Amy Boucher Pye

Category: Book Reviews

  • Review of Cross Roads, follow-up to The Shack

    My review from the Woman Alive book club, originally published in February 2013, shortly after the release of the follow-up to the massive hit, The Shack.

    Many anticipated Cross Roads, Wm Paul Young’s novel following his huge success with The Shack. Me? Not so much. I reviewed The Shack in the Woman Alive book club in 2008, and although it had more reader reviews than any other book in our half-dozen years of the book club, I didn’t love it. Some of his theology concerned me (bordering on universalism), and I thought the opening fifty pages was wrought with purple prose. And yet I couldn’t discount the way God used The Shack to bring grace and healing into the lives of many. So when Cross Roads arrived through the post, I thought, “Hmm.” I wasn’t keen to drop everything and read it. But some of our Facebook group wanted me to do so, and thus here I am.

    15789399Again the opening pages scream with adverbs and adjectives as the author is at pains to set the scene. Because this book was published traditionally, and not self-published as The Shack was initially, I hoped the publishers would have reigned in the prose. An example: “He had been birthed in an explosion of life, an inner expanding universe coalescing in its own internal solar systems and galaxies with unimagined symmetry and elegance” (p.4). But eventually the descriptions eased as the action got going, and I didn’t have to force myself to continue reading.

    The author has a fantastic imagination, and I enjoyed the worlds we traversed as Tony, the protagonist, lies in a coma, given one chance by Jesus and the Holy Spirit to physically heal one person. Tony slides into the head of another person (this is all on the dust jacket – I won’t give away too much!) and starts to see the world through their eyes. Compassion, empathy, grace, and mercy become real to him as he moves away from his self-centred focus. The reader too gains empathy for him, the once crusty businessman whose aim had been only to win, as we learn why he erected the towering walls of protection.

    Should you read Cross Roads? I don’t know if you should, but I think many will, especially those who loved The Shack. If you can make it past the early plodding pages, you’ll enter an imaginary world that may enlarge your view of God and your fellow men and women. Like me, you might find yourself irritated by certain quirks of the author (for instance, I wasn’t convinced by his CS Lewis character, and I found the idea that members of the Trinity could be sarcastic as falling outside of God’s character). But yes, it’s worth reading for a glimpse of what the soul could look like, and the relational view of God in his three persons, who always wants to interact with us.

    Have you read it? If so, what did you think?

    Cross Roads, Wm Paul Young (Hodder, ISBN 978-1444745979)

  • Review – Blue Like Jazz

    Here’s one from the archives, inspired by a reader review in the Woman Alive Facebook group. It’s my review in Woman Alive (from 2006!) of a book by a then relatively unknown author. I used to feature a book one month – complete with discussion questions – and then follow it up a few months later with my review and those of some readers. (Thanks to Woman Alive editor Jackie Harris for suggesting changes to the format… what we have now is superior!)

    I’ve always liked Don Miller’s writing; back in 2000 I acquired the UK/Commonwealth rights to one of his first, Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance, for HarperCollins UK.

    0785263705In many ways Donald Miller is a typical American bloke. He’s a guy who is looking for love and God in the strains of everyday life. But he’s nontypical in that he shares his thoughts and experiences in his Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. He’s been called “Anne Lamott with testosterone.”

    The book is a series of linked essays on a variety of topics – from faith, redemption, and grace through to television, romance, money, and worship – that are sometimes quirky, sometimes humorous, sometimes introspective but often insightful. Of the title Miller says, “I never liked jazz music because jazz music doesn’t resolve. But sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself … I used to not like God because God didn’t resolve. But that was before any of this happened.”

    Join me in exploring life through the lens of Don Miller. Here are some discussion questions for you to ponder or share with your group.

