One of my girls shared her book with me...

And I loved it.  She read DC Superhero Girls Spaced Out - a graphic novel.  Immediately she brought it to me and asked that I read it too.  I did and was surprised by how much I liked it.  I don't usually read graphic novels, but I enjoyed it.  It was made so much for special because she shared her book with me.

Read two lovely books this week

Miss Buncle's Book by D.E. Stevenson.  I first heard about this book from Sarah Mackenzie (Read Aloud Revival).  It is SUCH a delightful little story.

Of Manners and Murder by Anastasia Hastings.  I initially got this book simply for the narrator.  Mia Hutchinson- Shaw has become one of my VERY favorite narrators.  She narrated the first two books from the Soul Cold as Frost series (in my opinion, the audible series was ruined by the narrator of the last two).  As I began to listen to the story, I realized this was SUCH a cute, cozy mystery - I LOVED it.

It has been a long week

Buddy came home late Tuesday.  I am SO thankful that he is ok and that his incision is healing nicely.  

It has been a looong week - between his meds and the chronic medical conditions of others in our household - I am SUPER tired. 

I re-read (actually re-listened to) Sense and Second-Degree Murder this week during the nights as I stayed up to keep Buddy from bothering his incision and to give him meds and in the mornings - as he slept more and I was able to sleep more - I have been reading the book of Mark.  All of my Lent reading plans went out the window, so I chose to read through Mark to help keep my mind focused on the entire reason we are celebrating anything this week.  

And the neatest thing happened.

As I got to the end of Mark 9, I noted something I had never noticed before.  Jesus says "For everyone will be salted with fire.  Salt is good, but if salt loses its saltiness, with what will you season it?  Have salt among yourselves and be at peace with one another."  

As I puzzled this out, I decided to pull up the commentary on Bible Hub to see if I could get a better grasp on this passage of scripture.  Normally when I am reading this passage I am totally zeroed in on the father and his desperation to help his child.  He prays the BEST prayer - I believe, help me in my unbelief.  But this time through verses 49-50 jumped out at me.

I utilized Bible Hub and read through MacLaren's Expositions and spent every early morning I could taking notes and thinking through what he said.  If you have time - I included the link (click on MacLaren's name) - 

Happy Holy Week - tomorrow morning is Resurrection morning.  

*sigh*

This year has been brutal so far.  

This past week our beloved chihuahua started throwing up.  

Every other day would find us at the vet until he had surgery on Saturday.  

He had eaten several pieces of fabric.  

Unbeknownst to us.

I truly thought he was dying yesterday morning.  But our vet (she has actually performed every single surgery on our pets - from rabbits to dogs) came in on her day off and examined, x-rayed, and then stayed to do the surgery for him.  I am so incredibly thankful.

This little guy is our whole world.  He will be 13 next month and while I know he won't live forever, I am so thankful for more time with him.  

I am so behind on everything.

My reading challenge.

School and cleaning and Bible plans - everything is moving at a snails pace right now.  Every day I wake up thinking today will be the day when things calm down and get back to more of a normal cadence and then something else happens.  Ironically (or not so much if you stop and really think about it) the thing that God has been teaching me this year is that I need to learn to trust Him.  

Not my circumstances.  

Not the plan I made.  

But Him.

And each day I see His hand.  Like the fact that our vet was in town, available, and willing to come in on her day off to take care of our fur-baby.  That's such a gift from Him.  And we are SO incredibly thankful for our vet.  She truly cares about our pets.  So - although I missed another book blog post this week, and although I am still in the book of Numbers for my reading plan, and although we are still in chapter three of a book we started two weeks ago...it is all going to be ok.  

Not because the circumstances are going to magically change.

But because God is good.  

And He is trustworthy.  

So I can hang on to Him and let Him teach me how that is more than enough.

Running behind

It has been a very, very looooong and trying week.

I am so far behind on every thing that I almost missed another book post.

I read The Princess Companion by Melanie Cellier - a retelling of "The Princess and the Pea'.  Highly recommend.  

