Settling In

We are finally moved and at our new place - now the fun of unpacking! I am looking forward to unpacking and organizing all my books again :-). Most of the bookshelves are in the new office now that we have a 2nd bedroom.
I actually managed to finish a few books during all the craziness:

Pop Goes the Church by Tim Stevens

- a look at popular culture and whether the church should engage with it. How to utilize popular culture as a way to meet people where they are at and the issues that they deal with on a daily basis.

Goodnight Nobody by Jennifer Weiner

- a suburban mom misses her life living in New York City but finds new purpose in investigating the death of one of the other moms in her neighborhood. Chick Lit with a bit of mystery thrown in.

Let Them Eat Fruitcake by Melody Carlson

- 2nd book in the Bloomberg Place series. The continued saga of 4 housemates as they deal with the pressures of life at their jobs, with their boyfriends and their families.

The Chaos that is My Life right now

And the cuteness that keeps me smiling

Terminal Care by Christopher Stookey

I received this book from the author for review as part of a blog tour.



Patients are dying on the Alzheimer's unit and Dr. Wong is trying to find out why. They are currently part of a drug study for NAF - a drug that supposedly helps improve cognitive scores of those with dementia or Alzheimer's. The story is told from the perspective of Dr. Pescoe, an ER doctor, who helps Dr. Wong try to figure out why these patients are dying off in record numbers.

This was a good book - it got suspenseful where I was turning pages to try to find out what was going to happen. I had to put it down to go to my book club meeting. :-) The writing style was easy to read and well-written. If you enjoy suspense and medical thrillers, I would recommend this book.

No Other Gods by Kelly Minter

No Other Gods: Confronting Our Modern Day Idols by Kelly Minter

My rating: 4 of 5 stars (actually I would say 4.5 of 5 stars)



Excellent book about getting rid of the idols in our lives that take precedence over our relationship with God. The things that become more important to us than Him.

"idolatry...is anything - even something inherently good - that we have turned into an ultimate thing in our lives."

"It matters little if you have it all or if you have less - without Christ, wholeness is but a fantasy."

"what a person has is of no consequence...when it comes to the deep satisfaction of the soul. Apart from Christ, the rich and beautiful, and the poor and unlovely, will all end up in precisely the same misery."

"Our flesh with all of its powerful desires has to be crucified, our idols have to be deconstructed, and we get to do this thing called surrender and submission, which goes against the just one more thing in all of us. And because none of us does this flawlessly we have the - to be celebrated - discipline of God. It is our aid to holiness, the sometimes painful guide to wholeness and life."

"He will not let the children he loves enough to offer up his own Son destroy themselves with lying gods that promise what they can never fulfill."

"Because discipline is not rejection, it is protection and affection, one of the most glorious things God can extend to us."

"Ishmael moments are another thing altogether. I have them every day. They come when I'm deciding between immediate satisfaction and patience, between my will and the Spirit, between my tangible strength and God's miraculous ways. Ishmael is my flesh, he is the law, he is earthly and everything merely human. I have to send him away intermittently throughout my day, sometimes several times per minute."

"...Ishmael was born.
"He is the product of will. The child of all things human. He comes into existence when we can't wait any longer. When we determine for God how he should sculpt his promises. When we get a really good idea and execute our plan before ever asking if it was God's genius or our own. When we just plain want what we want. Ishmael. His name resounds with booming heartache. He represents the functional gods of our hearts, because he is substituted for the promise of God; we rely on him to deliver what only God can provide."

"I take great comfort in this dialogue [Genesis 17:20-21] between Abraham and Go, as it shows how clearly he hears our desires. It extends an invitation for us to freely take our longings and attachments to him, even the ones that are of Ishmael proportions. We find that he's in touch with our longings. He grieves with us over our attachments. He has grace on our Ishmaels, and yet he is unwilling to allow them to ever take the place of Isaac. No, what is born of our flesh can never substitute for what is born of the Spirit."

"...my jealousy was a helpful arrow that pointed to a lack of trust that God could make up for what I had so unjustly lost. The Lord had not missed my anguish and was indeed able to sustain me through the hardship, even working all the pain for my greater good."

"...no person has the power to satisfy or save me."

"Good good-byes don't always mean sweet hellos in the natural realm, but they are always meant for our good regardless, even if that good remains a bit of a mystery from our finite vantage."

"...obedience in turning from our false gods is not a guarantee that God will do exactly what we want, nor is it a vehicle by which we can manipulate him."

"But even more than granting our grandest dreams, he delights in offering us soul blessings, the deep kind that cannot be disturbed by continually shifting circumstances."


"God will always outgive whatever you say good-bye to." - such a great reminder for me as a missionary kid who has had to say goodbye so many times in my life.