    • What did you think of the book overall? Did it appeal to you? Why or why not?
    • What stood out as you read? Were there images or ideas that lingered with you?
    • What do you think about Don’s view that “the greatest trick of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather to have us wasting time” (p. 13)?
    • Chapter 2 is all about problems, and basically about original sin – “that we are flawed, that there is something in us that is broken” (p. 17). Do you agree that the problems of the world boil down to “the needy beast of a thing that lives in my chest” (p. 20)?
    • More on the devil: “I think the devil has tricked us into thinking so much of biblical theology is story fit for kids’ (p. 30). Have you ever thought about Noah’s ark not being appropriate for children because of its themes of judgment?
    • Chapter 7 focuses on grace and “the beggar’s kingdom.” Don says how he “could not understand why some people have no trouble accepting the grace of God while others experience immense difficulty” (p. 83). He was one who had trouble. Do you? If so, why? Or why not?
    • Discuss Don’s description of the Grand Canyon at night: “There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. (They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz.)” p. 100.
    • Don realized that “believing in God is as much like falling in love as it is like making a decision. Love is both something that happens to you and something you decide upon” p. 104. Do you agree or disagree?
    • Discuss a simple truth about relationships: “Nobody will listen to you unless they sense that you like them” (p. 220).

    My View

    I loved one of Don Miller’s books in the past, and when I started reading Blue Like Jazz I couldn’t put it down. Several weeks later I read the book in full, but by the time I was done my interest had waned. While there are instances of brilliance – I loved the thought of seeing the lines on Jesus’ face, for instance – there seems to be a lot of navel gazing too. I started to get a bit annoyed with what seems like Don’s preoccupation with himself. An editor could have cut a third of these meanderings and made a fabulous book.

    Still, there were memorable flashes of light. My heart warmed to hear of Penny’s conversion, as she was loved into the kingdom of God by Nadine. And I could certainly relate to Don’s experience of community life. As I read of his experiences in Graceland, my ten years of living with roommates in Washington, DC, came back with stark clarity. As with Don, living with others was a way for God to highlight my issues of selfishness and pride. It wasn’t always fun, but it was fruitful.

    Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller, Nelson, ISBN 0785263705, 242 pages

     

  • Review: Alister McGrath’s biography of CS Lewis

    isbn9781444745528-detailLike many American Christians, I’ve long been fascinated by the writings of CS Lewis. I’ve visited the Wade Collection at Wheaton College in Chicago to see the famous wardrobe and Lewis’s writing desk. I’ve enjoyed his haunts in Oxford such as the Trout and the “Bird and Baby” (the Eagle and Child pub). I even worked for his publisher for a time (Fount, part of HarperCollins). But only after reading Alister McGrath’s magisterial biography do I now feel I know the man behind the books. McGrath has produced a highly readable, engaging account of Lewis’s life as focused on his writings and what shaped them. I recommend it highly.

    In writing the biography, published for the fiftieth anniversary of Lewis’s death, McGrath read everything he could find penned by Lewis. McGrath then situates the various pieces of Lewis’s writing in the overall historical context as well as the goings-on in Lewis’s life. I found this grand sweep fascinating; it helped me understand why, for instance, Lewis wrote the Space Trilogy. Or why he first engaged in apologetics during the war, but afterward turned to more imaginative writings (including the Chronicles of Narnia and Till We Have Faces).

    McGrath uncovered some new revelations, one of which might be shocking, namely the affair between Lewis and the mother of his mate who died in the trenches in France. He wasn’t yet a Christian when he moved in with her, yet he stayed living in her family home (she was estranged with her husband) after his conversion. It seems an odd domestic arrangement, and one that he kept secret from his father.

    I was intrigued to learn how throughout his life Lewis portioned off parts of his emotions and memories. He never called up memories of World War I, saying that concerning the war he had a clear line of demarcation that he didn’t cross – maybe following a partitioning of his emotions when his mother died when he was a boy? Or how he never identified as an Irish writer. Although the scenery and beauty of his native land informed his writing, it wasn’t marked by nationalism.

