Finished the Medical Mystery Madness Challenge

Carriers by Patrick Lynch


My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Fast-paced suspense about an Ebola-like virus that breaks out in Indonesia. Military scientists at USAMRIID must try to determine where the virus originated to try to stop the outbreak. Meanwhile, a journalist discovers her daughters are now missing near one of the original outbreaks and tries to find them. Suspenseful medical thriller. Reminded me of the movie Outbreak.
This book is the 6th medical thriller for me this year which means I have now successfully completed the Medical Mystery Madness 2010 challenge.

Every Good and Perfect Gift by Sharon Souza

Every Good and Perfect Gift by Sharon K. Souza







I was pretty psyched at the beginning of this book as it portrayed 2 Christian couples who had chosen not to have children. Nearing the age of 40, one of the women changed her mind and then entered the world of infertility. It was nice to have a childless by choice Christian couple portrayed in a positive light. They even had the conversation of whether it was a sin or not to choose childlessness. As a Christian woman who has chosen with my husband not to have kids, this issue is near and dear to my heart.
The bulk of the book is dealing with the issue of infertility and then failing health issues. I thought these topics were handled realistically. Good book, I plan to read Lying on Sunday also by this author.

Wrap-Up of Spring Reading Thing 2010

My original list:

Here's my potential reading list:
Leaving Carolina by Tamara Leigh
It's Not My Fault by Henry Cloud
Bed Rest by Sarah Bilston
Heaven by Randy Alcorn
The Judas Strain by James Rollins
Breaking the Idols of Your Heart by David Allender

I need to finish:
Back to the Moon by Homer Hickam
Shadows of Lancaster County by Mindy Starns Clark
The Bible Jesus Read by Philip Yancey

What I ended up reading:
Leaving Carolina by Tamara Leigh
Bed Rest by Sarah Bilston
The Judas Strain by James Rollins
Shadows of Lancaster County by Mindy Starns Clark
The Bible Jesus Read by Philip Yancey

Also read (not on original list):
The Friends We Keep by Sarah Zacharias Davis
Ripple Effect by Paul McCusker
What Bothers Me Most About Christianity by Ed Gungor
The House at Sugar Beach by Helene Cooper
Breaking Everyday Addictions by David Hawkins
Fifteen Minutes of Shame by Lisa Daily
The Familiar Stranger by Christina Berry
Captivating by John Eldredge
The Surrogate by Kathryn Mackel
Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges
John 3:16 by Nancy Moser
Becca by the Book by Laura Jensen Walker
Lady of Milkweed Manor by Julie Klassen
Searching for Heaven on Earth by David Jeremiah
Healing Is a Choice by Stephen Arterburn
unChristian by David Kinnamen
Ends of the Earth by Tim Downs
Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner
Keeping Your Cool...When Your Anger Is Hot! by June Hunt
Why We Love the Church by Kevin DeYoung/Ted Kluck

I am currently reading 2 of the other books on my original list:
Heaven by Randy Alcorn
It's Not My Fault by Henry Cloud

I ended up giving up/did not finish Back to the Moon by Homer Hickam. When I went to read Breaking the Idols of Your Heart by David Allender, I discovered that I had already read it when it was originally published as Bold Purpose. Unfortunately, it was not clear that it was the same book re-published with a different title.

Even though I didn't complete my original list, I feel pretty good about what I was able to read during the last 3 months.

Finished the Chick Lit Challenge

I recently finished Ends of the Earth by Tim Downs, the 5th Bugman novel in the series as well as Certain Girls by Jennifer Weiner, the sequel to Good in Bed. Ends of the Earth was good, just as past Bugman novels have been and the ending!!! Oh my goodness! Apparently there is an online poll involved (which I of course voted in), and a sequel coming out next March. I would definitely recommend this book if you like suspense books, but you will want to read at least Less than Dead by Tim Downs first as it provides some information on one of the characters besides the main character, Nick Polchak.

By finishing Certain Girls I finished 8 books for the Chick Lit Challenge. Here is my original list. This book was a sequel to Good in Bed and though you don't have to read that one first, it is certainly helpful. Once you've read Certain Girls, then you will have way too many spoilers to go back and read Good in Bed. It was a good book, as are the other Jennifer Weiner books I've read. Not just fluffy chick lit, but dealing with real issues in real life - daughter becoming a teenager, teen girl finding out about her mother's life and how she got pregnant with her and so forth. The chapters alternated between the perspective of Cannie, the mom, and Joy, the daughter.

