“In the little town of Walton, Georgia, everybody knows your name — but no one knows your secret.
At least that’s what Lane Kent is counting on when she returns to her hometown with her five-year-old son. Dangerously depressed after the death of her husband, Lane is looking for hope. What she finds instead is a dead body.
Lane must work with Walton’s newest deputy, Charlie Lynch, to uncover the truth behind the murder. But when that truth hits too close to home, she’ll have to decide if saving the life of another is worth the cost of revealing her darkest secret.”
This was a good read. It was a quick, easy read that flowed nicely along the plot line. The characters were well developed, and I enjoyed getting to know them better as the book unfolded.
I’ve not read Natalie Walters before, but I certainly won’t hesitate to read a book of hers again, so it’s always nice to find a new-to-me author! To have the book endorsed by Jamie Jo Wright sure didn’t hurt, either. She is one brilliant writer, so if she’ll endorse a book, I’ll read it!
I really appreciated the under current of finding hope again after a devastating loss. I also appreciated the way Walters handled the tricky subject of mental health and depression. I was afraid it wasn’t going to be covered well, but I am glad to say that I think it was done very tactfully.
If you’re looking for a good suspense, a plot line that flows well, and interesting, well-developed characters, I recommend this romantic suspense novel by Natalie Walters. Living Lies will be one you want to finish as fast as you can so you can figure out what becomes of that dead body Lane Kent finds at the beginning of the book.
Book was provided courtesy of Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. and Baker Publishing Group.
Fair warning: While dealing with some mental health issues and depression, there is talk in the book of suicide in the book which may be hard for some to read.
I do not have a history of loving the writings of the Apostle Paul. You see, his writing has been used in some of the circles my life has found me in to put women “in their place” and to tell me what I can and cannot do. Particularly when you look at some of the most famous passages like the one in 1 Timothy 2 and the one in Ephesians 5, at first glance it can seem like Paul was on a mission to squash women down into a manageable package where we could easily be controlled.
But I’ve come to learn that that’s not true. And I’ve come to love the things Paul has to say.
The beginning of this journey found me assuring myself that we were likely taking everything out of appropriate context, and being able to reconcile most of his teachings, but ultimately ending at the idea that Paul is not Jesus, and while Paul’s writings were inspired by God… ultimately he was writing to specific people in specific times, and I didn’t have to listen to the people telling me I couldn’t lead because I was a woman and that my only job, as a woman, was to get married and serve my husband. How far that is from the truth…. goodness. If I believed that, I’d be a failure on so many levels!
But I’m not a failure at all.
Back in February, the church I call home did a series on Jesus, Women and the Church called Her Story. It was sheer and utter brilliance and I don’t have other words than that to describe it. I was so excited for it. I was so honoured to be a leader within my church community during that time so that I could be involved in facilitating conversations in my home churches and so that I could participate openly within a community that not only valued my voice but wanted to hear it. Not only did we do a series on it, but we brought in guest speakers who brought. it. home. I am not a vocal person in church while people are preaching, especially because the way my church is set up, we watch a video from the main site on a movie theatre screen. The person preaching will never hear my “Amen!” or any other call I might throw into the open. But one Sunday I audibly muttered a “that’ll preach!” in response to something Jo Saxton said (catch the whole sermon here — sheer brilliance) because I just couldn’t help myself. It would preach. It could. It does, and it did. And I was just here for it all over the place.
One of our guests during this particular series (p.s. can I tell you how thrilled I was that they were all women? Imagine….) was Dr. Cynthia Long Westfall. She is an assistant professor of New Testament at McMaster Divinity College. She participated in a Podcast conversation with a few pastors from my church, and though it was two hours long I couldn’t help feeling like I needed more. She scratched the surface on what she knew about the context and the meaning behind what Paul had said in his writings, and you could tell. She was knowledgeable but also candid and witty — everything you’d hope someone dropping theological truth would be. I soaked up every word, then began a quest to get my hands on her book, which is why I’m writing here, now.
Upon finishing listening to that 2 hour long podcast, I looked all over the place for a copy of Westfall’s book, Paul and Gender. Through a contact with Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. and Baker Publishing, I was able to get my hands on it, and so here I am now — reviewing it.
To start, it’s long and it’s heavy. But please don’t let either of those things deter you. If you’re interested in the freedom that knowledge on this topic can bring you, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It’s an academic text, so please don’t approach it hoping it’ll read like a novel. It won’t. But if your expectations are in the right place, the beauty and freedom of a well-educated voice on this topic will shine through. It brought water to a part of my soul I hadn’t even realized was so thirsty.
