What I Read in July

Eight Hundred Grapes by Laura Dave
(Fiction)

There are secrets you share, and secrets you hide….

Growing up on her family’s Sonoma vineyard, Georgia Ford learned some important secrets. The secret number of grapes it takes to make a bottle of wine: eight hundred. The secret ingredient in her mother’s lasagna: chocolate. The secret behind ending a fight: hold hands.

But just a week before her wedding, thirty-year-old Georgia discovers her beloved fiancé has been keeping a secret so explosive, it will change their lives forever.

Georgia does what she’s always done: she returns to the family vineyard, expecting the comfort of her long-married parents, and her brothers, and everything familiar. But it turns out her fiancé is not the only one who’s been keeping secrets….

This was my cruise read...and it was perfectly delicious.

Fun.  Short.  Interesting. 

Of course you have to expect those things when the book opens with a girl on a long road trip to her hometown bar...in her wedding dress...covered with junk food stains. 

I am looking forward to reading Laura's new book Hello Sunshine.

Rating: ★★★★

Simply Tuesday: Small Moment Living in a Fast-Moving World by Emily P. Freeman
(Non-Fiction/Christian Living)

Our obsession with bigger and faster is spinning us out of control. We move through the week breathless and bustling, just trying to keep up while longing to slow down. 

But real life happens in the small moments, the kind we find on Tuesday, the most ordinary day of the week. Tuesday carries moments we want to hold onto--as well as ones we'd rather leave behind. It holds secrets we can't see in a hurry--secrets not just for our schedules but for our souls. It offers us a simple bench on which to sit, observe, and share our stories.

For those being pulled under by the strong current of expectation, comparison, and hurry, relief is found more in our small moments than in our fast movements. In Simply Tuesday, Emily P. Freeman helps readers

· stop dreading small beginnings and embrace today's work
· find contentment in the now--even when the now is frustrating or discouraging
· replace competition with compassion
· learn to breathe in a breathless world

Jesus lived small moments well, slow moments fully, and all moments free. He lives with us still, on all our ordinary days, creating and redeeming the world both in us and through us, one small moment at a time. It's time to take back Tuesday, to release our obsession with building a life, and believe in the life Christ is building in us--every day.

I finally finished this one!

I love reading Emily's blogposts at Chatting at the Sky.  Her voice is one of rest and quiet and deep places that make me think.

Though I started this book last October and loved it, I was also teaching a Bible study and never finished the last third of the book.  As it turns out, I needed the last two sections of the book now, not last October.  Jim and I have been trying to slow down.  And though our schedule was unbelievably busy this spring/early summer due to various functions that we attended, we purposefully tried to keep some weekends empty and to spend more time doing the things that actually refresh us during the week. 

After I finished Marie Goff's book last month, I was tempted to move on to another Christian Living title waiting on my bookshelf.  I am so glad that I chose to finish reading this one first.  Part 4 was especially soothing to my busy soul.  The chapter on "Prayer & Questions: Making Friends with the Fog" -- hit the bull's-eye for where my heart has felt caught lately.  "Desire & Disappointment: Why Clarity is Overrated" hit the nail on the head that I was not looking for clarity in order to know where the Lord wanted to move me next but because I wanted to feel IN CONTROL of where we are going.  "Endings & Beginnings: Casting a Hopeful Vision for the Future" reminded me that the end can be as beautiful as the beginning.

Rating: ★★★
(It may have been a 4 star if I hadn't waited so long before I finished it.)

Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together by Nancy Demoss Wolgemuth
(Non-Fiction/Christian Living)

Woman to woman. Older to younger. Day to day. Life to life. This is God’s beautiful plan.

The Titus 2 model of older women living out the gospel alongside younger women is vital for us all to thrive. It is mutually strengthening, glorifies God, and makes His truth believable to our world.

Imagine older women investing themselves in the lives of younger women, blessing whole families and churches. Imagine young wives, moms, and singles gaining wisdom and encouragement from women who’ve been there and have found God’s ways to be true and good. Imagine all women—from older women to young girls—living out His transforming gospel together, growing the entire body of Christ to be more beautiful.

This is Christian community as God designed it. Read this book and take your relationships to new depths, that your life might find its fullest meaning as you adorn the gospel of Christ.

Since I was on a roll with finishing up Simply Tuesday, I refused to start a new book until I finished this one too.  I had read/listened to this all the way to Part 4...and somehow let the ending slip away.

This book is speaking as a sacred echo into my life right now.  The Lord has placed the many facets of discipleship and mentoring on my heart through various books and life circumstances since the middle of last year when I read both Audacious and Giddy Up, Eunice about Women's ministry and our relationships with the various women in our lives.

I'm praying through what this will look like in my life in the future.  I've taught Bible studies (off and on) for nearly two decades...but in the past year those dynamics have been changing to more of a small group prototype, and I have been loving it. 

If the Lord should bring me to mind, please pray that I would hear His voice and respond in immediate obedience.  I so want to be a faithful daughter, sister and mother...to my flesh and blood family and to my spiritual family.

(FYI: It's a little tough to get through the doctrine in the first part of this book, BUT it is essential to understanding the later parts that are both hands on and highly controversial in the world we live in.  This title will remain in my library for refreshers.)

Rating: ★★★★★

I also read a book for Book Club at the Barn this past month...but I have a separate post coming for that one.

Hope you have enjoyed some good books this summer...and maybe even finished up some that have been calling your name from that 'unfinished' shelf.