LIFE

LIFE, a new devotional recently released by Lisa Harper caught my eye, with its bright pink cover and its tag line: 

An Obsessively Grateful, Undone by Jesus, Genuinely Happy, and Not Faking it Through the Hard Stuff Kind of Devotional

Yet, it is not exactly what I was expecting in a devotional. It's one that relies more on the author's stories, experiences, and anecdotes rather than scripture. And it goes fairly off base in translations (to one I'd never heard of or used) to find the word happy in the Bible. 

I struggle with reading it because off the bat, as Christians, we aren't called to being "happy" but we are called to JOY. Happy relies on emotions and circumstances but joy relies on God and therefore it isn't turbulent or fickle. And yet Harper takes us to this place of trying to make happy the goal justifying it by using that there are words in scripture that are in the "happy" family.

I'm sure there are some people who would love this devotional because of the seeming transparency but yet I do not see the transformation in it nor the focus on Jesus rather than self.

FYI: I received this devotional from the publisher in exchange for my honest opinion.

Comparison Girl

So a new book is hitting the shelves and it’s definitely one for self reflection and allowing God to grow us in the ways that may be uncomfortable and definitely humbling but absolutely necessary for our good and God’s glory.

Comparison Girl is a book for the girl who is looking to do something different so she gets different results in life.

It’s always easy to compare ourselves with others even if we don’t know them. It’s even worse when you compare yourself to perfection and Shannon shares her first hand experience on how the attempt at perfection (whether for yourself or for appearances) is just as big an issue as comparing yourself to the lady you follow on Instagram or the lady on Pinterest whose life you never really see but just the carefully curated highlight reel. 

This one that goes in the arsenal for when life gets to the point that I’m comparing or doing ministry for likes or I’m posting simply for likes rather than to simply share something good and beautiful and educating.

So here’s the fun part: a giveaway! 

Here’s the link:  

http://www.audrajennings.com/2020/05/how-do-you-measure-up-win-copy-of.html

Women compare constantly—on social media, in their neighborhood, at church, even in the school drop-off lane. They glance sideways and ask themselves, "How do I measure up?" All this assessment feels like a natural way of finding a place in the world. But it pulls them into feelings of inferiority or superiority, guiding them into a trap of antagonism by the enemy. Satan would like women to strive to measure up, constantly adding to a tally sheet that can't ever be balanced. The way of Jesus is completely upside down from that philosophy. Instead, he says the last shall be first--and the greatest are those who empty themselves, lay down their lives, and serve each other.   Through conversations Jesus had and parables he shared, Shannon Popkin has created a seven-week Bible study to address this tendency to compare and judge ourselves and others. Each chapter is divided into lessons, allowing women on a time budget to read a Bible passage, engage in a complete train of thought related to the topic, and then make the content personal--all in one sitting. And the informal teaching tone will make women feel like they're meeting with a trusted friend. Suited for both individual and group study, Comparison Girl will guide women to leave their measure-up ways behind, connect with those around them, and break free from the shackles of comparison!

New Interior Design Review: Restoration House

So this is the first of its kind here on Reviews with Kris. It is a book on interior design and it is beautifully written with gorgeous photographs of the author's home. She speaks of restoring home and restoring our hearts. 

This book yall! It is so refreshing and beautiful and hardback (my fave). 

This book is the story of a woman (Kennesha Buycks) who realizes that God met her while she was restoring furniture. And He used this newfound hobby of hers to pour into her and transform her from someone who was more superficial and discontent to someone who could see the beauty below the surface and who is now content with her portion in life. 

There is so much in this book that it goes beyond coffee table book to a handy resource. I'll share some excerpts (photos) of the practical tips and guides that the author shares with us; the deep and meaningful prayers she shares at the end of each chapter; the hospitality hacks spread throughout. There is even a guide on creating your own cheese board for entertaining (I included a photo of the shopping list). She goes to great lengths to ensure that this doesn't become a book that just sits on a table never to be used. There's so much to glean throughout the book and heart nuggets to draw us closer to God.

Cheeseboard shopping list.

 I greatly appreciated the reflection and prayer sections at the end of each chapter because it brings God into our homes and into our designs and gives Him glory through it all. 