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    Bust of Lewis and his writing desk at the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College

    And I found the whole story of Joy Davidman fascinating. An American, she moved to the UK with her sons to be near him. When her visa expired, she persuaded Lewis to marry her in a civil ceremony. He did, not thinking that the marriage was anything more than procedural. But she moved into the Kilns and then when they found out that she had terminal cancer, Lewis fell in love with her.

    I could go on and on! If you only read one or two books this year, choose this one. From it I’m inspired to go back and read and reread Lewis’s books.

    C.S. Lewis: A Life by Alister McGrath (Hodder, ISBN 978-1444745528)

  • Review: A favorite novel by Elizabeth Goudge

    9781598568417oI first read The Scent of Water in my late twenties, when I was longing for a husband. Little did I know that I would marry an Englishman when I was thirty and be transported to the setting of this novel. Or that the quick “yes” I said to moving to his country would become an act of obedience when I was missing family, friends, and good plumbing. I couldn’t know that this novel was in some way preparing me, for one of its main themes is obedience.

    Elizabeth Goudge wrote during and after the Second World War, when the country was reeling from hardship and loss of life. Her yearnings for a simpler time – for a pastoral idyll without machines or motorcars – are apparent in the novel, for the main character, Mary, moves from chaotic London to the quiet Chilterns to live in the cottage she inherited from her namesake cousin. This uprooting provides the setting for Mary’s growth, not only spiritually but in learning how to love and be loved.

    When I reread the novel for the third or fourth time recently, again I was struck by the author’s startling insights, such as the corrosive effect of sin on a person; how when we strengthen our will and follow God, ignoring our emotions, we grow and flourish; the masks we don and why; how faith can flourish through suffering; the importance of wonder and gratitude. Some of her writing is a bit clunky or rooted in its time – for instance, I cringed when she said that a character could “run like a Red Indian.” But the truths she conveys are worth the sometimes awkward characterizations or phrases.

    This time of reading, I was touched most by the author’s descriptions of the depression suffered by Cousin Mary, the woman from whom Mary inherited the cottage, and whom she got to know through her journals. Cousin Mary would have long periods of falling into the blackness of despair, when she would fear losing her reason forever. She wrote in her journal of meeting an odd old man who came to tea and gave her advice that changed her life forever: “‘My dear,’ he said, ‘love, your God, is a trinity. There are three necessary prayers and they have three words each. They are these, “Lord have mercy. Thee I adore. Into Thy Hands.” Not difficult to remember. If in times of distress you hold to these you will do well’” (pp. 94-95).

    I was glad to learn that this prayer was first uttered by Thomas Traherne, the seventeenth-century English clergyman and poet. Lately I’ve benefited by praying this trinity to the Trinity, especially at night if I can’t sleep.

    Why not pick up one of Elizabeth Goudge’s books? She will challenge you even as she transports you to a gentler time of village life in England.

     

    The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge (Hendrickson, ISBN 978-1598568417). This is a recent version published in the States; I have to admit I found it a bit jarring to have the text Americanized!

     

  • Review of a stunning memoir

    The Long Awakening

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    Imagine waking up after 47 days in a coma, not realizing that the summer had passed or that you’d had a baby. This is what happened to Lindsey O’Connor, a mother of four who gave birth to her fifth baby – a planned later-in-life pregnancy – then suddenly crashed and nearly bled out, her brain deprived of life-giving oxygen. Her doctors induced a coma to allow her brain time and space to heal, but the extent of damage she suffered had no one knew. The Long Awakening is the gripping and moving story of her slow emergence out of the space between life and death as she hovered just below the surface, longing to connect but unable to do so.

    But a miracle occurred, and though her family thought one tortuous night that she would die, she slowly came back to life. But she, asleep, missed the miracle. The thousands who prayed; the hundreds who brought around meals and cared for children and lent support: they witnessed it. But she, its focus, felt outside. Yet she knew her awakening was inexplicable and miraculous, so how could she even voice these feelings?