Hoping this next week goes smoother.  

Hesed

by Michael Card

I re-read this book because in the course of our covenant study, this word has (not surprisingly) made a common re-appearance.  

I LOVE this book.  

I LOVE this word.  

It is a Hebrew word that means so many things, but is often-times summarized as the phrase "loving-kindness".  But truly, there is no accurate word to word translation for Hesed.  

Hesed isn't just an ideal, it is an action.  This quote sums it up the best :

"Hesed is not simply a Hebrew word - it is a Hebrew ideal.  Befitting the more verbal Hebrew mind, it is always looked on as something you do.  You come to understand Hesed not by defining it, but by doing it." pg. 128-9

Each chapter dives a bit deeper into this word, straining to get our hearts around what this word fully means.  Part one focuses on the God of Hesed, part two pulls out people (both in the author's personal life and from the Bible) who either experienced or demonstrated Hesed.  And part three shows how Jesus embodied Hesed to the fullest.  

As the book wraps up the author gives a more full-bodied definition of Hesed and then ends with an awesome section of appendixes.  My favorite being the list of Scriptures in which Hesed is mentioned and/or demonstrated.  He uses the CSB, but you can pull out your Bible and go through and mark them in your favorite translation.

I also read the (very) short and sweet book by Susan J. Heck : A Call to Scripture Memory.  This book doesn't tell you anything you might not have already learned about memorizing, but it is AWESOME in the fact that it is basically a pint-sized cheerleader/encourager you can whip out at any point on your journey.  

Total Forgiveness by R.T. Kendall

I think I mentioned before that I chose forgiveness as my focus for this lent season.  I got the 40 days to Total Forgiveness by R.T. Kendall and as I began working through each day, I realized I was going to need to read the original book in order to dive deeper into his explanations and teaching than the devotional did.  

This is a sobering book, I think I have said that after every single R.T. Kendall book that I have read.  I would HIGHLY recommend this book to everyone!  There are so many things that I want to remember - I journaled my way through (and am still also working through the 40 days devotional) - but two things stand out far and above the rest:

1) Total forgiveness must go on and on and on and on.  I choose to forgive today.  I wake up tomorrow and renew that covenantal commitment to forgive again.  This means choosing not to think about, talk about it (he does differentiate between talking/ruminating about the offense vs. seeking counsel and/or reporting/testifying about crimes of abuse etc;) - letting it go and trusting God will do what God does best.  He is listening (Malachi 3:16), He knows the truth (Hebrews 4:13), and He is ruthlessly fair (2 Corinthians 5:10 and Romans 14:10).

2) Love is a choice.  It is an act of the will.  Keeping a record of wrongs is also an act of the will.  A choice NOT to love.

I struggle with forgiving others.  To me, it feels like they are getting away with something, that there is a possibility they will never truly know the hurt they caused.  R.T. says in his book that 90% of the forgiving we do in this lifetime - if the person was confronted with the fact that I was/ you were struggling to forgive them - 90% of the time they would say "What for?  I didn't do anything wrong".

I realized that forgiveness boils down to a trust and a confidence in God.  Can you - can I - trust Him to handle the situation?  In His timing.  *in this book R.T. retells the story of David being confronted by Nathan about Uriah and Bathsheba.  Do you know a FULL TWO YEARS went by?  God's timing is SO different than ours.  And in His way?  God knows the motivation behind the behaviors, while we can only guess at it.  I mean just think about yourself - do you ever do something and then think "WHY did I do/say/or think that?"  God doesn't have to guess - He knows every detail (the very hairs on your head are numbered!)

The only thing that bothered me about the book, (I have the kindle version), is that at the end of every chapter someone's review about the book is included.  The print is the same, so it can get a bit confusing.  I wish the publisher had left the reviews for the very end of the book instead of sticking them in each chapter.  (I am trying to think back, I think a review or two are also tucked into the middle of the chapters?  I honestly can't remember.)  Anyway, I did not like the lay-out of including reviews throughout the book.