I’ve been in church communities where my gender has been a total non-issue and I’ve been allowed to thrive based on my gifts, not my gender (where I am now, and I’m SO thankful for that!). I’ve been in churches where my voice felt silenced and I felt that I couldn’t come up for air, purely because I’m a woman. And I’ve been in the middle, where I wasn’t silenced but I wasn’t encouraged to speak up either. I can speak from experience that the freedom that comes from knowing who I am in Christ and then being able to use the gifts I’ve been given to serve my community for the betterment of the Kingdom is unmatched.
Paul and Gender will take you on a deep, deep dive through Paul’s writings. It will examine the stereotypes, the traditional interpretations, and the historical views on the passages. It will then take you through the cultural implications, the linguistic nuances (which, for a word nerd like myself is amazing), and the relationships between all of Paul’s writings to show you that Paul is not anti-woman at all. Westfall looks at Culture, Stereotypes, the Creation narrative, The Fall, Eschatology (a study of the theology of the end times — I had to look it up), the Body, our Callings, Authority, and the passage in 1 Timothy 2:11-15 which seems to prohibit women from leading in the church. It’s brilliant and I cannot say enough wonderful things.
I’d be here for days, and you’d all check out and stop reading if I quoted all the things that blew my mind and opened my eyes to a different view on Paul’s writings. The quotes wouldn’t make a lot of sense out of the context of all of Westfall’s research, anyway, and so I hesitate to drop them in without that context. But I assure you that despite this text being academic and heavy, I have exclamation marks and the words “mic drop!” written in several places, and I will recommend this book over and over and over again.
It took me a long time to read it. It needs time to soak in. I needed to process sections of it at a time. I started reading it in April and finished it mid-July. It’s not an easy read, but if you’re interested in the topic — it’s a great read.
5 stars from over here, and that’s not an honour I bestow to books very often!
It’s set in Canada. It’s set in New France. I’ve been trying to teach a bunch of Grade 7s the history of New France, and I’ve been trying to make it sound interesting. It IS interesting! So I really wanted to love this book.
And I wish I did.
But I didn’t. I couldn’t get into it. It is rare that it takes me a month to finish a book, but I have been working on this one for a really long time. It’s just not grabbing me. I’m disappointed about that, because I’m in a couple avid readers groups where people are just raving about this book. They love it. Can’t get enough.
This was my first Jocelyn Green book. I will give others a shot — this book is well written, the plot is developed well, the characters seem to make sense to the story. I don’t know what to say, honestly, it just didn’t hold my attention. Maybe I’ll have to take another run at it in the summer when I have hours to just read and read, but unfortunately, this is currently one I can’t personally recommend.
I think I’m in the minority, and I sincerely believe it’s probably me and not the book, but as I’ve promised again and again to be honest, I guess it just is what it is. This book was not destined for my hands, and yet it ended up here anyway.
If you’ve read it, did you enjoy it? Am I the only one who didn’t? Because it seems that way to me so far! I’ve yet to find a review that isn’t glowing, so it’s probably just me, and you should probably go read it despite my thoughts 😉
From the back of the book:
She Has Always Moved between Worlds,
But Now She Must Choose a Side
The daughter of a Mohawk mother and French father in 1759 Montreal,
Catherine Duval would rather remain neutral in a world tearing itself
apart. Content to trade with both the French and the British, Catherine
is pulled into the Seven Years’ War against her wishes when her British
ex-fiancé, Samuel Crane, is taken prisoner by her father. Samuel claims
he has information that could help end the war, and he asks Catherine to
help him escape.
Peace appeals to Catherine, even if helping the man who broke her
heart does not. But New France is starving, and she and her loved ones
may not survive another winter of conflict-induced famine. When the
dangers of war arrive on her doorstep, Catherine and Samuel flee by
river toward the epicenter of the battle between England and France. She
and Samuel may impact history, but she fears the ultimate cost will be
higher than she can bear.
Book was provided courtesy of Graf-Martin Communications, Inc. and Baker Publishing Group.
I’m an Elizabeth Camden fan. I have been since the first book of hers I read, and she continues not to disappoint. You can certainly tell that Camden’s other job is as a research librarian. Her stories are so well put together, and they flow so nicely.
Apparently I missed book 2 in The Empire State series, as I’ve read book 1 (A Dangerous Legacy). This book will stand alone, though. I didn’t find I was lost at all having not read book 2. Characters from Book 1 were familiar, but having read the first book wouldn’t likely have been integral to the plot — I like that about a series.
As much as Elizabeth Camden is a brilliant writer, I also really love books with strong female characters, and this is no exception. Especially for the time period in which this is set (1908 New York), a certified accountant with a mind of her own is refreshing.
