The Choice

The year is 1974.  Sandy Lincoln has it all.  She is a popular cheerleader, has a wonderful family, and is dating a star athlete from her school.  When Sandy discovers she is pregnant, she must choose the road to travel.  Looking at all the options--abortion, keeping the baby, or adoption--she is pulled in different directions because the ones she loves have differing opinions.  Unwilling to abort, Sandy moves in with her spinster eccentric aunt in Atlanta, enrolls in a school for troubled teens, and sets out on the task to choose her child's parents.  A chance meeting with an odd old lady in a convenience store makes doing the right thing even more unclear than ever.  What if this woman's prophesy becomes reality?

Thirty-four years later, Sandy is teaching at the same place she attended High School.  When another pregnant unwed teen seeks her out for help, Sandy is once again faced with making choices that could change so many lives.

I thoroughly enjoyed Robert Whitlow's latest,  The Choice.  I think Mr. Whitlow dealt with the issue of abortion in a moving way and I didn't find the pro-life stance taken with the text preachy at all.  It is clear in the book that regardless of the choice, it will be something you live with the rest of your life. 

The book is broken into two parts, the first of which is Sandy's story as a pregnant, unwed teen.  The second half of the book finds Sandy as an adult dealing with the decision she made thirty something years ago and using her experiences to help another teen regardless of the sacrifices she must make.  I did find the introduction of new characters at the beginning of the second half a bit challenging to keep straight for a few pages but it was nothing that kept me from enjoying the storyline. The characters are believable, if predictable. I can't imagine anyone not being able to relate to them. 

 The book also includes discussion questions perfect for a book club setting.

I did receive this book free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.  I was in no way obligated to leave a positive review.

Second chances

Macy Dillon grew up going to the beach with her family to the North Carolina seaside home, Time in a Bottle.  Such fond memories she has competing with her brother to find the best seashell, sitting atop her father's shoulders, and leaving special drawings for an unidentified little boy in the home's guestbook. For the years that followed, each year Macy would return to the beach to find her friend had left her a drawing and she, in turn, would leave him another.  She always hoped they would have an opportunity to meet.  All that came to a close ten years ago when her father died.  Since then, her mother has maintained a "shrine" in their home, celebrated her father's birthday, and refused to move on.  Macy has also given birth to Emma and been abandoned by Emma's father.  In order to support her little family, she works at a local grocery store which has become her artistic outlet as she paints signs and the store windows.

When her mother suggests a two week vacation to Time in a Bottle, Macy can't help but look forward to it.  Her mother begins to take some of the photos down in the home and Macy thinks perhaps they might be able to deal with their ten year old grief and  live outside the shadow of her father's ghost. 

Macy longs to find the little boy who left drawings for her all those years.  When her family vacations at  Sunset Beach, she finds not one but three now grown men that may have been the one who left the drawings.  Throughout the story, Macy deals with grief, learns to open her heart, and renews the faith she left behind after her father's death.

The Guest Book by Marybeth Whalen is the first I have read by her.  I found it quite entertaining, an easy light  recommended summer read, especially if you happen to have a beach vacation planned.  I think you will be surprised at the ending even if Macy doesn't go down the path you think she should.

I did receive this book free from Zondervan publishing in exchange for an honest review.  I was in no way obligated leave a positive review.

The widow of Saunders Creek

Corrie Saunders had grown up having all the world could offer and married the man of her dreams, Jerrod Saunders. She always dreamed of becoming an artist but laid that dream aside to marry. Jerrod was always a bit impulsive and proved he was such the way he died in Iraq, hailed as a hero. For months after Jerrod's death, Corrie lives with her mother in Dallas then decides to move to Missouri to the old home place Jerrod inherited from his grandmother. Jerrod's cousin, Eli, is hired to fix up the old place. When Corrie arrives, she experiences some strange things around the house. The small town is deep into mystic, including Jerrod's aging aunt who assures Corrie that Jerrod hasn't truly left her. Eli, a strong believer in Christ, realizes that in order to save Corrie from falling into trap of believing in such thing, the battle for the Truth has just begun. If I need to sum up my initial thoughts on this book, I might have to say "strange". While I am fully aware that spiritual warfare exists and that mountain people may have some odd ways of thinking, I must say that I have never met anyone like Jerrod's extended family and people of Saunders Creek believing in ghosts and haunted houses. Even Eli, who is the strongest Christian in the book says in his mind that there is no evidence from the Bible or from reality.....Isn't the Bible and reality the same thing? Since those wonderings occur on page 15, it left me wondering about the theology of the whole story. Overall, I did enjoy watching the friendship develop between Corrie and Eli but all the supernatural thinking sort of got in my way. This probably won't be a title I will add to our church library. I did receive this advanced copy free from the publisher, Waterbrook Press.

