A Marriage Carol

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing A Marriage Carol Moody Publishers (September 1, 2011) by Chris Fabry and Gary Chapman



ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

CHRIS FABRY is a graduate of W. Page Pitt School of Journalism at Marshall University and Moody bible Institute's Advanced Studies Program. Chris can be heard daily on Love Worth Finding, featuring the teaching of the late Dr. Adrian Rogers. He received the 2008 "Talk Personality of the Year" Award from the National Religious Broadcasters. He has published more than 60 books since 1995, many of them fiction for younger readers. Chris collaborated with Jerry B. Jenkins and Dr. Tim LaHaye on the children's series Left Behind: The Kids. His two novels for adults, Dogwood and June Bug, are published by Tyndale House Publishers. Chris is married to his wife Andrea and they have five daughters and four sons.

GARY CHAPMAN is the author of the bestselling Five Love Languages series and the director of Marriage and Family Life Consultants, Inc. Gary travels the world presenting seminars, and his radio program airs on more than 400 stations.





ABOUT THE BOOK

On Christmas Eve twenty years earlier, Marlee and Jacob were married in a snowstorm.   This Christmas Eve, they are ready to quit, divorce is imminent. Their relationship is as icy as the road they’re traveling and as blocked with troubles as the piling snow. They take a shortcut to get to the lawyer’s office, on a slippery, no-fault path. She thinks they need to stay on the main road. He disagrees. They fight. Story of their lives and they slam into a bank of snow , spinning, drifting, falling, out of control. Just like their lives. Reluctantly, freezing cold, hungry, scared, she trudges up the hill. Paul is nowhere to be found. Her ears frozen, fingers and hands red, she comes to a house on the hillside, built like a Bed and Breakfast, a green wreath on the red door and the door-knocker is in the shape of a wedding ring.



The red door opens and the first thing she notices is the fire in the room, blazing hot, a warm, inviting, friendly place and the voice of an old man welcomes her in. There are three golden pots on the hearth, shining, glimmering things. The old man claims that they are used to restore marriages. She laughs—and begins a journey through her past, present, and future that will test how she views her lifelong love. There are two futures available. Which will she choose?



If you would like to read the first chapter excerpt of A Marriage Carol, go HERE.

I haven't received my copy yet, so I will post my review after I've read it!

The House of Hope

I apologize for my long absence from blogging. My life has changed so much in the last six months. I started a new pain management program with fentanyl patches. In many ways it's given me my life back. I'm far more active than I've been in the last seven years. I've been able to take some trips that would never have been possible before, and I am so grateful for that. The down side is that every couple of weeks, my pain catches up with the level of the patch, and the doctor has to bump up my dosage. It seems like I have a few good days and a lot of bad days. Recently the doctor jumped up my dosage considerably in hopes that it would give me some longer lasting relief. Instead it made me very ill and unable to function. So now I'm on motion sickness pills as well as the patches.

Another problem with the patches is that at night, for some reason, they make me itch. I wake up in the middle of the night scratching all over. When I itch, I don't sleep. Three nights in the last week, I didn't sleep at all. So while the patches have been a blessing in many ways, there's a high cost to it. I'm not blogging as often because I'm not reading as much as I used to, which is good because I'm living my life instead of spending it always in bed. But I'm also not blogging because when I'm stuck in bed now, I don't even feel up to blogging.

So I apologize for the long gaps between posts. Blogging has been my outlet for over six years, and while I enjoy having more of a life, I also miss posting. Hopefully I can still tell you about some of the fantastic books that I get to read, so stick around awhile, and don't give up on my yet!

The House of Hope by Elisabeth Gifford is a moving story of one couple's decision to make a difference for the Lord. Robin and Joyce Hill were finishing their time living in Beijing, China and getting ready to move for his job when Joyce was struck with the conviction from God that they were to open a home for orphans who were too sick to be adopted and get them the care they need. A visit to an orphanage four years earlier had struck the couple's heart, but they were unsure how to help at first, but when Joyce came up with the idea for The House of Hope, Robin was quickly on board. They began by taking in one little girl into their dining room, and grew over ten years to care for over 1000 children, offering many of them the opportunity to find a "forever family" by getting them the operations they need to not just survive, but to really live. This is the story of the Hill's quest to save as many children as they can by treating each child as if he/she were their own. Gifford does a terrific job of portraying the loving and compassionate nature of the Hills by telling the story of individual children who would have died without their care. The stories are joyful, poignant, and thought provoking as readers will be compelled to consider how God could be calling them to act. Robin and Joyce Hill are my heroes, showing these children the face of God through incredible acts of sacrifice and love.


Thank you to LitFuse Publicity for providing me with a copy of this book for review! You can check out the Hill's website here. 

The Christmas Shoppe

I finished reading the book of Job last night. I think it's my seventh time through, and while it's not an easy book to read, there is always something new for me to learn. This time is was a lesson about something I've never really associated with Job: forgiveness. Let me give you a little history to catch you up if you aren't already familiar with his story.