Eloise Drake’s prim demeanor hides the turbulent past she’s finally put behind her–or so she thinks. A mathematical genius, she’s now a successful accountant for the largest engineering project in 1908 New York. But to her dismay, her new position puts her back in the path of the man responsible for her deepest heartbreak.
Alex Duval is the mayor of a town about to be wiped off the map. The state plans to flood the entire valley where his town sits in order to build a new reservoir, and Alex is stunned to discover the woman he once loved on the team charged with the demolition. With his world crumbling around him, Alex devises a risky plan to save his town–but he needs Eloise’s help to succeed.
Alex is determined to win back the woman he thought he’d lost forever, but even their combined ingenuity may not be enough to overcome the odds against them before it’s too late.
I can’t say the book wasn’t predictable — but I can say that if you weren’t expecting that in a Christian romance, I’m not sure what else I can tell you, haha. This story was well crafted, had great details about a plan just crazy enough to work, and featured a relationship that weathers the test of time. Especially if you’re a fan of Elizabeth Camden’s historical details, I think you’ll really like this book!
I just did not see this book coming. I will be surprised, shocked, nay… flabbergasted… if this book gets unseated through the rest of 2019 as my favourite fiction pick for the year. I’m not sure I even thoroughly read the description when I agreed to review it, as I’ll usually yes to historical fiction, and even more willingly to one that will slip back and forth between time periods.
This is Erin Bartels’ debut novel, and I will certainly watch for more from her in the future. She has another one, The Words Between Us, set to release September 2019. And she has a short story collection called This Elegant Ruin and other stories which I’m going to have to get my hands on.
This novel was expertly woven, tying the same story together across three different time periods, all set in Michigan (Detroit and in the country outside of it). From a farm used for the Underground Railroad, to the height of volatile race riots in 1960s Detroit, to the present in both places, Erin Bartels takes you on a journey through a story that I don’t even know that I could adequately describe to you.
“In this powerful first novel . . . Bartels successfully weaves American history into a deeply moving story of heartbreak, long-held secrets, and the bonds of family.”—Publishers Weekly, Starred Review
When Detroit Free Press reporter Elizabeth Balsam meets James Rich, his strange request—that she look up a relative she didn’t know she had in order to deliver an old camera and a box of photos—seems like it isn’t worth her time. But when she loses her job after a botched investigation, she suddenly finds herself with nothing but time.
At her great-aunt’s 150-year-old farmhouse, Elizabeth uncovers a series of mysterious items, locked doors, and hidden graves. As she searches for answers to the riddles around her, the remarkable stories of two women who lived in this very house emerge as testaments to love, resilience, and courage in the face of war, racism, and misunderstanding. And as Elizabeth soon discovers, the past is never as past as we might like to think.
Take an emotional journey through time—from the volatile streets of 1960s Detroit to the Underground Railroad during the Civil War—to uncover the past, confront the seeds of hatred, and discover where love goes to hide.
You’ll both love and strongly dislike some characters; You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll grieve. You won’t want to put the book down, because just when you think you have pieces of the story figured out and could take a break, Bartels will drop another clue and then flip time periods to go back and explain more of the details. Granted, I will admit that if not done well this can be really frustrating, but it is accomplished nearly seamlessly in this book.
Long story short, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It’s a beautiful, compelling story, and it is expertly crafted. Please do yourself a favour, book yourself a whole day in a hammock (since spring has now theoretically sprung), pick up this book, and disappear from the universe for a while. You won’t regret it. 5 Stars from me.
As per usual, Jamie Jo Wright does not disappoint in this gothic feeling time slip novel. I was introduced to Wright in the fall with The Reckoning at Gossamer Pond. I definitely still need to catch The House on Foster Hill, and I will read it, I assure you.
Wright is a master storyteller. I don’t think I’ve ever been gripped by a book quite like I have been by the two of hers I’ve read. She is gifted with the ability to tie details in across a century long span, keep her readers guessing, and delivering an engaging story at the same time.
This story is not heavy on the romance, though I think the nuances and elements of it woven throughout both timeline stories lend really nicely to the story itself, which is not always the case in mystery novels.
I loved the stories of Heidi Lane and Thea Reed, separated by 100 years, but both looking for answers about Misty Wayfair and how they’re connected to it.
If you like engaging, well-written stories, especially historical ones and especially mysteries, this book will be for you. I don’t always love time slips, as they can be kind of hard to follow depending on the author, but that is not a concern when Jamie Jo Wright is the storyteller.