Feeling like an outsider

Author Ken Gire, like all of us at times throughout our lives, has spent much of his life feeling like an outsider. Why? He isn't quite certain but he did grab my attention when he mentioned that he thought part of the issue might be that he was a redhead and wore glasses. For those of you who are not a redhead, that blessing isn't perceived as such until much later in life. And being a child with glasses, well that can really make you stand out so having both those characteristics is a recipe for insecurity. Anyway, I have long wondered if I were the only one with those feelings of being on the outside looking in. Why do we tend to feel that way? We are flawed and don't feel worthy of love and belonging. However, we all long for a place to belong, where we fit in and are valued. Well, the wonderful news is that God wants us and He will go to whatever measure necessary to get us to turn our hearts toward Him. Need a still small voice? He can be the gentle breeze. Need to be shaken? He can be the roaring lion. Regardless, God is persistent and patient. Just as in Jesus' parable of the one lost sheep, the Shepherd will leave the safely kept 99 to find and bring into safety the one that is lost. If 99% of your life you have given to God, he loves you enough to pursue the 1% you haven't turned over to Him. Perhaps you don't find that comforting but I certainly do! So what happens after you turn to God? Does He cease to pursue? Not at all! His purpose for pursuit is just different but His pursuit has actually just begun. He works in our lives in ways we often can't see to help us become the person He created us to be and making us more like Christ. Using examples from his life as well lives of several well known Christians such as CS Lewis and Francis Thompson, Gire demonstrates how God loves us too much to allow us to be on the outside looking in. He is gentle and loving in His pursuit but He doesn't give up. Each relatively short chapter is followed by several discussion questions perfect for personal reflection or small group discussion. This is my first read by author Ken Gire but I don't plan for it to be my last. He was able to uncover for me why I have those feelings of being on the outside looking in but he didn't stop there. Through his examples and testimony, he helped me discover how much I am loved by my heavenly Father. I did receive this book free from Bethany House Publishers and was not required to leave a positive review.

Through Rushing Water

Sophia Makinoff has the perfect teaching job and dreams to match.  She is certain to become the wife of Congressman Montgomery.  Her world crashes around her when the Congressman proposes—to her roommate.  Unable to bear what she knows will be (the pity of her acquaintances and Annabelle’s prattling about the wedding she thought would be hers), Sophia signs up with the Foreign Mission Board to be a missionary to China.  In order to escape, she takes the first available position and begins her journey to teach in the Dakota Territory—not exactly China!  Her charge is to teach and bring Christianity to the Ponca Indians and others are already in place to “Americanize” the Indians and make them into farmers.  When she arrives at her destination, there was no one to greet her and the landscape showed little but a few run-down buildings and sparse vegetable gardens.  How soon could a replacement be found?  Sophia isn’t certain this is the place for her.  Is there anything that might keep her here?

But the Ponca Indian children and their families begin to pull at her heartstrings.  Their need for the basic necessities of clothing and food is so great and the government doesn’t deliver anything they promised.  Combine the children with the local Agency carpenter, Will, and perhaps Sophia can stick around and pour her life into making a difference here.  Will teaches her to “ignore the rushing water” that could completely suck her in because there are so many needs and simply focus on the issues that she can change and improve.  Could there be a lesson in that for me?  I think so!

Author Catherine Richmond does an excellent job capturing the time period and forms a story not so familiar in the bookstores and to readers.  Having read several novels set in the same era, most that I have read are more the mail order bride, searching for riches kind of story.  Not so with Through Rushing Water.  Sophia was a well developed character you can’t help but love.  Through all her experiences, her faith becomes more than head knowledge and memorizing prayers.  Just as God uses the circumstances in our lives to draw us to Him,  Sophia’s position and the people she has been placed with are used to make her more into the person God created her to be.  I also had never had such a clear picture of how the Indians were treated when white European descendants began moving into their homeland. Your heart will be moved to compassion if not anger for the way they were cheated and ignored.  I look forward to reading other books by Ms. Richmond.

I did receive this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers in exchange for an honest review.  I was not obligated in any way to leave a positive review.