Top 5 Books of the Year (FFF Day 6)

Aaaahh!!! The very last of the Five Fall Favorites posts for this year…

Today we’re doing my five favorite books I’ve read this year. This was…definitely pretty hard to come up with and narrow it down for, but I decided to (try) not to overthink it and just go with the first ones that came to mind. Here you are, in no particular order.

1. Lighten Our Darkness by Sarah Brazytis

This one…this one. I thought I loved Dunstan by Sarah Brazytis, but this was entirely different. I don’t know if I knew entirely what I was getting into, besides, I knew multiple friends who really loved it and had said I needed to read it and when it went on sale I knew I was ready to snatch it up and read it.

I loved the look at everyday life in Britain during WWII. I thought the perspective on the Polish pilots was super interesting and unique. I liked that the characters were vivid and that the book was well-written and well-done. But mostly I loved it because it was soo sweet and beautiful and priceless and unique.

2. Dewdrops and Butterflies by Libby May

I love this one. I originally read this one when I had a KU trial, but…well, it may sound weird, but I missed it so I went ahead and bought it because I wanted to read it again. Originally, the first time I read this, I had no idea what it was about. I was nearing the end of my KU trial and had just started reading it since and figured if it hooked me in a few minutes I’d keep reading, if not I’d find something else.

But it seriously didn’t just hook me…I love this book so much. It blew me out of the water from the beginning, and now it just has its own special hold on my heart. It’s just so raw and…utterly beautiful.

3. KEY by Madisyn Carlin

I read a lot of Madisyn Carlin’s book this year, so I had a lot of trouble narrowing it down to this one. I think a lot of the themes and the struggles of the characters hit home, and this was just a very well-written beautiful, real-feeling story. It’s saying something that I didn’t even like one of the main characters all that much (and most people would, I just didn’t), and it still makes it onto my top five books of this entire year that I’ve read. I love this book. These characters, this series…it’s where it’s at. You gotta read it.

4. Wherever He Leads by Rebekah Morris

This is another one of my favorites I’ve read so far. It was a relatable, sweet story and while I can’t quite put my finger on why I feel like it needs to be up here in the top 5 favorites, it…does. It was a very Rebekah Morris story. A little slow, filled with truth, wrapped up well. One of my favorite Rebekah Morris stories, too, I think.

5. This Life of Mine by Victoria Lynn

When I read the first book in this series, Once I Knew, I liked it fine but it wasn’t so much my thing, and the parts where the plot was mostly romance I was mostly bored. This one was a little different. It was more raw, more tangible, more subtly beautiful. I liked the real, mostly relatable characters in Once I Knew, but for the characters in this book…I needed to know their story, not just from the beginning but for the whole book. The emotions, the stories each character wove into the book weren’t just relatable, but they felt real and completely authentic and raw, in all their brokenness and hurt and doubts, but also in their joy and healing. My heart hurt and then healed with the characters for this one. It was good. (Even if I thought the wolf was weird at first.)

And there we have it…my last post for Five Fall Favorites this year! Make sure to check out the host blog @onceuponanordinary.wordpress.com/blog/ to read about Kate’s favorite books of this year! 😁

What’ve been your favorite books this year? Did you have a favorite category of fall favorites you enjoyed the most?

Top 5 Upcoming Books (FFF Day 5)

Hey! Tis day 5 of Five Fall Favorites and today’s category is what upcoming books I’m looking forward to. Haven’t read any of these yet, but looking forward to them releasing, and I’m sure they’ll be some of my favorites once they release!

It was a little hard to choose…but these are all ones I’m sure to read immediately and am waiting veerrry patiently for. 😉

1. ARROW by Madisyn Carlin

Eek! Seriously just looking forward to any book releasing by Madiysn Carlin, but especially any new addition to the Redwyn Chronicles. This one is bound to be great. I can’t believe it’s releasing in less than a month now…

It looks like it’s available for preorder and will actually be at only $0.99 until after it’s released, so if you’re a fraction as excited about it as I am, definitely check it out sooner rather than later!