Keeping Your Cool by June Hunt

Keeping Your Cool...When Your Anger Is Hot!: Practical Steps to Temper Fiery Emotions by June Hunt


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pretty good book dealing with anger and strategies for how to properly control and handle it. Learning to recognize our anger style and prepare ahead of time for how to handle it.

Lots of good quotes:
“Anger is a strong emotion of irritation, agitation, or hostility that occurs when a need or expectation is not met. Actually, anger is a secondary response to something else – it’s an upsetting emotional reaction to an assumed ‘right’ that has been violated or not fulfilled.”
“When we expect something, we feel we have the right for that something to happen.”

“…revealing inappropriate efforts to get your needs met.”

“The problem arises when our expectations are consistently unmet over time.”
“We can keep from fanning the flames of frustration by surrendering all our unmet expectations to the perfect will of God, and recognizing He is in control of every circumstance and has a perfect plan for our lives. But until we let God’s will for us reign over our own will – based on our own expectations – that compromise will remain elusive, and our anger will continue to burn.”

“Many of us are…bent on control, and react with irrational anger when we don’t get our way.”

“If we really want to find freedom from destructive anger, a good place to start is relinquishing control of anything and everything around us.”

“Control is impossible.”
“It’s time to let God heal us of this need to be overcontrolling and the anger that comes with it when we don’t get our way. We must surrender our wishes and wants, our desires and demands to the sovereignty of our loving and compassionate God.”

“Control is God’s business, and not having this heavy responsibility is His gift to us.”
“…our God is sovereign. The earth is His and everything in it.
“Assuming the right to control our lives according to our own will is dangerous arrogance – and sinful pride.”

“No, it is not possible for us to control every facet of life. But the good news is that the Creator of the whole universe has promised to do it for us.”

“You can’t control it anyway, so trust your Father to provide.”
“Let go, and release the stress and tension that accompanies the need to control.”

“Step 1: Ask – Can I change this situation?
Step 2: Action – If you can, change it. If you can’t, release it.”

“The ultimate purpose of our fiery trials is to clear away everything holding us back from a more mature, more empowered walk with Christ.”

“Our goal is always to be more like Christ, putting others first, looking out for the interests of others, not pushing our own rights.”

“We can deceive ourselves by creating a smoke screen that makes us feel like we can change others. But we don’t have the ability to change others. In fact, we don’t even have the ability to truly change ourselves through our own will, strength, or desire. Change comes through our dependence on God’s grace to transform lives – both ours and others.”

Awards

I was given this award by both Kavyen at Reading Between Pages and also Annette at A Well-Watered Garden.
The rules of the award are:
1. Thank the person who gave you this award
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason! (in no particular order…)
4. Contact the bloggers you’ve picked and let them know about the award.

Hmm, 7 things about myself...
1. I was born in the country of Bangladesh, the oldest of 3 children.
2. I have been married for over 12 years to a wonderful man who is also my best friend.
3. We have 2 cats, Mocha and Storm who bring us so much joy and delight. They are adorable and affectionate, playful, cute and love to sleep with me (which is adorable in itself).
4. I like to scrapbook as my other hobby besides reading. I've been scrapbooking for about 8 years now.
5. I graduated from high school in Nairobi, Kenya as 2nd in my class. There were 19 of us in that particular graduating class.
6. I have a Bachelor of Science degree in Bible with a General Ministries emphasis. I took several drama classes as electives. My favorite class in college was "Oral Interpretation" - a class on dramatic reading.
7. Chili is my favorite food with ice cream a close second :-).

I'm not going to pass this on to anyone in particular. I follow a lot of blogs, so check out my list of blogs that I follow on my profile to find new-to-you blogs to read.

200th Post & Remaining May Reads

Healing Is a Choice by Stephen Arterburn:
"Make a radical adjustment of your expectations. You expected to stay in control of your life...but you were never in control."
"You might have expected something close to perfect out of yourself. You could not deliver on that, so adjust your expectations. Accept your own humanity and limitations and allow God to work with you in spite of them."
Started off slow, but overall, pretty good book about the choices we make in order to heal from the hurts of our past. Deals with such things as choosing to forgive, choosing to persevere, and choosing to connect with others.

unChristian by David Kinnamen and Gabe Lyons:
A research project to see how Christianity is perceived in America today. The results are that Christians are often viewed as hypocritical and judgmental. I don't think the results were surprising, but sad. Too many Christians in the public eye have given Christianity in general a bad name. For new generations growing up, we as Christians need to address this perception. This is an excellent book for pastors, youth pastors and church leaders to read.