I've Moved

You can now find me at my book blog - Journey to the End of the TBR Pile. See you over there!

So Long, Farewell, It's Time to Say Good-Bye

After almost 3 years and over 640 posts, this blog has run its course. It's time to close up shop and move on. I may or may not continue to blog, but if I do, it will be on a different blog or a different format. This one has finished. Thank you to all who have come along with me on this journey.

Recently Read

Another aviation thriller by John Nance, one of my favorite authors - Orbit. This was not exactly about planes though. A private space flight company sends people into orbit for a price. Kip has won a contest giving him a free trip into orbit. But when disaster strikes, he resigns himself to his fate and begins to contemplate the life he's lived. This was a pretty good book and recommended for those who like suspense.

In the non-fiction world, I finished Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. This is a good book about marriage refining us to make us more holy, not just happy. A good read for couples to help in focusing their relationship more on God and their growth then in just fulfilling their own desires. One beef I had with the book is the assumption that as a Christian married couple, children would be part of the relationship. Not all married couples have children. Not even all Christian married couples have children. There is more to marriage than just raising children together. However, overall this book was about the marriage relationship and how God uses it to refine our character and make us more like Christ.

Collections and Such

Group of microbes
Originally uploaded by twiga92

Jono and I collect plush toys from www.giantmicrobes.com. They take various microbes and blow them up, making them into toys. Very cool stuff. This is a picture of a fat cell (the brown one on the left), the red blood cell, the white blood cell, and a brain cell (the gray one in the front). Aren't they neat-looking?

Quotes - Intimate Faith by Jan Winebrenner

This book is full of jewels, kernels of wisdom if you will.

"As my disciples, you are to be people who resist the very human yearnings for applause, for approval, for ease and pleasant circumstances in order to perform the lowly, unseen, and unrewarded acts of service."

"Am I willing to be 'banished to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial,' if the Father asks it of me?"

"When ugliness, not beauty, fills our view, worship becomes a discipline."

"...when we have seen what God can do, and we know what God is like, worship is our only reasonable response."

"We must learn to live in the reality of our position in Christ, truly know that we are forgiven, cherished, adored by God."

"We can be women who merely cope, or barely cope. Or we can be women who are so convinced of God's grace and goodness that we dare to face thoughts of the future with laughter."

"When, against all our feelings to the contrary, all our fears, we choose to believe in the sovereign goodness of God and make him the focal point of our lives, we are exercising the discipline of worship. We sacrifice the tendency of our nature to bemoan his dealings with us; we battle ego in those moments when the self wants to be enthroned, and we climb up on the altar, becoming a living sacrifice, slaying our will, embracing God's.
"When we have sacrificed our human reasoning and exchanged our desires for God's, we have exercised the discipline of worship. When we have praised him even though every molecule in us is crying out against our circumstances; when we have deliberately directed our focus to him and his promises of faithfulness, in spite of losses large and small, we have exercised the discipline of worship.
"We do it at times falteringly, even fearfully; but we do it because we believe that he is worthy of our total trust, and because we have learned that, without the discipline of worship, all possibility of intimacy with God will elude us."

"...the ultimate challenge for me as a believer is this: to learn to live in the reality of the invisible."

Marathon Scrapbook Page

I was actually able to scrapbook 2 pages at home. This is not an easy task with 2 very curious cats. :-) I did 2 pages from my sister's marathon in Richmond, VA.

More Intimate Faith Quotes

Thought-provoking, challenging, questions and statements to consider in our walk with God.

"...the only guarantees God gives are the eternal, invisible ones."
"God absolutely guarantees that he will give us what we need, not necessarily what we've asked for."
"The promises of God are numerous, and precious. But they do not include relief from suffering, exemption from hard times, or freedom from stress and duress."
One of God's names - "El-Shaddai-the God who is enough."
"Calvin Miller put it this way: 'To desire only what Christ gives and not to desire Christ Himself is to be bought off by little trinkets, never to own the greater treasure of His indwelling presence.'" (from Miller's book Into the Depths of God)
"God is pleased to give us the desires of our hearts, if at times he must change our hearts first."

A summary of the Lord's Prayer from Matthew 6:
"Come to God on the basis of relationship, nothing else-call him Father.
"Come to God in humility. Recognize his holiness, his majesty, his sovereign rule and power over all things.
"Ask him for the things you need today, trusting him for tomorrow's needs tomorrow.
"Seek forgiveness, and extend it to others. Understand that by withholding it, when you have the power to give it, you rob yourself of the very forgiveness you seek from God.
"Ask for protection from evil, for God to shield you from temptation that would overpower you.
"Exclaim the greatness of God, worship him. Adore him. Pursue his glory above all things."

TBR List

With a great deal of weeding out, I have managed to get my TBR (to-be-read) pile of books down to 68 books. In fact, if I read 6-7 books a month, I can complete my TBR pile by the end of this year. And if I don't bring any new books in. Quite the challenge for myself :-). I read at least 6 books in January, and I've already completed 2 books in February so this is a do-able challenge. I think I'm going to concentrate this year on completing these 68 books. The re-reads that I'd like to do can always wait another year after all.