2. Joy (My Theme in Glory #2), A King’s Daughters Story Collection

I’ve been reading some of the other King’s Daughter Writing Camp collections and it’s been so fun seeing all the different styles of writing and all the familiar people from KDWC all with their own stories based around a theme. I am looking forward to seeing the stories that come out of the theme of Joy from KDWC.

3. If The Stars Awaken by Kate Willis

This one JUST got its cover, and it’s so cool. I love Kate Willis’ books and I’m excited to read the fantasy book she’s been working on. This one is releasing in just over a month, it looks like, and is also up for preorder!

4. Battling of the Stars by P.D. Atkerson

Now this one… *shakes head* the cliffhangers this author leaves you on… *shakes head again* this one is long overdue. Not that it’s actually been that long. Multiple hours would have been long overdue, not to mention days and months. I’ve loved every single book of this series so far and I seriously can’t wait for this one to release so I can knooooww what happens next.

Plus, look at that cover!! 🤩

This one is up for preorder as well, and releasing shortly after Thanksgiving.

5. License to Code by Perry Kirkpatrick

Ack! This is the last one of the Accidental Cases of Emily Abbott and I…I need this book. It’s taking sooo long to come out…but I will be patient. But it better come out soon!

Make sure to check out the blog party host blog @ onceuponanordinary.wordpress.com/blog/ to hear about what books Kate’s eagerly anticipating and find more upcoming books for your TBR from all the rest of the Five Fall Favorites blog party.

Do you have any books releasing or know of any books releasing soon (or soon-ish) that I missed in my top 5? Is there one book you feel like you’ve been waiting ages for and can’t wait for it to finally come out?

Top 5 Indie Discoveries (FFF Day 4)

If yesterday’s Five Fall Favorites category was my favorite, today’s category was the hardest for me to initially narrow down. I know of sooooo many good independently published books and I’m always finding more and more as so many excellent Christian writers are publishing independently rather than pursuing traditional publishing.

I tried to mostly focus on indie books that aren’t especially always “out there” and around or the most popular but are some of my favorite books I’ve ever read. Hopefully, you might find something new or new-ish that you’d enjoy.

1. A Sidekick’s Tale Elisabeth Grace Foley

I’d seen a few of Elisabeth Grace Foley’s other books around and glazed over them a little bit, but a friend told me I especially needed to read this one…and I’m glad I did.

This book…was so delightfully random while being Western at the same time. It had a similar initial feel to some of the Triple Creek Ranch books from Rebekah Morris but it was also so different. I was literally laughing out loud at several points during this book and I totally had no idea what to expect with each plot twist. It was so hilarious and fun to read, I was grinning the whole time. XD If you need a laugh or something that keeps you guessing and takes you on a wild ride…read this.

2. Freedom by Faith Potts

Ack, I know I say this about a lot of books, but I love this book. It’s probably also just a special book to me…highly recommend. Think I found Faith Potts just around on the blogosphere and I remember when she released this one together with Kaitlyn Krispense who was releasing Beloved (also a super good book).

This book deals with a pretty heavy subject…suicide, specifically relating to veterans. But it was such a well-done, powerful, and sweet book. It was…such a good book and I’m so glad I found it.

3. The Worth of a King by Kendra E. Ardnek

So…I love Kenda E. Ardnek’s books in general. I read Water Princess, Fire Prince by her and the rest of that series and it kicked off my love for her books, and every time a book of hers would go on sale, I would get it. Suffice to say, I had accumulated a number of her books that I had not actually read…and this was one of them.

As soon as I read it I was like WHERE HAS THIS BOOK BEEN THIS WHOLE DID I LITERALLY HAVE IT ON MY KINDLE THIS WHOLE TIME? Cuz y’all, this is just as good if not better than Water Princess, Fire Prince the one you see and hear about everywhere it feels like. Also…stiiill waiting for the sequel, but apparently, we’ll get one eventually. Such an epic fantasy book. I…looooved the plot and characters and everything for this one. Yep, I loved Water Princess, Fire Prince, but I loved this one waaay more. It was…just such a satisfying read and I was so surprised I hadn’t actually heard anything about it other than it being a Kendra E. Ardnek book and all this time I had owned it and had no idea what a good book it was…anyway, semi-rant over.