It’s not often that I get my hands on a book that I’m content to read for hours straight. Sure, I’ll read for hours straight, but I’ll often switch books to keep my brain engaged. I flew home from Calgary, Alberta this past Friday, and I read from the moment I sat down and buckled my seatbelt to the moment the flight attendants told us we could get our bags — about 3:45 without stopping. My only complaint was that my flight wasn’t 25 minutes longer so I could have finished the book! (haha just kidding, I finished it the next day at home and was just fine with that)
Along with being gripping, fascinating, and engaging, Wright weaves in the profound truth of what we can accomplish when we root our identities in Christ and learn to trust our Creator.
Fair warning: while I believe Wright handles it very tactfully and does a great job in this book, there is a fair bit of mental health and anxiety dealt with within these pages, so if you’re sensitive to that you may want to proceed with caution. Again, however, I felt that Wright did an excellent job with her research so as to approach the topic carefully and respectfully.
From the back of the book: Left at an orphanage as a child, Thea Reed vowed to find her mother someday. Now grown, her search takes her to Pleasant Valley, Wisconsin, in 1908. When clues lead her to a mental asylum, Thea uses her experience as a post-mortem photographer to gain access and assist groundskeeper Simeon Coyle in photographing the patients and uncovering the secrets within. However, she never expected her personal quest would reawaken the legend of Misty Wayfair, a murdered woman who allegedly haunts the area and whose appearance portends death.
A century later, Heidi Lane receives a troubling letter from her mother–who is battling dementia–compelling her to travel to Pleasant Valley for answers to her own questions of identity. When she catches sight of a ghostly woman who haunts the asylum ruins in the woods, the long-standing story of Misty Wayfair returns–and with it, Heidi’s fear for her own life.
As two women across time seek answers about their identities and heritage, can they overcome the threat of the mysterious curse that has them inextricably intertwined?
I can’t recommend this book highly enough! If I were a bestower of stars, I’d give this one 5 🙂
Book was provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.
Lent started today. I’ve been historically terrible at observing Lent. It’s not a liturgical tradition I grew up practicing, but I can see its value, and I’ve picked something every year for the last several to give up, but my follow-through is admittedly not great. There’s my confession for the day.
Back at the end of December, 2018, I picked a word for my year (as I do every year). I picked “Present.” It has occurred to me in the last little while that I am not exceptionally good at being present. I’m not skilled at living in the moment I’m in, and I tend to be constantly looking toward the next fun thing. The next big thing. I suppose this is likely tied to my Enneagram number (7), but it was pointed out to me last night during a conversation about this very topic that we could all learn about this, and so it’s not likely exclusively a “7” experience. The biggest places I notice it in my own life might be 7 experiences, but that doesn’t mean we can’t all learn from what I’m learning, so here it goes.
Present. I looked it up. I’m going to be SUPER cheesy and give you a dictionary definition. Present: in a particular place; existing or occurring now; the period of time now occurring. I think the last one resonates most with me. The period of time now occurring….. how often do I look toward the period of time coming up, and therefore miss the period of time now occurring?
I looked up some synonyms, too, because if you’ve been reading anything I’ve written for any length of time… or if you’ve had more than one conversation with me… you know I’m a language nerd and breaking down language is one of my favourite ways to understand anything. Some of my favourite synonyms — the ones that resonate with me the most — are as follows: accompanying, observing, participating, available, breathing. There’s so much depth to these words, and forgive me while I nerd out hard here.
When I am not present, I am not any of those synonyms.
I am not accompanying. If I’m in a situation, but I’m focused on and thinking about what’s coming next, what will be more exciting, where I’d rather be, and what I’d rather be doing… I’m not with whoever I should be with. If they want time from me, I’m not giving them all of it, even if I appear that I am. It can be hard for me to sit in the present and not be drifting toward thinking about what comes next.
I am not observing. I miss things. I miss important pieces of conversation. I miss details and nuances. I miss the minute. And often, this means I miss the incredible that lies in the ordinary. I’ll explain that further in a bit.
I’m not participating. If I’m not present, even if it’s just in my spinny, spinny brain, I’m not fully participating. And if I’m not fully participating in my life, am I even really fully living it? If I’m out somewhere, and I’m a little bored, so I start scrolling through Facebook… what am I missing? Who could I be talking to? Does Jesus have something for me in that moment that I miss because my face is staring down at my phone? If I’ve just come home from something and instead of enjoying the quiet, the down time, the chance to refresh and reboot… what do I miss?
