Posted November 3, 2016 in Faith, Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Fearless by
Sonja Corbitt Publisher: Ave Maria Press (2016 - November 4)
eARC (256 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2016 Synopsis
What are the sources of anxiety, stress, and fear you experience in your life? Popular Catholic speaker and author Sonja Corbitt believes that these often-paralyzing emotions are the direct result of our everyday battles against sin and temptation. In Fearless, she equips us with the spiritual tools we need to restore our spiritual well-being.
The term “spiritual warfare” conjures images of heavenly battles between archangels and demons, but Sonja Corbitt insists that there is a realm of spiritual warfare that is more domestic than it is cosmic—in the trenches of dirty bathrooms, fighting children, irritable spouses, the struggle to stop smoking or overeating, crazy schedules, and overwhelming workloads.
In her new book, the author of Unleashed takes us deep into scripture and the spiritual practices of the Church in order to show us how to resist the avalanche of temptations that can threaten us and lead to paralyzing anxiety and fear. Through her powerful personal story and teaching, Corbitt shows us how to put on the armor of Christ and learn to live fearlessly, love with abandon, and embrace life with confidence.
In Unleashed, Corbitt identified the spiritual wounds that reveal themselves through the harmful patterns and relationships in our lives.
In Fearless, she offers scriptural tools that help us understand and conquer the demons of sin, Satan, self, and sloth. She helps us recognize the methods the devil uses to keep us enslaved and she immerses us in a profound contemplation of love, which is the only possible weapon against the spirit of fear.
In this book you will come to understand
the spiritual roots of fear, depression, and anxiety;
ways to “abide” in Christ and find freedom from fear;
signs of negative spiritual suggestion and influence in your daily life;
the deep, personal lies we believe that keep us slaves to fear;
specific truths about the limitations of Satan’s power and character;
the “pieces” of spiritual armor that protect us from fear; and
how to rest fully in God’s goodness and love.
Each chapter contains features that will make it a popular resource for personal and group study: review notes, an invitation to prayer, and a series of probing questions (called God Prompts) that encourage you to explore the content in a deeply personal way.
Fearless offers encouragement to those who are anxious or fearful about the future and who seek a spiritual solution.
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Tagged as 4 star, Read 2016
Posted October 3, 2016 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Prayer in the Catholic Tradition by
Robert Wicks Publisher: Franciscan Media (2016 - October 7)
eARC (640 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2016 Synopsis
Within the Catholic tradition, there are many ways to pray. Yet, while there are smaller books, books on praying with saints and contemporary figures, volumes assembling groups of individual prayers, or prayer within one particular strand of Catholic spirituality, there is no truly comprehensive work available on how to learn, practice, and teach ways of prayer in the broad Roman Catholic tradition. This handbook breaks new ground, offering forty important voices on forty essential topics for a comprehensive look at the learning, practice, and teaching of all that it means to pray in the Catholic tradition. Topics include:
• Types of spirituality (including Carmelite, Franciscan, Ignatian, Dominican and other major schools) and how they frame prayer and prayerfulness
• Liturgical prayer
• New Testament scriptural approaches to prayer
• Praying with the Psalms
• Contemplation
• Liturgy of the Hours
• Conversational prayer
• Resistances to prayer
• Journaling as prayer
• Enhancing a spirit of prayerfulness
• Praying in Ordinary Time
• Praying through grief, suffering, loss and pain
• Dealing with distractions in prayer
• The essentials of Catholic prayer; and much more.
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Tagged as 4 star, Read 2016
Posted September 29, 2016 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Christmas in Paris by
Anita Hughes Publisher: St Martin's Griffin (2016 - October 4)
eARC (288 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2016 Synopsis
Hughes will fill your heart with the sights, sounds, and flavors of new love, glamorous fashion, and decadent holiday cuisine.