4. Should We Tell Her? by Lillian Keith

This one. This one. Don’t know that I’ve ever read a book with quite a style like this one. I wasn’t even sure where exactly it was going…but I knew I couldn’t stop reading because it felt so real and it was so sweet and I mean the characters were real, weren’t they? I really had no idea what to expect, because I had just sort of heard of this author once or twice in small circles and then saw this book was on sale and then picked it up and read it. Just…it’s so sweet and you’ve just gotta read it.

5. The Minstrel: A Legend’s Redemption by Malachi Cyr

Of redemption stories and medieval fiction…I am so surprised this one isn’t more well-known, because it was an awesome read. Plus it was the kind of good that I think readers of a lot of genres would really enjoy. All the adventure themes of Beyond the Mask, The Redemption of Henry Meyers, Ranger’s Apprentice, Robin Hood, or even some of The Wingfeather Saga, woven into a powerful redemptive story of light with zero questionable content. It drew me in, it was suspenseful, I needed to know how it would end, there were times I wanted to cry, there were times I wanted to laugh, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

This is up there with one of my favorite books I’ve ever read. It’s also due for a reread, cuz it was soo good.

And there ya have it!

Make sure to check out the blog party host blog @ onceuponanordinary.wordpress.com/blog/ to read what Kate’s favorite indie finds are and hear the latest on the rest of the Five Fall Favorites blog party!!

What are your favorite indie books? Did you know what indie books were (when I first started blogging I wasn’t sure)? Have you heard of or read any of these books?

Top 5 Buddy-Read Books (FFF Day 3)

Hello!!

Welcome to what I think is my favorite day of Five Fall Favorites this year…buddy-reads! I’ve basically been waiting for this one ever since I saw it as a category. 🤭 I don’t know that I had really heard of, thought about, or even done a buddy read two and a half to three years ago, but ever since I realized they were a thing, I’ve loved the idea of them and doing them! 🤩

I’ve also sorta included sibling read-a-louds in this, as they definitely count as buddy-reads. 😁

Behold, my top 5 buddy-reads!!

1. Sherlock Holmes Series by Arthur Conan Doyle

My Sherlock Holmes buddy-read has been pretty much the most epic and fun buddy-read I have ever done. I started reading the complete Sherlock Holmes series with a friend sometime in the beginning of the summer of last year. A few of the stories or chapters we’ve read around the same day or just waited for each other to read, but mostly we’ve read the whole series chapter by chapter, story by story, at the same time as each other. We’re aaaalllmost done with the very last one (His Last Bow) and I’m super excited to finally mark off that I’ve read all the canonized so to speak Sherlock Holmes. It’s been…seriously such a fun ride. *grins* So many good memories made from this buddy-read!!

2. The Kitten Files Series by Perry Elisabeth Kirkpatrick

I think I picked this one up and just started randomly reading out loud in front of my younger brother, and he loved it tons right from the beginning and begged me to keep reading. My younger sister joined in and loved it too. We have yet to finish actually reading this series…but looking forward to reading it aloud some more whenever we have a chance. XD

3. On The Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness (Wingfeather Saga) By Andrew Peterson

This one has got to be the most buddy-read of any book I’ve ever read.

It started with my younger sister. I had gotten it from the library as an interlibrary loan back when it had a dark blue cover and was loving it and mentioned to my sister I thought she would love it. She gave the cover a look, looked at me, and shook her head. She was fully convinced that nothing with a title like “On The Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness” could possibly be a good book and that I must be reading a pretty bad book. I finally convinced her to just let me read the first chapter out loud to her, and when we got to the end she reluctantly agreed she kinda needed to know what was next, and then by the second chapter she was begging me to continue reading.

In the middle of the second book, my older sister happened to be in the room when we were reading it out loud, so we figured we might as well start at the beginning.

Then…my brother wanted to read it too, so we figured we might as well all start over from the beginning, and my sisters didn’t mind hearing it again.