Prayer and Reflection...this one from chapter 6.

 Hospitality tips

Seasons Greetings: ways to spruce up our homes during every season.

Recipe for a natural bug repellent. Like seriously, don't we ALL need this once the weather gets warm?

This book gets 5 stars from me and is DEFINITELY worth adding to your library! You can head over to Amazon to get your copy here.

{FYI: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for my HONEST review. In other words, I genuinely LOVE this book and my payment is the book itself.}

A Standard of Grace

A Standard of Grace is the third book by Emily Ley. And Omgosh I wish I'd known about her before. After getting my hands on this guided journal, I am itching to read her other books, Grace, Not Perfection and A Simplified Life. 

So starting on the outside, it is a beautiful and bright hardback. The front lettering is embossed in gold. Also, there are 3, yes THREE, colorful (navy, yellow, and pink) ribbon bookmarks. Yep, excited! This journal is smaller than the average notebook yet larger than the average journal (9x6.6). 

Now for the inside, this is the GOOD paper. I mean you can use gel pens or even a highlighter without worry of it bleeding through. The guided journal is organized weekly instead of daily, with about 2 journaling prompts per week. It's enough to really get into but not so much that it takes us too much time. So it is PERFECT for the busy mama (like myself) or even the busy gal on the go who wants to stop to smell the roses but still has a full plate. There are also loads of beautiful photography found in the book.

Back cover...

The purpose of this guided journal is to get us to slow down to create the life we want and will be proud of. Not a life of perfection but one full of grace and mercy. One that has room for margin, which means less stress and frustration when disruptions to our day come. She also encourages us to dream in our journaling. And there are plenty of nuggets of inspiration and motivating quotes sprinkled throughout the journal. 

I'd definitely recommend, especially for those who could use help in staying on track in journaling. *hand raised*

(FYI: I received this journal from the publisher in exchange for my HONEST opinion.)

The Life-Giving Home

Here we come to the first book in the Lifegiving trilogy yet I read it last. This one is a collaboration between Sally and her daughter Sarah, whereas the second was all Sally and the third book was a collaboration between Sally and her husband Clay. You can read about them here and here. This one is about creating a home that is a safe haven for the entire family. What I truly love is that Sally and Sarah think about the ENTIRE year, not just the holiday season which is usually what most books focus on. 

As you can see from the above table of contents there's a chapter for each month of the year (and it also tells you who wrote each chapter). I also like that Sally included Sarah in writing this book because you gain the perspectives of parent shaping the home and the child who benefits from this shaping. 

There's also a planner to go with this book that helps you implement some of the ideas and shape your home to be lifegiving for your family. 

I recommend this book for every family. I think as moms we have to be intentional in cultivating our home to be a safe haven. We have to be intentional in bringing a warmth to our homes all year round so that our families and even their friends WANT to be in our homes.

{FYI: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for my HONEST opinion.}

What if Marriage was intended to be sacred?

How often do we go into marriage with the understanding of being made happy by the marriage and our spouse? How often do we hear people end marriages because they were "unhappy?"

Now what if you were to learn that God did not design our marriage with our happiness as its central focus? What if our marriage is designed to make us holy before Him? What if marriage was not designed for our happiness but to completely glorify God?

That is what Gary Thomas is answering for us and opening our eyes to see in his book Sacred Marriage.

When I got married and throughout a great portion of marriage and even at times now, I get angry because of the times when we are unhappy and it is chaotic. I am still learning that my marriage was not designed for me to be happy. Yes happiness can be a by product of marriage. But that is not the original design for marriage. 

This book is filled with examples of couples who had been going about marriage (and in some cases divorce) the wrong way. They'd been consumed with themselves and what made them happy. Yet they either forgot or were completely unaware of the fact that happiness is fleeting and that is not marriage's purpose. That is not our spouses purpose. We cannot burden our spouses with the task of making us happy all the time. Our joy must come from the Lord and when that happens we become content to let marriage be what God designed it to be.

