Archive | August 2018

The Secret Legacy by Sara Alexander

Aug12

Sacrificial Love

The Secret Legacy by Sara Alexander is an epic historical family novel that transports the reader to 1950’s Italy.

Wonderful comprehensive descriptions bring the landscape to life for the reader. We are enveloped in warmth and sunshine, with expectations of laughter.

The novel is about love and loss, sacrifice and letting go – knowing when to step forward and when to hold back. there are loves that consume. One is obsessive to the exclusion of all else, the other bubbles away in the background.

There is the difficult theme of mental illness. It is managed with love, care, kindness and gentleness.

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Unconstrained: Loving God With Abandon by Kyle McNutt

Aug11

Did You Learn To Love?

Unconstrained: Loving God With Abandon by Kyle McNutt is a marvellous and powerful book that delves into scripture, analyses and explains it with the aim of helping us draw closer to God.

The content of the book is explained in the title – it is all about loving God with every part of your life. Do we love God with our time? Our finances? Our pursuits and passions? With every fibre of our being? If not, why not? God desires every part of us. God is not just for Sundays in church. God is for 24/7. He wants to do life in partnership with you. We must give the driving seat of our lives over to God.

Loving God is not just a nice idea or a suggestion. Loving God is a commandment that will improve our lives.

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Child On The Doorstep by Anne Bennett

Aug8

Experiencing The Action

Child On the Doorstep by Anne Bennett is a family historical novel that will grip your heart and have your emotions in pieces.

Set in Birmingham in the 1920’s the country is still reeling from the effects of World War I and the Spanish influenza. Many women have lost their men folk. The returning servicemen did not always receive a hero’s welcome. Some were maimed, others had scars that were not so visible. “Many servicemen feel a measure of guilt that they have survived and left comrades… on the battlefield.” PTSD would be diagnosed today but people were less than sympathetic then. Returning servicemen would not necessarily want to relive their experiences – staying silent but suffering nightmares.

War altered the women too. Doing a man’s job strengthened their characters yet still they did not have the vote.

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Desperate Prayers For Desperate Times by John Eckhardt

Aug7

Yes And Amen

Desperate Prayers For Desperate Times by John Eckhardt is a powerful tool to help us in our prayer life. We must believe that “When we pray, He hears you.” Prayer is our lifeline to God. Prayer draws us closer to Him. John Eckhardt says “if you learn nothing else, learn how to pray.” Jesus prayed desperate prayers in the Garden Of Gethsemane. Likewise we too must learn from Him.

Prayer is our key to overcoming. When we pray, we must fix our eyes on Jesus. If we lower our eyes, we see our problems. So lift your eyes and see God.

We must persist in our prayers. We may spend years in the wilderness but the promised land is coming. If God has said He will act, then He will act but it is all in His timing.

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