I’m certainly not available. If I’m caught up in whatever comes next, as is my unfortunate tendency sometimes, then I’m not available. Not when someone asks for my time, not to the task I’m trying to complete, not really even to myself. When my brain is occupied elsewhere, I’m cheating those around me, but I’m also cheating myself. It feels harmless to constantly envision how great the next fun thing is going to be, but I’m cheating myself out of that moment right then and there. Out of how great THAT moment could be.
I’m not breathing. Not literally. I don’t literally stop breathing. And as much as I love it when things are both literally and figuratively true, this is not one of those times. But I’m finding more and more, especially the more self-aware and introspective I get (and there’s been a dramatic shift in that direction in the past year), that when I’m not present I’m instead rather frantic. I’m stressed, I can’t focus on what I’m trying to do, I talk too fast, I rush, I miss things — both things I wanted to say and things I needed to hear, and I don’t do much all that well. Perhaps I’m being too hard on myself. Certainly this is an example toward the extreme end of my lack of presence, but it can be true nonetheless, and that’s why I’ve been working on it, and why I’ll continue to until I’m good at it.
What this looks like for me is a lot of time spent on my phone. The literal second I get bored of something, I’m looking for something more fun to do, and so I wonder how many opportunities to interact with actual human beings I might miss while I spend my grocery store line time scrolling through Facebook on my phone. But I don’t just do this while I’m standing in line. Sometimes I do it while I’m watching TV, which means that I’m not really, truly, paying attention to either thing. I do it sitting in the car (parked) waiting for someone I’m picking up. I do it in the airport waiting to board my plane. I do it if someone I’m with gets up to go get something or leaves to use the washroom. I do it in the staff room at lunch. In fact, had I not already been consciously trying to make a choice about this area, I’d have missed a conversation today at lunch about Lent and why it’s practiced and how so many people use it to diet. I might not have chimed in. I might not have shared what I intend to do over the next 40 days. And I can’t know for sure, but maybe that would have been someone else’s loss.
And it’s not just my phone. It’s not just Facebook. I’m that person who has always been counting down to something. Since I could count as a little kid, I’d have countdowns running, either written or just in my brain, to how many days it was until the next thing I was excited about. And what I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older is that not everybody does that. That’s not a big deal, though… to learn that one of your quirks is unique to you, or unique to those similar to you. More importantly, it distracts me from the right here. The right now. The beauty of the ordinary. What’s right in front of me. I miss the fun of being able to enjoy my down time because it feels like it takes forever to get from Tuesday to Friday. I miss the grandness of the ordinary spaces between Christmas and March Break because the second the plane lands after Christmas holidays, I’m wondering how long before I can go back to my parents, my brother, my sisters, my mountains, my waterfalls (though in theory I could find some waterfalls in Ontario, too….). I miss the ordinary beauty of winter because I’m desperate for spring. Had I not been paying attention the other day, I’d have missed the hoarfrost on these trees.
Had I not been willing to go for a walk to pray and sit with my thoughts because I had some down time, I’d have missed this sunset.
I end up missing the new growth of spring, if/when it ever arrives, because I’m mad at the mud and I’m desperate for heat. Then when summer does finally arrive, I miss some of its ordinary beauty because I pack it so full of so many activities that I can’t sit and bask in its wonder… because I know it ends, and I dread its end, so I just must. keep. busy. Must do it ALL before the snow comes again.
I’d grown tired of missing so much, so for 2019 I picked the word Present. That looks different for everyone (in fact, I found out recently that my mother also picked Present, but she’s using it differently). For me it definitely has to include a sense of delayed gratification and a sense of the ability to rest in where I am at any given moment. Not just waiting for the next grand adventure and enthralling experience. Because ordinary can be exciting, too. It can. If we let it.
So back to the point. Lent 2019. While I’ve not always given things up well, I like to try. Back in the summer, I gave up sugar. Quit it cold turkey. I feel like if I can give up sugar (mostly) for 8 months, I can give something up for 40 days. And if it’s anything like sugar, if I’m successful in giving it up, I won’t likely want it back. But also if it’s anything like sugar, there will need to be some divine intervention to make me OK with it, and to help remind me of why I’ve decided to do it.