A really good example of this is Hosea in the bible. Hosea was instructed to marry a harlot (a prostitute) who would give birth to children that may not have even been Hosea's children. Yet God had a purpose in this. He wanted to use marriage, specifically Hosea's marriage, to demonstrate His purpose for marriage. God wanted to show that there needs to be constant forgiveness and not human forgiveness but Godly forgiveness. God wanted to show His relationship with the people and how before we get married to our earthly spouses we have a heavenly spouse. And in our submission & obedience & loving to our earthly spouse, we are essentially doing that unto our heavenly spouse. The same goes for the message Paul gives us in Ephesians 5.

Gary Thomas seeks to give this knowledge to the believer. To live out marriage the way God intended for it to be. To stop being prideful and selfish in our marriages. To allow God to use our marriages to make us holy before Him.

 As a wife one of the things my husband is charged to do is to "that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word,  that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish." (Eph. 5:26-27 NKJV) And in response my job is to submit and allow him to do so. No matter how hard that may be or how hard my flesh wants to fight. (And trust me my flesh has been and is fighting.)

That is what I have been learning from this book.

FYI: I received this book as a member of BooklookBloggers for free in exchange for my honest opinion. 

What is YOUR Anything?

Jennie Allen asks us, what is our Anything?

The prayer that sets us apart for Jesus. 

What are you willing to do, to give up, in order to do what God has called you to do?

That my friends is your Anything.

My Anything, is laying my entire life on the altar.

 I put my children, my marriage, my blog, my EVERYTHING on the altar and told God ANYTHING, EVERYTHING, whatever HE wanted.

Anything is a prayer of Surrender. We sing the song (at least I have) yet we don't always literally surrender all to Jesus. We don't always let Him wreck our lives to build up the life He has in mind for us. The book is broken down into three sections. What keeps us from Anything (the comforts and fears in life). Praying Anything, it's a sincere prayer that will change your life forever. Living Anything, after you pray anything and surrender all, you now have to LIVE it. You have live with God at the steering wheel. You have to defer to whatever God tells you to do. And this is where we slack. We pray anything but we don't live anything. I am guilty of this. I have prayed Anything but I have a hard time living Anything. Jennie helps to make sense of this so that we can effectively pray anything and live anything. 

It starts with Yes, Lord. I surrender all Lord. And a heart to obey.

 Gracefully, Joyfully, Gratefully.

This copy of Anything is the newly released and updated version. Jennie Allen shares what her Anything looks like now since the initial release of Anything.

It has a bible study in the back, the same one that just started over at Faith Gateway. 

If you are willing to pray Anything and live Anything. Join the study here.

{P.S. You know I do reviews in exchange for being able to read these books before anyone else does. However you should also know this is my personal views}

Where is God?

In life we all experience the ups, the downs, the hardships, the happiness. And in it all is God, as the Creator of all things, He is always somehow connected to what we experience.

Many times we see the good times and we scream how blessed we are. Yet what happens when we experience the bad? Do we say we are cursed, do we blame God for our misfortune, or do we blame the devil? Many times God will allow the bad to happen so He can get the glory for what happens next. 

The best example of God allowing the bad to happen so He can get the glory in the great happening next is the story of Joesph in Genesis. I chose Joesph's story because there was human free will involved in his story. His brothers chose to sell him into slavery. His father chose to display favoritism between his sons. Yet in that same manner, Joesph chose to do good and have honorable actions at all times.

The bad is that Joesph came from a wealthy family, yet the same brother who should have had his back were the same ones who sold him into hardship. 

Have you dealt with something similar? Where people who should have your back didn't? 

Guess what its OKAY. 

Because God will use what hurts you most, to give Him the most glory. 

You have to let Him have control of your situation, you have to lay everything that you go through, good or bad, at the altar. You have to leave yourself on the cross so that God gets the glory.

God took Joesph from being a slave in Egypt to being the second most powerful man in Egypt, all for HIS glory. It shows us that regardless to what happens, what God says will be, will be. And in everything, God will turn it around for His glory.

God is in everything that happens. Many times the bad happens so the better can happen. Sometimes God will allow something to happen just so that we can know to appreciate what comes next. Joesph was giving the prophetic dreams on what the outcome would be but he didn't know HOW it would come to pass. We know we have the victory, but we still have to walk the path to get there. So since we already know the outcome, we can walk the path with our eyes firmly fixed on Christ.