A few times one of the three siblings missed out when we read a chapter or section, and I had to read aloud that portion for them to catch up.

All in all, I read the first two books probably around 4-5 times, book 3 around 3 times, and book 4 only 2 times.

Basically, we love this series, and it was super fun that even one of my older siblings liked me reading it out loud enough to want to follow along. Who knows, maybe we’re due for another buddy read of this and I can read book 1 out loud for a 6th time! 😆

4. The Green Ember by S.D. Smith

I distinctly remember starting this one. We were all (most of my siblings and my mom) in the garage applying the last few coats of finish to the wooden bunkbed we were going to put in my room and didn’t feel particularly like music but were getting fairly bored. I had seen The Green Ember series around on a few blogs (I think maybe it was Once Upon An Ordinary, actually) and I noticed the library actually had it available to borrow as an online audiobook so I just started playing it. Mostly at first the reaction was, what a cute bunny story…but gradually everyone got quieter and was listening more intently.

Every chance we could get afterward, in the car, working on something together, etc., or just my sister and I sitting in the garage early before it was time to work on school listening, we devoured this book.

It’s such an epic, darkness-versus-light story. Somehow at a certain point, you almost forget it’s about rabbits. Also, this is probably the only book I’ve ever read, and determined not only that the audiobook is tolerable…but that the audiobook is the most superior format to enjoy the book. Seriously, the audiobook for this series is the best.

5. Nicholas Bishop by P.D. Atkerson

This one is a tiny bit of a side note since I don’t think I actually finished buddy-reading this one with anyone. I originally read this book on my own, but when I heard two friends of mine were in the middle of buddy-reading it and I had a moment to spare, I had read the book so many times that I just jumped in and buddy-read where they were. This is one of my favorite P.D. Atkerson books ever and just randomly jumping in and buddy reading it with some friends is a super fun memory. 🙂

And look, we’re halfway through, only three more days of book recs to go! Hope you’ve been enjoying some of the stories behind these books as well as finding some new-to-you, awesome books to read in the future!

Thanks to my ultimate buddy reader who I know is reading this post…thanks for reading basically all of SH with me (we’ll finish soon I know, no hurry) as well as being an altogether splendi-iron friend and my go-to friend to provide sometimes-semi-obligatory continual book updates, narration, rants, gushing, eye rolls/facepalms, honest thoughts, etc. as well as giving me all of the above (well, maybe not the eye rolls/facepalms) in return. This post is dedicated to you.

Plus, I did kinda consult you on some of those tough calls for which books to do for the other categories and you’re the one who told me I should do Five Fall Favorites this year in the first place. 😉 *hugs* ❤

Make sure to check out the blog party host blog @ onceuponanordinary.wordpress.com/blog/ to hear about Kate’s favorite buddy-reads and keep up on all the rest of the Five Fall Favorite blog posts!

What’s one of your favorite buddy-reads ever? Have you ever read a book chapter-by-chapter at the same time as someone else or just been reading the same book around the same time as a friend?

Top 5 Gifted Books (FFF Day 2)

Heyo! Technically today’s category is secondhand books. As you can tell by the title, I am not doing secondhand books today. At first, I thought I could make it work, then I realized I would probably have to include dictionaries and the like, and I figured doing an alternate category might make for slightly more…exciting book recommendations than Encyclopedia Britannica and Webster’s New World Dictionary. XD

In the process of going through the secondhand books I do have, I did make an exciting discovery about one of the old books I have, but we shall save that for another time.

Without further ado, behold my top 5 gifted books I have received!

1. The Accidental Cases of Emily Abbott by Perry Elisabeth Kirkpatrick

I got the first 5 of these for my last birthday and I was sooo excited! I’ve already read the whole series on Kindle, but I’m seriously enjoying rereading the ones I have in real-book form. And theeey’re so teeny…I love them. XD

Super fun and funny totally clean spy comedy type of book from a Christian author that made it straight onto my comfort reads list pretty much since I read the very first one. Absolutely a must-read, I love them so much!