Job was a true man of God, upright and righteous and God had blessed him greatly for his faith. Satan told God that the only reason that Job loved God was because God had only allowed good to happen to him. God gave Satan permission to attack Job's life. In one day, all of his flocks were destroyed and all his children killed. Job gave praise to God (proving his righteousness and faith), through ashes over himself and grieved. When he didn't deny God, Satan complained again that he hadn't been allowed to touch Job personally. So God again gave permission, and Satan gave Job a terrible case of boils and harangued his sleep with nightmares. Job was truly miserable, so three of his friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar came to mourn with him. For seven days they sat silent with him as he mourned his losses.

Then Job began a series of speeches crying out about the unfairness of his misery, asking God for a trial, to give him some reason for all of his losses. Each of his friends displayed their complete unworthiness of that title by attacking Job's faith and righteousness. Each man accused Job of hidden sins that God was punishing and exposing. Some of the attacks were awful, listing specific and horrific deeds that Job was completely innocent of. After each of their speeches, Job would defend himself and again beg the opportunity to talk to God about the reasons for the loss.

Finally after 37 chapters of exchanges between the men, including some by a Johnny-come-lately, named Elihu, who also threw in some attacks on Job, God appears and puts them all to shame. God asks some unanswerable questions of Job (and the men) proving His righteousness and the impossibility of understanding all that He does. Then He turns on the three friends (ignoring Elihu) and informs them that Job will have to pray for them to be forgiven for their sins and orders them to bring some animals for sacrifice.

Then comes a line I never really paid attention to before last night: When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before! Job 42:10. Yes, God restored all of Job's fortunes to him, including giving him the same amount of children as had died, but only after Job forgave his friends! 


What a powerful and important point! God never did answer Job's questions, so he never knew why God allowed him to suffer as he did. And at the end of God's speech, Job asks for forgiveness himself and states that he will sit in his ashes and repent of his insolence. God does not tell Job "If you forgive your friends, I will restore your fortunes." He simply told Job to pray for his friends and that He would accept those prayers in Job's name. Imagine Job's joy and surprise when after he forgave his friends (which probably isn't an appropriate term after how they treated him, but the Bible uses it, so I'll use it as well), God blessed him beyond reckoning!


It makes me wonder if there are people that I have refused to forgive and have therefore blocked off God's blessings in my life. Obviously there is a three step process here that God wants us to see: ask for forgiveness for self, forgive others and ask God to forgive them as well, and receive His blessings. I've asked God to show me any places in my life where I may be holding on to unforgiveness. Consider your own heart today to see if maybe you should do the same.

The Christmas Shoppe by Melody Carlson is a sweet holiday novella with a message of hope for readers. Susanna Elton is still settling into her job as city manager of Parrish Springs when newcomer Matilda Honeycutt moves to town and purchases a building, intending to open a new store. As Matilda begins to ready the store for opening, the whole town is thrown into controversy. A councilman is angry that she outbid him on the building and stirs up trouble against her, but even that doesn't create the trouble that The Christmas Shoppe's opening does. Instead of being filled with Christmas decor or gifts, the shelves are filled with broken  and dirty mismatched merchandise. Newspaperman Tommy Thompson hasn't celebrated Christmas in several years, since his heart was broken, and he's become disillusioned with small town living, especially once the rumors start to fly about The Christmas Shoppe, but when he is interested when Matilda refuses to let him interview her. He's even more intrigued when he begins witnessing strange things happening inside the store, and Matilda's fiercest enemies suddenly become her strongest allies. What is it about this little store that could completely change a town? Carlson's writing is, as always, enjoyable and keeps readers hooked with strong characters and a fascinating concept. The book's message will have readers considering their own hearts and just what gift they need most this Christmas. 


Thank you to Revell Books for providing me with a copy of this book for review. Available November 2011 from Revell, a division of the Baker Publishing Group at your favorite bookseller.

The Infernals

 I love Halloween, mostly for all the candy Mia brings home (especially the grape Nerds), but also for the excitement that fills the air. Mia had originally wanted to be Smurfette, but Doogie talked her into being something scary. She decided to be a vampire, and I think she was a pretty good one! The candy she brought home overflows my largest mixing bowl! I think all four of us are going to be in sugar highs for the next week or so until it's all gone.

The Infernals by John Connolly is the sequel to The Gates about young Samuel Johnson's battle against the demonic forces of Hell, with his best friend daschund, Boswell. In the previous book Ba'al took the form of Mrs. Abernathy and attempted to use the power of the Super-Collider to open a gateway to Hell and allow Satan to enter the world. Samuel and his demon friend, Nurd, were able to thwart her plans, so now she is on a mission to both destroy them and regain her status with Satan himself, aka The Great Malevolence. My synopsis does little to tell you the sheer brilliance of this book, and I don't use that word lightly. By brilliant I mean both wonderfully shiny as well as incredibly smart. Connolly's writing is whip fast, bouncing from the story to digressions on history, physics, and philosophy, all while thoroughly entertaining the reader. While reading I had to read portions aloud to both my son and husband because this is a book so good you must share it. Keeping it to yourself would be an act of the greatest selfishness. Rarely do I find a book this compelling and entertaining.  The Infernals is laugh out loud funny, terrifically smart, and hands down, one of the best books I've read this year.

Thank you to Atria Books for providing me with a copy of this book for review!