be the time to pour another cup of coffee and chill out a bit.  To be easy to live with - just like God - is a great goal.

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Plan B by Pete Wilson

Plan B by Pete Wilson
What do you do when God doesn’t show up the way you thought He would?

This isn’t a revolutionary question nor is this book a revolutionary answer to this question. But what this book is, is a wonderfully written guide to understanding just what it means biblically and spiritually to be in a Plan B.

Through the use of beautifully told, yet carefully examined Bible stories, Wilson helps us see how even the most heartbreaking or devasting events (our Plan Bs) can be used by God to bring about a deep transformation in our lives. This isn’t a rose-colored-glasses look at our Plan Bs; no, Wilson repeatedly reminds us that there are no easy answers or explanations to our problems. But he does clearly lay out the promises that God makes available to us if we chose to stay in him during the inevitable dark times. And it is these promises – which Wilson supports with ample biblical references - that will bring about spiritual transformation.

Wilson writes, “There is an undeniable relationship between crisis and hope. Between waiting hopefully and being transformed. Between Plan B and the glory of God.”

This book is an excellent place to begin to get hold of a deeper understanding of what that means. I, without any reservation, give this book five solid gold stars! It will be one I go back to again and again.

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Spiritual Transformation

Spiritual transformation doesn’t take place on Sunday when we get what we want. It takes place on Saturday while we’re waiting. It’s what is forged while we’re waiting, hoping, trusting, [and working] even though we have yet to receive that for which we long. 
~Pete Wilson

Or as Sue Monk Kidd (When the Heart Waits) put it:

Transformations come only as we go the long way round, only as we’re willing to walk a different, longer, more arduous, more inward, more prayerful route. When you wait, you’re deliberately choosing to take the long way, to go eight blocks instead of four, trusting that there’s a transforming discovery lying pooled along the way.


When Jim and I were working hard to “transform” a bankrupt company, I hung a framed farmfield print (cut from a calendar), above my desk. Beneath the picture it said:

There is no royal road to anything…

That which grows fast, withers as rapidly.

That which grows slowly endures.

   Josiah Gilbert Holland

This was the image I hung on to as we worked through the trials of our business life. Now I’m learning to apply it to my personal life as well. I’m trying to remember that Saturdays are needed if I want to fully experience Sunday.  That which grows slowly endures.

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Garage Sale Finds

I love garage sales; there is just so much interesting stuff to be found.  I'm having to be selective in the size of my teasures these days but I still enjoy finding something from the past.  This was my purchase of Thursday - a package of 6 books of Yellowstone Park matches - still wrapped in cellophane.  When do you think they stopped selling matches in our National Parks.  That would be interesting to know.

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