    And who was she now, having been so deconditioned that she couldn’t even stand up on her tip toes or breathe on her own? How could she care for her children? Love her husband? Bond with her baby, whose first bath and first feeds she missed? Who was she in terms of her career? As she mused, “I used to be a writer… Now I cannot even read. Those days are over, I thought, and lay thinking of who’d I been, wondering who I was now.”

    The road to recovery has been slow and long, but Lindsey has determined to “play the hand we’re dealt.” She writes lyrically, raising profound issues of identity, family and community, faith, mother/child bonding, and end-of-life medical ethics. Using her training in crafting journalistic narrative, she weaves together the pieces of those 47 days in the coma and the 107 days in hospital. I only wish she would have been more forthcoming with her faith; strikingly absent is the present of Jesus (but not God), although she calls herself “one who loves God fiercely.” Perhaps being a mainstream journalist in America made her reticent to enter the fray of faith-related discussions, which Stateside can turn tribal.

    One to read and ponder, especially in a book-club setting, for the issues the book raises are manifold. A reminder to us all to treasure the moments we’re given.

    (published by Revell, ISBN 978-0800723170)

  • Cause for wonder – review of two books by David Adam

    wonder of the beyond FCRecently I became submerged in the writings of David Adam. A Church of England clergyman, he was for many years vicar on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Inspired by the Celtic people of Britain and Ireland, he writes poems, prayers, and reflections on the triune God who is with us.

    One of the things that struck me most about his writing is his emphasis on wonder. As we open our eyes to creation and those around us, we live in the moment and learn to experience God’s presence. For as he says in The Wonder of the Beyond, “God is here, God is with us, and above all, God is.” And yet, so often we find ourselves preoccupied, caught up in this or that as we flit from one thing to another – to our detriment. The result, as he says in The Path of Life, affects the whole of our lives: “A short attention span makes for shallow relationships, for poor perception and reception. This is as true with God as it is with each other.”

    Path of LightThe two books I’ve chosen are a good place to start with his writings. In The Wonder of the Beyond he tells stories from his life, from working in a coal mine at the age of fifteen, to his decision to become a vicar, to his whirlwind romance with this wife (they met and married within a week). But he recounts his stories for the purpose of waking up the reader to “a wonder-full world” – to the world that hosts the glory of God in our midst. He challenges us to really see the people and objects of creation in front of us – to give them our undivided attention. Then through creation and others we will see God.

    The Path of Life is a series of meditations on prayers from the Celtic tradition, and is thus helpful in personal and corporate prayer. Recently I used his meditations on Rune Before Prayer (rune meaning poem) during a retreat as a focusing prayer. I love how he meditates on each member of the Trinity and their unique attributes, bringing them alive to us.

    In closing, a quotation from The Path of Life to ponder: “If you are insensitive to the things that are around you, how can you hope to be sensitive to the unseen God?”

    The Wonder of the Beyond (SPCK, ISBN 978-0281063307)
    The Path of Life (SPCK, ISBN 978-0281060702)

     

  • Book reviews – Waking Up in Heaven and Kisses from Katie

    I love reading Christian biographies; they remind me that God can do amazing things in and through his people. Here are two books that chronicle two remarkable women, which I came across in my publishing work with Authentic Media (we secured the Commonwealth rights for them). The first is a story of someone who dies and spends time in heaven. When I first heard that yet another heaven book had appeared, I was skeptical. But I started reading Waking Up in Heaven and was gripped, for Crystal’s life has been filled with drama even without the otherworldly journey.