I was out for tea last night and was sharing that I was toying with the idea of deleting Facebook off my phone for Lent. Not giving it up entirely, still being able to check it from my computer (if I’m even on it), as it houses events, some groups I use frequently, and pictures of friends and family and their kids that I would miss if I didn’t see them every once in a while, since I don’t get to physically see the people as often as I’d like. I like the idea of what Facebook can give us. It’s not terrible in and of itself. It can connect across thousands of kilometers. Continent to continent. One side of the country to the other. But when the app version on my phone gets used to distract me from ever being bored, it takes away from my ability to be present. It doesn’t fit with the goal of who I want to be by the end of 2019. And, truthfully, when I spend that much time scrolling through it, it can be kind of toxic. The politics, the ads, the Momo warnings, the “don’t eat this, it’ll kill you” and then the next day, the “how that very same food is the secret to living forever….” all of it. It gets into my head and it unsettles me. It rattles me. It makes it hard to live a life that’s not stressed and anxious but rather is trusting and leaning on Jesus and patient. It just seems that all the bad in the world is concentrated on my Facebook newsfeed and I’m not here for it anymore. And so, over Peach Tranquility tea at Starbucks, we decided to do it together. Forty days without a mobile Facebook app. We deleted it then and there.
And then, ten minutes later, when I was left alone at the table for a very brief amount of time, I immediately grabbed my phone and went to open the app to scroll….. and it wasn’t there. It might be a long 40 days. But I know that this, along with the other daily reminders to be present, be present, be present… I know that they will grow me. They’ll stretch me, for sure. But they’ll grow me. They’ll leave me a better person than I was before, because that’s always the goal. More growth. I’ve found it’s just a natural shift in desire that my brain wants so much, this idea of being present. I’ve found that I hardly watch TV anymore — so much so that I’m contemplating *gasp* cancelling Netflix. Who has time for TV when there are so many books?! And if TV was just another thing to distract from wanting to move on to the next, better thing (which I strongly believe that it was), then I don’t really need that either.
It’s better to do things in community, isn’t it? Many of the things I’ve done that have yielded really positive results in the last couple years have been done in community. Quit sugar? Sure, if a friend is going through it with me. Intentionally set life goals and plan for their execution? Sure, let’s buy the same workbook and talk about it as we go! Journal through Psalms? Done, as long as I’ve got someone to talk to about it. Remove Facebook from my phone? Yup, let’s delete it at the same time. So it would stand to reason, then, that not only is it better to do life together, and to work toward growth in community, but also that being present in those spaces is intrinsically valuable. When you’re present, you share life. And when you share life, get vulnerable, and get real, people come alongside you and hold you up.
My FitBit has the ability to buzz, via Bluetooth, whenever I get a notification through text, Messenger, What’s App, email, or my work email. I know many people who never turned it on in the first place, but at first I really liked it. I liked the ability to know what was happening without appearing to check my phone. I liked the ability to decide whether or not to pull my phone out of my pocket to respond to the notification. But I’ve been finding that all it does is distract me. Mid-conversation, my phone buzzes and then a split second later, my FitBit buzzes on my wrist. I then read whatever it is on my wrist, but by that point, I’ve either missed something someone was saying, or I’ve lost my train of thought and I have to ask whoever I’m talking to what I was saying. So last night while I was out, when the first notification buzzed, I turned off the notifications from my wrist. And low and behold, the world did not come to an end because I didn’t know what my texts said until I got home. The universe did not implode because I didn’t see the first bit of the email Pinterest sent me to tell me a friend had sent me a pin. Can’t that wait? Isn’t a deep conversation with a fellow human being better than that? It was so freeing that I didn’t turn the notifications back on on my wrist when I got home. And I didn’t turn them back on when I woke up this morning. And I just might not turn them back on ever. Time will tell.
And so, at the end of this first day of Lent, at the end of this first day of denying myself something so that I can focus more on Jesus as I start the descent into the Easter season, now I’m off to make a lunch for tomorrow and go to bed with a book instead of my phone. And every time I think about scrolling through Facebook, I’ll instead think about the wonderful ways God has blessed my life, and the wonderful things I have to attend to right in that moment. Because that’s what Lent is for — a time to focus on growing in God, not just making a new, healthy life choice for forty days. A time to lean in to just a little bit of the suffering that Jesus endured for me so that I can have relationship with Him. So that I can lean on Him. So that I can trust Him to help me be Present.
Mind Games by Nancy Mehl is book one in Mehl’s new Kaely Quinn, Profiler series. It’s well-written, suspenseful, well-organized, and I didn’t find it predictable at all. I don’t think I had the details figured out until the exact moment that the author wanted me to! And that’s the mark of a good suspense novel.
One of the things I loved most about it is that while it’s classified as a Romantic Suspense novel, it was definitely more about the case that Special Agent Kaely Quinn and her new partner, Special Agent Noah Hunter were trying to solve.
“FBI Behavioural Analyst Kaely Quinn’s methods may be highly unorthodox, but her talent is undeniable. She’s done her best to establish a new life for herself after being demoted and transferred to St. Louis when a reporter reveals she’s the daughter of an infamous serial killer. But when that same reporter claims to have received an anonymous poem predicting a string of murders, ending with Kaely’s, it seems her old life has followed her.