2. IRON by Madisyn Carlin

This one is a super special autographed copy I got as a gift after I graduated nursing school. I was in a bit of a reading slump immediately after I graduated, so it took me a while to actually finish it, but I still loved it the whole way.

I love how Madisyn Carlin writes…it’s refreshingly straightforward and lets the plot and characters just draw you into the story. And the characters are the best…every single one is so real and memorable, with their own weaknesses and strengths and personality. Also, this one is a Cinderella retelling, and I’m telling you, I don’t think I’ve ever read a Cinderella retelling I liked as much as this one. The Reluctant Godfather by Allison Tebo is a close second, maybe, but I liked how IRON just felt like a regular, standalone story, and then as it unfolded I saw all the references and plays on it in the plot and it just made me so happy. Also liked just how well it worked as a non-magical fantasy, whereas The Reluctant Godfather kind of needed the magical element to work at all.

But mostly…just the story and characters in this series, y’all. They’re gonna steal your heart and you’ll never be able to not read the next Madisyn Carlin book in the series.

3. The Virginian by Owen Wister

The Virginian is an old classic I grew up reading, but I got it as a gift one Christmas in a collection of Westerns. Not all Westerns are my favorite, but this one definitely is.

4. The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel

The Case for Christ has kind of a funny story attached to it. XD

When I was probably around 10 years old I found The Case For Easter somewhere on our shelf and read it, which is a really small, thin little book summarizing some basic points on the believability of Christ’s resurrection. What little of it I probably understood at the time I thought was super interesting, and when I saw an even cooler-looking book listed in the back called “The Case for Christ” I promptly put it on my next birthday list.

Well…The Case for Christ is a fairly hefty apologetics/biography, at least for how old I was, but it was a good book, so my mom went ahead and got it for me and looked it over. She ended up deciding to get me something else for that birthday, but gave it to me later, telling me I could read it maybe when I was a bit older but that it was a good book and it was cool I was interested in it.

I forgot about it for a long while afterward and probably didn’t actually give it a serious read for another 6 years or so. It is a very good book and really interesting, but I can see why my mom didn’t think I would get the most out of it when I was as young as I was.

5. Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis Majors

I had never heard of this book before my mom gave it to me at either Christmas or my birthday, but I promptly dug in and I loved it. It’s a real-life story and biography of a girl whose heart was moved for the children of Uganda and who gave up almost everything she had that the world would call successful or worthwhile to minister where God had called her to, and it’s definitely due for a reread.

And those are my 5 favorite books I’ve received as gifts! Books are some of the most awesome gifts ever and I’m super thankful to have received and read these great ones.

Make sure to check out the blog party host blog @ onceuponanordinary.wordpress.com/blog/ to check out what secondhand books are Kate’s favorite and follow along with the rest of the Five Fall Favorites blog party!!

What are some of your favorite (or most special) books you’ve ever received or given to someone? Do you think it would be harder to come up with five favorite secondhand books or five favorite gifted books?

Top 5 Library Finds (FFF Day 1)

Hello, and welcome to day 1 of the Five Fall Favorites bookish blog party! Today’s category is library finds, which was surprisingly (or not so surprising) difficult to narrow down, given at least half, if not the majority of the books I read are from the library. I tried to narrow it down a little to books I found at the library, or was at least pleasantly surprised to find my library had.

1. Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes

*sighs* I love this book so much…the cover is beautiful, the writing is beautiful, the story is beautiful. It just feels…so real and beautiful. This is the book I think of whenever I think of prose that weaves a story bit by bit, pulling the threads together. It feels like a rather ordinary story in a way, but it’s just so…beautiful and well-written for lack of better words to describe it.

I had heard about this one for a while and was wandering the library thinking vaguely of what last names authors I might consider reading had, as I ran my pointer finger along the alphabetized library labels. I’m surprised I even remembered Dykes as one at the time, but I was so happy when I saw it was there. A lot of time my library only has the books I want in ebook format, but for this one, it was so nice to see that cover on real paper and to just hold and read it in a solid, real-life state.

2. Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes

This one was such a fun, random find! I think I was just meandering around the children’s fiction section and saw how fun the cover looked and well…that it was about a dog, and figured I may as give it a try, being a dog person and all. I didn’t have all that high of expectations for it but I ended up loving it so much. So sweet and fun.

3. The Way It Should Be by Christina Suzann Nelson

I think I originally found this one casually scrolling through the Christy Award finalists, which is normally not how I find books. The synopsis drew me in immediately, so on a whim, I looked it up on my library website, discovered the ebook was available. and started reading.

It was so much more than what I had expected from the semi-ordinary still-life-painting style cover. It was deep. It was hard. It was gracious. It did an excellent job taking a lot of very real, honest stories and pulling them into a compelling story. The characters very well could have been real. There are, at least, real people who exist who would be in many, many ways like the characters in this contemporary story. Some rough subjects and some beautiful subjects sort of wove their way through this book…drug abuse, foster care, goats, domestic violence/abuse, gardening, struggling to want the calling God gives, grief, struggling to let go of the dreams you thought you could pursue, puppies, feeling stuck between choosing your family or what it seems God has called you to, hard choices, harder choices, coming face to face with our own powerlessness in the face of temptation, and so on.

It was good, it was a touch convicting, it was honest, it was beautiful, and I was sooo glad I had picked it up and read it despite the pretty, but semi-boring cover.

4. Story Peddler by Lindsay A. Franklin

I had seen this one around for a while before I finally bothered to look it up and discovered it my library had it in ebook format. I think solely the fact that it was from Enclave Publishing and the cover and synopsis were intriguing were what sold me to try it out.

It was great. I loved this whole series. I was a little skeptical about how the fantasy/magic side of things would swing when I saw some of the later covers for the series, but it won me over pretty fast. I loved the emphasis on the importance of stories and weaving light combined with the fantasy/kingdom element.

5. Cloak of Light by Chuck Black

This one I had heard about from several friends and then finally a passing conversation with a new friend at my church convinced me to go ahead and see if my library had it.

I had read some Chuck Black before and I remember liking it, but didn’t think it was particularly high-quality writing or storytelling. This was different. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I really don’t read the genre very often at all, but I really liked this one and am looking forward to finishing the series!

And that’s a wrap!

(Did I re-get some of these from the library just to take pictures of them? Maaaybe…)

Make sure to check out the blog party host blog @ onceuponanordinary.wordpress.com/blog/ to hear about Kate’s favorite library finds and follow along with the rest of the Five Fall Favorites blog party and giveaway.

What’s the most interesting way you’ve found a book at the library? Have you ever been surprised by a book you got from the library or surprised to find a book at the library?

Life Update Summer 2023 + Five Fall Favorites

Hello.

I’ve had some recent posts, but it’s been a long while since I gave a real life update. Namely about The Thing that has occupied a very large portion of my life the last few years.

To start off, it would probably be good to give some kind of reintroduction to the person who’s been behind this blog for a good five and a half years.

Hi. I’m Faith. Y’all know me as a Christian farmgirl who tends to write posts surrounding either life on the farm, photography, or random musings on living life as a Christian. What y’all might not know is…I recently became a nurse.

I still love sunsets and photography. Mabel is still my sweet (but slightly older) bluetick coonhound. I’ve also got three cats now, one of which “runs” her own YouTube channel.

Farm life has for sure taken a backseat to nursing school and the rest of life the last few years, but it’s still a very large part of me.

So, hello. I’m Faith, a Christ-loving farmgirl, nurse, and blogger. I’m currently spending my life mostly regaining some much-needed balance and rest to my life, which feels really, really weird.

It’s…yeah, very strange (but kinda nice?) to actually have plenty of time to eat, sleep, read my Bible, exercise, and even have some kind of fun(?) almost every single day. At least without the threat of the summer, winter, or spring break coming crashing to an end at any moment. 😉

It’s been a hard few years getting here and I’m still trying to take in the fact that I actually have my RN now. It really, really wasn’t easy, but God has seriously carried me through this journey and given me the strength and encouragement I needed at every turn to make it through. I’m so thankful for all the friends (“real-life” and online), all my family, and every other random person who’s been there for me these last years, in all the lows and highs.