    9781780781136As a young child Crystal suffered repeated sexual abuse, and could never feel clean – she got baptized four times as a teenager in her quest to slough off the old self. She got pregnant at seventeen and had the baby, but at nineteen had an abortion. Married at twenty but divorced after six months when she found out he was a drug addict. But when at last she found a really good guy to marry, and her life seemed sorted, she fell into a deep depression. Why? She didn’t feel worthy of her husband and his love (rooted out of the feelings of shame and self-hatred that she had endured all her life). And that’s when she died for nine minutes and experienced a life-changing transformation in heaven… You’ll have to read it to find out more!

    I should mention another heaven book: Dr. Mary Neal’s To Heaven and Back. She’s an orthopedic surgeon, and her prose is not chatty like Crystal’s, but her scientific medical stance makes for a compelling read.

    9781780780894Another life-changing journey is that of Katie Davis. In her year before going to university, she went on a shortterm mission trip to Uganda. She fell in love with the people and the place, and knew that God was calling her to return there. But how would her family and her boyfriend react? At first she left the comfortable surroundings of her home in America for a year to immerse herself in Uganda; the plan was then to return to her life – her family, her boyfriend, her studies. But as the time drew to a close, she knew she had to stay. And she had to begin a family made up of one parent and otherwise destitute orphans.

    In the years since, Katie has settled in Uganda and is in the process of adopting thirteen girls. A crazy path in the eyes of the world has been her following the call of Jesus. Radical obedience and the sharing and receiving God’s love.

    What stories of God’s transforming love are you reading?

     

    Publishing info: Waking Up in Heaven, Crystal McVea and Alex Tresniowski (Authentic, ISBN 9781780781136) and Kisses from Katie, Katie Davis and Ben Clark (Authentic, ISBN 9781780780894)

  • What’s your word? A book review for the new year

    Are you a list person? Do this; do that; scratch it off your list. Lists can focus the mind, but sometimes we create lists to foster (or manufacture) spiritual growth. Change this; read that; be that person. And yet we aren’t made to respond to such dictates, as if we were robots. Love, rather than guilt, is a better inducer of change.

    9780310318774My One Word is a brilliant seemingly easy approach to spiritual growth, and a way to lose the lists and effect real change. Before God, choose one word for the year. The word will be “the lens through which you examine your heart and mind for an entire year” (p. 24). It will best reflect what you hope God will do in and through you. Say you choose trust. That’s the word you bring to mind when you receive the shattering news that you’ve lost your job. Or when you send off your teenage daughter on an overnight visit with her friend. Or when your grandson needs a medical procedure. Or when you move out of your comfort zone and visit the neighbour you suspect is hurting. Choosing one word becomes the way to change our outlook and behaviour, especially when we pray through it and seek it (or the principles behind it) in Scripture.

    When I first read this book last January, I loved the idea. After praying for a few weeks, a word reverberated through my being: flourish, with a verse to go along with it: Isaiah 55:10–11 (“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it”). But I questioned that I got the word right. It seemed a bit cheeky to choose such a wonderful word. Yet I couldn’t get away from the idea that this was to be my word for the year.

    But I didn’t put into place the many helpful suggestions the authors give about how we can own our word and incorporate it into our daily lives – I didn’t slap it on my computer monitor, for instance, or stick it up on the fridge. After a month or so I forgot about it. And only when I was leafing through my stacks of review books did I realize I’d let this drop. So a few months later, I started to follow through on my earlier good intentions. And as I look back at 2013, I do see flourishing and growth: the joy of friendships. The love of family. Stretching and enriching work. Finally joining a gym and loving group exercise. The close presence of God through it all.

    What might your word be for the coming year? According to the authors, the ten most-chosen words are: trust, patience, love, discipline, focus, faith, surrender, peace, listen, and joy. All rich and wonderful words, but no doubt God will have just the right one for you.

    I invite you to read this encouraging and often moving book and to join me in choosing just one word. May God transform our hearts and minds through the work of his Spirit.