“When a body is found that fits the poem’s morbid predictions, Kaely and her new partner, Special Agent Noah Hunter, are forced to move past his skepticism of her approach and work together to unravel the deadly riddle.
“With a brazen serial killer who breaks all the normal patterns on the loose, Noah and Kaely must race to catch the murderer before anyone else, including Kaely, is killed.”
This was a brilliant ride from start to finish, and if you’re looking for good suspense with just a hint of some of the characters having feelings for each other, this will be the book for you! I’m looking forward to another installation in this series. Hopefully since the series is entitled ‘Kaely Quinn, Profiler’ it will continue to follow Kaely rather than spin off into the lives of other characters. The character Mehl has created here is rather brilliant, and I’d definitely like to see more of her!
Book was provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.
Have you ever found a book that enraptured you? Grabbed your attention and wouldn’t let you go? How about an author? Have you ever been so into what the author had to say, and related so distinctly to a text that you’d swear you could have written parts of the book yourself?
That’s how I feel whenever I pick up a Shauna Niequist book. I don’t even have to review this book – I just so desperately want others to find it, that I’m going to anyway.
It could be that Niequist is a fellow Enneagram 7, and therefore the way I see the world is similar to the way she sees hers. Some of the struggles and the way she describes things feel like a breath of fresh air to me — it means I’m not alone. I don’t personally know any other 7s, or at least not any who know they’re 7s, and so to read from someone who’s aware of why she thinks how she thinks is so refreshing.
Bittersweet is a collection of essays, written in Shauna’s beautiful, lilty, almost lyrical style. She talks about change, leaning into pain, grace, living through hard (and she’s lived through lots of it), and embracing all of it. She never once uses a Scripture reference, and yet you can tell she’s doing her very best to walk life hand in hand with Jesus through it all.
“The idea of bittersweet is changing the way I live, unraveling and re-weaving the way I understand life. Bittersweet is the idea that in all things there is both something broken and something beautiful, that there is a moment of lightness on even the darkest of nights, a shadow of hope in every heartbreak, and that rejoicing is no less rich even when it contains a splinter of sadness. “It’s the practice of believing that we really do need both the bitter and the sweet, and that a life of nothing but sweetness rots both your teeth and your soul. Bitter is what makes us strong, what forces us to push through, what helps us earn the lines on our faces and the calluses on our hands. Sweet is nice enough, but bittersweet is beautiful, nuanced, full of depth and complexity. Bittersweet is courageous, gutsy, audacious, earthy. “This is what I’ve come to believe about change: it’s good, in the way that childbirth is good, and heartbreak is good, and failure is good. By that I mean that it’s incredibly painful, exponentially more so if you fight it, and also that it has the potential to open you up, to open life up, to deliver you right into the palm of God’s hand, which is where you wanted to be all long, except that you were too busy pushing and pulling your life into exactly what you thought it should be. “I’ve learned the hard way that change is one of God’s greatest gifts, and most useful tools. Change can push us, pull us, rebuke and remake us. It can show us who we’ve become, in the worst ways, and also in the best ways. I’ve learned that it’s not something to run away from, as though we could, and that in many cases, change is a function of God’s graciousness, not life’s cruelty.”
I listened to this book using my Scribd subscription while I commuted this week. I started it on Tuesday morning, and finished it Friday on the way home. The timing of this book’s arrival in my life is kind of funny, though. I’m a firm believer that God can speak to us in all kinds of ways, but I’m pretty sure He uses books a lot of the time for me. I mean, why not, when my nose spends a good chunk of time buried in one or my ears are listening to one while I drive? It won’t surprise me at all if, when I get to Heaven, I ask if He’s been using books all this time and He smiles and says “I’m glad you caught it.”
Thursday, on my way into work, something profound caught me, and I paused the book to reflect on it for a few minutes. It directly related to something I was wrestling down and needed to dig into in my own life. And if that wasn’t enough, on my drive home, a line hit me so hard that I pulled over, put the car in park, rewound the book by 30 seconds, listened to the line again twice, and then scribbled it down quickly in a note in my phone. I nearly cried, it was such a relief to know that I was not the only one who thought this way.