Here is the list:
(Fiction)
Beloved Leah by Cynthia Davis
The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde
Burning Road by Ann Benson
The Butterfly Farm by Diane Noble
Crisis by Robin Cook
The Cubicle Next Door by Siri Mitchell
Dead Head by Allen Wyler
Deadly Errors by Allen Wyler
Deception by Randy Alcorn
Earthquake Games by Bonnie Ramthun
The Fifth Vial by Michael Palmer
A Form of Godliness by Shane Johnson
Gone with the Groom by Janice Thompson
Hard Landing by Lynne Heitman
Hazardous Duty by Christy Barritt
In Search of Eden by Linda Nichols
Informed Consent by Sandra Glahn
The Inquisitor by Peter Clement
Last Light by Terri Blackstock
Life, Libby, and the Pursuit of Happiness by Hope Lyda
The Micah Judgment by Jim Kraus
Moving Mars by Greg Bear
Night Fall by Nelson DeMille
Night Light by Terri Blackstock
Orbit by John Nance - CURRENTLY READING
The Plague Tales by Ann Benson
Progeny by Martha Ogburn
The Proposal by Angela Hunt
The Protocol by April Christofferson
Relentless by Robin Parrish
Resistance by Daniel Kalla
The Restorer by Sharon Hinck
The Return by Austin Boyd - CURRENTLY READING
The Road to Mars by Eric Idle
Saving Cascadia by John Nance
Scrap Everything by Leslie Gould
The Seat Beside Me by Nancy Moser
Seizure by Robin Cook
The Silence by Jim Kraus
The Society by Michael Palmer
Splitting Harriet by Tamara Leigh
Sushi for One? by Camy Tang
Time's Eye by Arthur Clarke & Stephen Baxter
The Trudeau Vector by Juris Jurjevics
Uncharted by Angela Hunt
The Wedding Caper by Janice Thompson - CURRENTLY READING
Whiteout by Ken Follett - CURRENTLY READING
The Year of the Intern by Robin Cook

(Non-Fiction)
Crisis of Caring by Jerry Bridges
Eight Choices that Can Change a Woman's Life by Jill Briscoe
Emotional Infidelity by M. Gary Neuman
Having a Mary Spirit by Joanna Weaver
Made to Count by Bob Reccord and Randy Singer
Pathway to Purpose for Women by Katie Brazelton
The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
The Restless Heart by Ronald Rolheiser
Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas - CURRENTLY READING
The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience by Ronald Sider
The Search for Peace by Robert McGee
Seizing Your Divine Moment by Erwin McManus
Slightly Bad Girls of the Bible by Liz Curtis Higgs
So, You Want to Be Like Christ by Charles Swindoll
Thinking for a Change by John Maxwell - CURRENTLY READING
Unbreakable Bonds by Cheryl Meier
What Matters Most by Hyrum Smith
When the Game Is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box by John Ortberg
Why Do Christians Shoot Their Wounded by Dwight Carlson
A Woman's Forbidden Emotion by Gary Oliver

8x8 Scrapbook Album

I'm working on an 8x8 album of various family pictures. Here's the album the pages are going into.


Here are some of the pages I've done so far:





















My niece and nephew are so photogenic. I have so many great pictures of them - I can't scrapbook them all. The smaller album size helps me to showcase some of these pictures.

Intimate Faith by Jan Winebrenner

I mentioned this book in a previous post with some quotes. I finished reading it and highly recommend it. It is now on my list of all-time favorite books. An excellent book on growing in our relationship with God. It was timely for me and the things I'm considering right now with what is truly important in life and learning to trust that God is completely in control. Focusing on eternity and not just the here and now.

Some more quotes:
"We choose to trust God to be sufficient for our bodily needs, both now and in the future, in ways we can't foresee."
"God does not want us to depend on anything we can carry with us into this love relationship with Him. He doesn't want us to derive security from our diplomas, our certificates of accomplishment..." "Jesus' command to 'take no bag' meant the disciples shouldn't carry around souvenirs of their successes."
"If I want to go forward into maturity in Christ and enjoy intimate friendship with God, I have to ask myself, What am I carrying with me as tokens of my importance and value?"

This is definitely something to consider. I often view myself as someone gifted with a lot of talents and abilities. I'm good at a lot of things and I've accomplished a lot in my life so far. But none of these things matter. All I have accomplished, all the abilities I have, it's all given to me by God. He made me this way, He gave me these gifts, He can take any of it away if He so chooses. God wants me to follow Him without depending on my abilities to do so.

"...money doesn't provide security. God does."
"Can you go forward into the adventure of discipleship without being in bondage to money - without being frantic as to whether you will have enough, or whether you will be allowed to spend it as you like?"
"...will you rely on the illusion of security that money offers?"
"Will you trust [God] to be sufficient?"

In the culture we live in, money often becomes a god. Something we depend on and hope for. This is definitely an area I struggle in, worrying about being able to pay bills, the price of gas and other necessities of life.

"The infinite wisdom of God knows what is important, what is superfluous, what is detrimental to the life of his disciples."