     

    My One Word: Change Your Life with Just One Word. Mike Ashcraft & Rachel Olsen (Zondervan, ISBN 978-0310318774)

  • Review of two unmissable novels by Lisa Samson

    True confessions. I didn’t always like Christian fiction. But several years ago I agreed to write a feature article for the then UK-Christian-trade-publishing magazine, and found my prejudices were proven wrong. Mostly.

    When I wasn’t looking, Christian fiction grew up. Gone (again, mostly) were the formulaic last-minute conversions and marriages. Instead I found strong characters and insightful themes, with Christian truths appearing in a graceful manner.

    Some Christian publishers promote their titles as “fiction with a U-certificate” (or Stateside, rated G). This resonates with the post from a lively discussion about Christian fiction (too American? too twee? too easy of endings?) on the Woman Alive Book Club Facebook group: “I generally tend towards Christian novels as I dislike reading sensual scenes and about the championing of worldly values. I get enough of the later every day just out and about town!” I agree, but wouldn’t want to have to choose between Christian and general fiction.

    When reading twenty novels for the writing of the feature, my love of Lisa Samson’s novels was reaffirmed. She weaves themes, characters, time periods, and places together into stories out of the ordinary. Here’s my review of two of hers.

    7101534Resurrection in May follows a spoiled young woman to Rwanda where she helps out a Christian mission. She refuses to leave during the genocide and witnesses her whole village being slaughtered, only just managing to escape alive.

    This is a thought-provoking and gripping novel. The characters were believable and authentic, and the sweet truths of the gospel emerge not only through the pain and heartache but through the healing that eventually comes. The ending is good and not trite, with some interesting twists.

    Embrace Me is another unusual story. The publisher’s promotional copy says, “When a ‘lizard woman,’ a self-mutilating preacher, a tattooed monk, and a sleazy lobbyist find themselves in the same North   Carolina town one winter, their lives are edging precariously close to disaster . . . and improbably close to grace.” Make you want to rush out and buy it? No, me neither. But I had an advance copy that didn’t name this lizard woman, and I’ve enjoyed Lisa Samson’s works in the past. So I dived in. And I read and pondered and mused and was moved. I didn’t want it to end.

    2690801She weaves the stories of several individuals throughout this novel, jumping back and forth in time in a way that doesn’t jar. She is a poster girl of the writing adage, “Show, don’t tell,” as she leads the reader into a gentle exploration of the lives and emotions of the characters. Nor does Lisa give cookie-cutter solutions or resolutions; her writing doesn’t come across as in-your-face-black-and-white, but as orthodox shades of grey. She explores issues of Protestant versus Catholic beliefs (in a gracious way), community, social justice, lies and falsehood and confession, forgiveness and freedom. All without the reader really realizing that she’s delving so deeply into these subjects.

    The book opens from the point of view of Drew in 2002, a megachurch preacher who has holed himself away in a rundown motel in Ocean City, Maryland. He has run from the lies of his life, and is so numb that he can only feel when he burns himself with cigarettes. In this state, he turns to a Catholic priest, making his confession through letters (yes, unusual for a Protestant preacher, but as I said this is no ordinary novel). Then in the next chapter we jump forward to 2008 and the point of view of Valentine, a deeply scarred woman who appears as a lizard creature in a circus freak show. She is wounded on the outside and on the in; she holds her bitterness tightly, only showing her true self to a special few, including Lella, the sweet-spirited woman with no arms or legs.

    How the author manages to move across the years as she tells the stories of Drew, Valentine and several others is gripping and profound. It’s a novel that made me think about what it means to extend and receive grace and forgiveness; how it would be to live in a Christian community; how we measure success versus how God does; and how we ultimately find joy.

    I didn’t anticipate the ending, but that made the book it all the more intriguing and thought-provoking. Definitely one not to miss.