It was such a profound moment that I bought the book in hard copy on Amazon when I got home. I needed to have it in my hands. I need to read it again. And again. And again. In fact, I think I’ll read it out loud myself, because while it was beautiful to have Shauna read it to me (she narrated the book herself and it was wonderful), I think I will need to find the places that it makes my voice hitch and my soul hurt, and lean into them myself. I need to soak it in. I need to write all over it, and underline and highlight and flag it with stickies, as I have with Cold Tangerines and Present Over Perfect. But most importantly I need to learn to live it. I need to learn to live in Bittersweet better, because I’m not awesome at it. I find it hard, but we have to do it. Because if we can’t experience sadness, grief, and pain — then we can’t really, truly, experience joy and delight.
“When life is sweet, say thank you, and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you, and grow.” ~ Shauna Niequist
*fair warning: This book contained a good chunk toward the back half about marriage, pregnancy, miscarriages, and babies. Knowing what the author has walked through, this didn’t surprise me. I just want to be sure that I let someone know for whom that might be really hard if you’re not expecting it to be there.
Many times I’ve heard it said that anger hides a multitude of other emotions. If someone is really angry with you, then maybe underneath there’s an underlying feeling that’s prompting them to act angrily. Are they scared? Sad? Disappointed?
Normally I am a person who prefers to see life through the lens of the silver lining. Every cloud has one, or so they say, and I can usually find it. Optimism is great! It’s a lot more fun than being bummed out over things you can’t fix.
But today I ran into something that I haven’t been able to shake off, and I haven’t been able to find a silver lining for yet. Well, that’s not true; I found one, but it’s lame, haha.
Without going into too much detail, because it’s work related and I shouldn’t share the whole story for all the internet to read…. Earlier this week I was offered a really cool opportunity. It carried with it this sense of accomplishment and a feeling that the things I have to say in my field are valuable and important, and that what I’m doing on a daily basis has meaning. It might have puffed me up a bit, made me feel pretty great, all that jazz. I was invited to come sit at the table with a discussion group across several different regions who would be able to have conversations about how best to support the particular groups of kids we all work with.
But, rather sadly, today I found out that due to there being a number of people going from my work already, my voice wasn’t needed, and it’s been decided for me that I cannot attend.
The situation itself is not what I’m here to talk about though — because, as I mentioned, I can’t really do that without spilling all kinds of details that I shouldn’t. I’m here because all day, what’s been spinning around in the processing centre in my brain, is the range of emotions that that’s evoked in me, and what that means.
I’ve been waffling all day between angry — at the people who get to make decisions, at the situation itself, sometimes at myself — and sad and disappointed. I think that the biggest place I’ve camped though has been disappointment.
It’s a funny thing… Intellectually, I can reason my way through this. I can understand the reasoning I was given. I can logically work my way into accepting it, and be ok with the outcome. I can tell myself that I know my voice has value in my workplace because most of the time I feel like that’s true. I’ve been told that that’s true. But it doesn’t seem to matter how often you intellectually reason your way through something — sometimes you just have to ride out your disappointment.
The reality is that I’ll probably be fine tomorrow. The opportunity will pass on Tuesday, and I’ll live to tell the tale. I’ll probably even be fine in a couple hours. I have band practice tonight, and that always cheers me up. I won’t end up bitter, and it’s not something I’m going to end up holding against anyone. It’s just that… normally I can shake my way into a “no, it’s fine because ______” but today it feels appropriate to sit with my disappointment, acknowledge its presence, and tell myself it’s completely reasonable to feel this way. One doesn’t always need to be chipper and excited about ALL THE THINGS (this is a hard lesson for the Enneagram 7, 🙂 )
I’ve been learning that when something nags at me, and it feels like I need to write about it, often that means someone else needs to read it. So I’m trying not to ignore that and push away the “I should blog this” impulse. So here I am.
My takeaway from this experience is this: Big emotions can be hard. And the bigger they are, the deeper they…. I can’t think of a word I want to use for this…. the deeper they burn? sting? echo? resonate? I don’t know. I’ll think of it at 3:15 am. But when they’re big, and they’re hard, and in this case… when they tempt you to feel like you don’t bring a valuable skill set to the table and aren’t really needed, it’s best to acknowledge them rather than run for something fun to do to distract yourself from them. If I were to run off and find a distraction right now, Tuesday will still come. The difference will be that I won’t have processed my disappointment. I won’t have reassured myself that what I do IS valuable. I won’t have taken the time to recognize that this feeling is important and meaningful. And then I’ll just have to do it on Tuesday, lest it follow me into Wednesday and beyond.
So, silly meme to lighten the mood aside, tonight I will process. I’ll probably journal where I can actually talk about the details, and I might even cry it out. But I will live to tell the tale. Because I can take the time to process the hurt and the sadness, I’ll be able to be chipper when I’m done. And that’s pretty cool 🙂