Women Living Well

Ever have that one blog you enjoy? Well I happen to enjoy Women Living Well and Good Morning Girls, the founder of both blogs, Courtney Joesph has written a BOOK! And it launched YESTERDAY!!!! You can order it on Thomas Nelson website or find it at your favorite bookstore!

 

The book is entitled Women Living Well and its about just THAT. It's geared towards women who want to live, who may need direction in different areas in their lives. I personally have enjoyed this book as a member of the book launch team. 

One of the things that I have gleaned from reading this book has been that it is more than important to take time for self because if I burn out how can I be of help to my husband. Another thing that I have gleaned is how important it is to respect my husband but also the ways that disrespect comes across. I also love that Courtney addresses motherhood in such a way that it does not make mothers feel guilty for their own specific way in raising their children but she gently encourages us to manage our homes without becoming an iron fist and to customize our homes to our specific family members. What may work for my home may not work for the next person. For example, it works best for my family that I don't work although to help out with our current savings plan I do work part-time and only on days that my husband does not work because our children are fully homeschooled.

I like that much of what Courtney blogs about is in her book. Its not as if she deviated from her fan base and what we regularly read on her blog. A great extra that is in Women Living Well is the Completing Him Marriage Challenge, it is a 2 week challenge (5 days per week). It's goal is to help us wives gain a better relationship with our husbands.
The book is sectioned off into four different parts (Your walk with the King, Your marriage, Your parenting, and Your Homemaking) with each section having about 3 chapters within it. I don't really have a favorite portion of the book as each section has very applicable information and I guess its even more so applicable because my home life is set up very similar as Courtney does not work outside of the home, I've only done it for the last 3 months and I will soon stop working outside of the home. I have also enjoyed the companion study guide that Courtney created to go along with the book as the questions reenforces what I've read.

I recommend this book to EVERY wife. It should be apart of your arsenal of books that help you as a wife, mom, and woman to personally grow.

I personally do not have a giveaway going HOWEVER here are a list of blogs who does:
http://www.irisparr.com/2013/09/women-living-well-review-and-giveaway.html 
http://www.sara.rrusselljr.com/women-living-well-a-review-and-a-giveaway 
http://www.jenifermetzger.org/2013/10/women-living-well-giveaway.html 
http://cacinance.blogspot.com/2013/10/giveaway-part-1-your-walk-with-king.html 
http://beechembrightspots.blogspot.com/2013/10/women-living-well-giveaway.html 
http://www.destinationproverbs22six.blogspot.com/2013/10/women-living-well-review-and-giveaway.html 
 

{FYI: I received this book for being a member of the Women Living Well Book Launch Team and as a member of the Booksneeze prgram through Thomas Nelson (the publisher)!}

Happiness

So much happiness is waiting to be tapped into. Every second of the day is a chance to obtain that happiness, a chance to put a smileon your face that may put a smile on someone else's face. Did you know that some of the most simple things can generate happiness of the highest degree? For me I have so much excess happiness in my life because I try to stop to enjoy the roses. I understand that some people are career focused and that's GREAT. However what happens when all you have in life is your career but no one to share in the joy of your achievements or you've past up some great opportunities to enjoy life? Don't miss out on some of life's simple pleasures. Parks are a simple pleasure, Beaches are a simple pleasure. Friends are one of life's richest pleasures. Children are one of life's most beautiful and treasured pleasures. Some people don't understand why people {most} with children are thankful for their children. Life may seem a bit harder with children... However there's a certain quality to life that children bring, an attained level of smiles & laughs that you experience with them. The smile of a child is so beautiful and pure. How can you see a child that is happy and healthy and not be happy yourself?

Happiness can come from things that you do. For me I enjoy writing and reading. They bring a different type of joy to my life because I enjoy knowledge. I like to learn to new things and stay abreast of new technology. Thats joy for me. However I know how to take some time out to go to the park and enjoy the scenery.

Then there are people who genuinely enjoy their work. I know people who go to work faithfully everyday because they enjoy their job. And those are the BEST jobs to have. When you can go to work and actually enjoy what it is that you do...that's success.

You can only obtain happiness from within.
To be passionate about the job you do is SUCCESS.

No matter how much you may make....you are successful because you are happy.