     

    Resurrection in May, Thomas Nelson, 2010, 978-1595545442

    Embrace Me, Thomas Nelson, 2008, 978-1595542106

  • Interview with Joni Eareckson Tada, and review of Joni and Ken

    A couple of months ago I had the privilege of interviewing Joni Eareckson Tada in connection with her new book, Joni & Ken: An Untold Love Story (Zondervan). I’ve long admired her, and got to meet her and her husband one year when I was working for her publisher. She exudes God’s grace and love in person and online. And in her new book, detailing the story of her and her husband’s thirty-year marriage, she and Ken share so honestly about their challenges, struggles, and joys.

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    For when Ken Tada made his wedding vows, he knew he would especially have to live up to the phrase “in sickness and in health.” After all, he was marrying a quadriplegic. He also knew his life would hold particular challenges and joys, for he was marrying the internationally known author and speaker, Joni Eareckson. But he didn’t reckon on the debilitating sameness of her daily routines, such as her toileting challenges or the need to reposition her several times each night.

    Their book journeys through their 30 years of marriage, warts and all. It chronicles the early days of romance and international travel along with the crushing middle years of depression, excruciating chronic pain, and a growing distance between them. The severe mercy of breast cancer a couple of years ago was the agent to bring them back to a full dependence on Jesus – and to union with each other.

    Not many biographies of people in the public eye are so searching and honest. I can’t recommend this book highly enough, not only for people who hope for a closer marriage, but for anyone wanting to witness how God can change lives – even those who have been following him for years.

    Run, do not walk, to your local Christian bookshop to get a copy of this book; I loved it! It’s real, gritty and honest – and dripping with God’s hope and redeeming love.

    In Joni’s Words

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    Here is Joni sharing her love of books, an interview that appeared in the May 2013 issue of Woman Alive (the book club that I run); reprinted with permission.

    There are lots of surprises in Joni & Ken, not the least of which is Ken’s part of the story. How does a strong, handsome, virile man keep passion alive when he’s married for three decades to a quadriplegic woman? For years, Ken has gotten up every night to “re-position” me in bed (I can only lay in one position for four hours). So how does he manage that with such a good attitude? Or does he have a good attitude?! This book reveals all.

    The Liberty of Obedience by Elisabeth Elliot remains a favorite book of mine. I first read it when I was released from the hospital after the diving accident in which I broke my neck. Suddenly I was expected to trust God in the midst of utterly overwhelming circumstances. This little book gave insight and wisdom as to how I could embrace the Lord in the midst of total quadriplegia. If Elisabeth Elliot could do it amidst the Acua Indians after they killed her husband… then I could, by God’s grace, do the same.

    The saints of old, such as Amy Carmichael and George Muller, inspire me. One of the dangers of the Christian life is that we too often imagine it – we imagine we’re walking closely to the Lord or that we’re being obedient or kind or loving. But trials – such as the kind faced by Amy Carmichael and George Muller – put our love for God and for each other to the test. What we believe about the Christian faith must be lived out in reality and tough trials are the best way of forcing our faith to be real.

    I resonate with Paul and Silas [from the Bible], deep in a dark jail cell at midnight singing praises to God… loudly! These two inspire me to always ask God every morning for “a hymn in my heart” so that I might follow their example. And throughout the day, it’s the melody I keep humming, like “praying without ceasing.”

    Runaway Home is one of the children’s books that I love. It’s a marvelous series about a family who packed up all their belongings in a trailer and set out to find adventure across the United States. Since I have always loved geography and maps, even as a child, I thrilled at all their new discoveries on every page. The book series may be out of print, but, to me, it’s a classic.

    You asked if I could only save one book from your burning house, which would it be and why? After the Bible, my family’s photo album – with my parents long gone to heaven, these old photos are precious memories I would never want to lose!

    Joni Eareckson Tada, founder and CEO of Joni and Friends, is an international advocate for people with disabilities. She’s the author of over 50 books, including her bestsellers Joni, When God Weeps and A Step Further. She and her husband Ken Tada have been married for 30 years.

     

    So tell me, have you read any of Joni’s books, or watched the film of her life? Has her ministry made an impact on you?