You can mostly expect to find my same mix of rambling thoughts and musings on life, farm life updates, and random bookish posts.

While I do tend to frequently find myself being consulted for all kinds of medical-related questions by writers for their characters and I’ve contemplated expanding into medical-accuracy-based beta reading/editing, I find myself sorely lacking in the experience, as yet, to really properly advise authors in that way. So while I may consider posting an occasional pointer on writing medical scenes accurately on my Instagram and may expand that realm as my experience as a nurse grows, I don’t know that it will affect this blog to any great extent for a bit, at any rate.

In other news, I’m very excited to be participating in Five Fall Favorites this year!

The last few years I’ve watched this super fun book/blog party from a slight distance (being somewhat submersed in nursing school and everything else), but I’ve always wanted to take part someday. I figured this year I would just participate more closely and then actually take part as a blog another year, but a friend encouraged me to dive in and take advantage of my current free time, so I went ahead and decided to join! The categories are super fun this year, so I’m really glad I did.

If you’ve never heard of the Five Fall Favorites Blog Party, it goes like so.

September 25th-30th

Daily book categories. Daily posts where I (and the other bloggers) choose five of our favorite books from the category for the day.

Hosted by the lovely Kate (Willis) Hoppman at onceuponanordinary.wordpress.com

Fall-themed, lots and lots of fun, and will leave you with tons of book recs.

Thou art invited! Follow along here and I’ll link back to the host’s blog every day, or just follow along straight from Once Upon an Ordinary.

I thiiink that’s all. Feel free to share the fun about the Five Fall Favorites on your own blog or social media.

I’ll be back on the 25th-30th for book stuff and more later whenever I’ve got thoughts to share.

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”

-Jude 24-25 (ESV)

When Strangers Smile Back

It’s been a good day.

Not that I haven’t had good days, or that most days haven’t been good days lately. But today just kind of struck me…today’s been a good day, and not even because of any particularly optimistic circumstances.

In fact, a lot of today hasn’t been 100% great.

I almost (but didn’t quite fully) burnt my quesadilla for lunch. Before that I couldn’t find a snack in the house I wasn’t allergic to.

Broke my phone a few weeks ago and got the final verdict from the repair shop today that it’s for sure beyond repair.

Rain came, which is technically good news this time of year with droughts and wildfires, but all in all the weather has been a bit gloomy today, and the sun just feels relatively dim and distant.

But today I woke up, and I felt like smiling.

Nothing particularly different from yesterday, really.

But I felt like smiling.

And when I went to the doctor’s office to get my weekly allergy injection and was waiting in the waiting area for a decent chunk of time, I smiled at a stranger and they smiled back.

Seems simple, but sometimes it feels so rare.

And when I walked out into the overcast and gloomy outdoors, I looked around, and another stranger stood waiting and looked up as I walked past. They smiled back at me, too.

Don’t know why it seems like such a big deal, but it’s so, so easy to get down sometimes. So easy to look around, try a smile, get nothing back, then just sit down and conclude the world is a gloomy place.

I mean, with how many pieces of technology and appointments and complicated logistics we all have to figure out and weave together on a daily basis, it’s no wonder things go wrong so often. It can be hard to see above the continual frustrating grind when it all seems to add up, and we’re tempted to just decide not a whole lot in this world works itself out in any kind of orderly fashion.

My chest swelling with the simple joy of exchanging a brief smile, I proceeded briskly to my car and encountered yet another stranger in the busy parking lot. They met my eyes as well, and I smiled. And what do you know? They smiled back.

Perhaps people smile back at me all the time, most days, even. But today, for some reason, it felt special.

Maybe it was just all the small joys adding up throughout the day. Maybe it was because I woke up early today. Maybe it was because I ate breakfast. Maybe it was because I opened my Bible earlier in the day than usual. Or maybe it was because I knew with all the building frustrations of the day and my typical incapability to handle even ordinary frustrations, this sudden joy couldn’t be from me.

After all, strangers do smile back from time to time. I notice it pretty frequently, too. Even muse on the interaction later, and smile to myself.