Isabel Lawson is standing on the balcony of her suite at the Hotel Crillon as she gazes at the twinkling lights of the Champs Elysee and wonders if she’s made a terrible mistake. She was supposed to be visiting the Christmas tree in the Place de la Concorde, and eating escargots and macaroons with her new husband on their honeymoon. But a week before the wedding, she called it off. Isabel is an ambitious Philadelphia finance woman, and Neil suddenly decided to take over his grandparents’ farm. Isabel wasn’t ready to trade her briefcase for a pair of rubber boots and a saddle.
When Neil suggested she use their honeymoon tickets for herself, she thought it would give her a chance to clear her head. That is until she locks herself out on the balcony in the middle of winter. Thankfully her neighbor Alec, a French children’s illustrator, comes to her rescue. He too is nursing a broken heart at the Crillon for the holidays. With a new friend by her side, Isabel is determined to use her time in the city of lights wisely. After a chance encounter with a fortune teller and a close call with a taxi, she starts to question everything she thought was important.
Christmas in Paris is a moving and heartwarming story about love, trust, and self-discovery. Set during the most magical week of the year, the glorious foods and fashions of the most romantic city in the world are sure to take your breath away.
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Tagged as 4 star, Read 2016
Posted September 19, 2016 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments
Riley Unlikely by
Riley Banks-Snyder Publisher: Zondervan (2016 - September 22)
eARC (176 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2016 Synopsis
Riley Unlikely is the inspiring story of Riley Banks, who first traveled to Kenya at age 13, and has been back every year since bringing backpacks of school supplies and hygiene kits for young girls, developing relationships and friendships, and is currently, as a young millennial, raising money to build a complete learning complex in Kibwezi, Kenya for those who have nothing.
At age sixteen Riley learned that, because of a rare medical condition, she would never be able to have her own children. Devastating news to most young women, especially those who love children and have always dreamed of having their own family. But Riley’s response was: Kenya has given me a thousand children.
Riley’s stories of her trips to Kenya, her struggles to figure out how to best serve and care for these people she has fallen in love with, and her own unexpected health issues are funny, compelling and gripping. Readers will find that God writes surprising stories in the lives of those who follow Him. Hard to put down, Riley Unlikely will inspire you to pursue your dreams and make a difference in your own world—and around the world.
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Tagged as 5 star, Read 2016, World Youth Day
Posted August 25, 2016 in Faith, Reading, Review / 2 Comments
Castles in the Clouds by
Myra Johnson Series: Flowers of Eden #2 Publisher: Franciscan Media (2016 - Aug. 26)
eARC (304 pages)
Via: NetGalley Rating: Reading Challenges: Read 2016 Synopsis
The first book in the Flowers of Eden series introduced readers to Bryony Linwood, an orphan trying desperately to provide for her sisters in the shadow of the Great Depression. In Castles in the Clouds, we meet one of those sisters—Larkspur Linwood, a young woman who has a passion for teaching but yearns for something more than life as a small-town Arkansas schoolmarm.
Young and impressionable, Lark mistakes a college professor’s interest for romantic love. When he offers her the chance to join his efforts to start a school in Kenya, she pictures herself bringing the light of knowledge to hundreds of African children eager to learn. But the menial tasks she’s assigned at the school aren’t so different from life on the farm where she grew up. Miserable and deflated, with her fragile heart broken, she gives up and returns home.
Enter Professor Anson Schafer, whom she met briefly in Kenya. Partially blinded from an eye infection he contracted there, Professor Schafer cannot return to Africa. He has come to Lark’s school to recruit teachers like her for a more modest venture—the founding of schools and relief efforts here in the U.S. for those struggling through the Depression.
Still stinging from her experience in Kenya, Lark is reluctant to risk leaving her familiar surroundings, but she knows how great the need has become, and—although this isn’t the exciting life she’d envisioned—she finally agrees. As they work side by side, Lark begins to realize that the deepest satisfaction comes not so much from what you do, or where you do it, but from the attitude of your heart.
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Tagged as 5 star, Read 2016