But today…it really did feel like a gift. Like there was something bright and beautiful that was hidden all along in the gloomy day, and this was my Savior’s reminder that all the painstaking frustrations and mismatching logistics in the world can’t dim that light.

God is good. So good. And just you wait, because He shows it.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

-John 1:5 (ESV)

He Gives Strength

I’ve been reflecting on strength a lot lately. How far away it feels, how vital it seems, what a blessing it is, and how everyone seems to aspire to it in some way or form.

But God truly does give us what we need…abundantly, graciously, more than we could ask or think, yet sometimes not how we expect.

“And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

-Philippians 4:19 (ESV)

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us…”

-Ephesians 3:20 (ESV)

“For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

-Isaiah 55:9 (ESV)

Sometimes we ask for rest…and instead, we are simply given the grace and strength to take one more step forward. Sometimes we would push forward on our own, in our own strength, and He asks us to wait and rest in His promise to give us what we need for what He calls us to.

It’s funny how we all have this idea of what it’s like to be strong…and what kind we want, what way is best, what’s really strength. We think of athletes, winning the competition. We think of soldiers and captains pressing on, leaning on their training, and winning the battle, the war, the victory.

I’ve been contemplating a different idea of strength. What if…what if strength can sometimes be the losing soldier? Not the one that won the first round, effortless because of their strength, but the one that lost…over and over and over, but keeps fighting because no matter how ill-equipped they feel, they have to keep fighting? In other words…perhaps the soldier who can endure loss after loss and keep fighting, weak or not, is just as much an example of strength as the soldier who won effortlessly.

The soldier who wins effortlessly may be the stronger soldier in all appearances, but what if the soldier who’s barely holding on is fighting the harder battle? What if it takes more strength to be the underdog? Isn’t that why we cheer when the underdog does win?

I think internal or spiritual or mental strength can be hard to conceptualize…physical strength is easier to measure. It gets more complicated when you add God in the equation. Because then…everything’s turned on its head. Because those of us with absolutely no strength by any standard, those of us trapped in our weakness, outward or inward, are suddenly entrusted by God to display His glory, strength in our weakness.

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

–1 Corinthians 1:25 (ESV)

“For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”

– 2 Corinthians 12:10 (ESV)

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.“

-2 Corinthians 4:7 (ESV)

“And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith…were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight.”

-Hebrews 11:32, 33a, 34 (ESV)

So then…it starts to not to matter who wins in this world since our weakness is the perfect ground for His strength to show up and be displayed through us or despite us.

His strength through us really does look different. It’s when no one sees that His strength in us really matters. It’s in the dark, quiet moments when you whisper the only truths you can think to think and hold on with every ounce of strength He provides. It’s one more step when one tiny step seems too pathetic of a thing to call strength. It’s calling out when there’s nothing left, and it’s only His might holding you together.

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

-Ephesians 6:10-12 (ESV)

So yes, beloved of God, He gives us strength. What we need, beyond what we know we need, not always as we think we want or in our own timing, but to whosoever cries out for it, this Almighty God, The Lord of Hosts, He indeed gives us strength.

“Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
    his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
    and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary,
    and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength;
    they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary;
    they shall walk and not faint.”

-Isaiah 40:28-31 (ESV)

Snow Falls, Time Flies

A few mornings ago I woke up with the sun, ready to get my day started and was greeted by a very white, beautiful, and relatively impassible landscape. Since then I’ve been somehow simultaneously taking a break from and being buried by school. Snow is very hard for me to resist and since it’s been hard for me to take any break lately with how intense school has been, it was nice to unwind for at least a few hours and have real, honest-to-goodness fun.

I happened to check my notifications on WordPress today and was greeted by the message below:

What? How has it been five years? That flew by quickly to say the least.

While I sit here and stare perplexed at that very large and odd number, enjoy the pictures of the snow and ice below.

“But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,
    slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.”

-Psalm 86:15 (ESV)

“The heavens declare the glory of God,
    and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
    and night to night reveals knowledge.”

-Psalm 19:1-2 (ESV)