Book review break down!

A few weeks ago I found a wonderful blog thats sole purpose was to review children's books and post the reviews for moms to read. I love it! You can visit "The Book Guardians" by clicking here. They have inspired me to include a breakdown list of every book that I review. My list is not just like theirs, because they wish to be original, and I totally respect that. But I thought I would share with you what I came up with.

I will have a slightly different version of the layout for Children's books than I do for the other books that I read. Here is the Children's breakdown list, including descriptions for what each one is going to be:

Children’s books:
Worldview: Does the book portrait a Biblical worldview or a secular world view?
Target Audience: What age level and who this book would be best for (boys, girls, potty training…)
Positive or Negative Message: Self explanatory…
Educational Value: What does this book teach?
Adult Content: Sexual innuendos/advances or mature (or rather immature) jokes…
Rude or Inappropriate Language: Self explanatory…
Disrespect or Rebellion: Self explanatory…
Drug or Alcohol Use: Self explanatory…
Violent Content: Self explanatory…
Christian Content: Self explanatory…
Incorrect Biblical Facts: Self explanatory…
Negative Spiritual Elements: Anything that goes against what the Bible says (including but not limited to other religions, witchcraft, and magic)

Here is a copy of the adult non-fiction breakdown. Since I already described most of the points, I am going to fill this one in with my review of "The Gospel According to Jesus" by Chris Seay:

Adult Non-fiction Books: The Gospel According to Chris Seay I mean Jesus...
*Worldview: Secular
*Target Audience: Christians who surround themselves with pop-culture.
*Positive Elements: Chris Seay has some amazing ideas and supports them with Scripture, he just took them all to unbiblical extremes.
*Inappropriate Language: In one of the interviews between the chapters the guy being interviewed uses the word "crap" which to me is inappropriate. It was used in the sentence "they need to get their crap together." but I still think there were other words that could have been used...
*Unbiblical Content: He twists a few Scriptures to make them say things that they don't really mean. While he never used the word this book taught Christians to believe in karma (this also was supported by scripture... but is still very, very wrong!)
*Other Negative Elements: He wrote his own ten commandments!!! Seriously! AHHHH!!!! I will never get over that!

So there you have my book review breakdown lists. I would love your feed back!

Meeting Shelley

I have mentioned before that I volunteer writing devotions for teen girls for the website FindYourTrueBeauty.com. The author of this website is Shelley Hitz, she is an amazing Christian woman, and today I was blessed with the opportunity to meet her. Her and her husband, C.J. are on a speaking trip, and happened to be near my home! We didn't realize this until this morning, but we went ahead and spontaneously got together. The kids were a little boisterous,but otherwise it couldn't have been better. We met at Panera bread, which was only 9 miles from my house. The kids all enjoyed drinking orange juice while Shelley and I had a chance to talk. It was wonderful to finally meet her. I'm glad we had the opportunity to get together!

Shelley and C.J. speak to teens around the country about the negative influences the media can have. Besides their speaking ministry and her website, Shelley is the author of the book "Mirror, Mirror Am I Beautiful?", as well as our devotional book "Teen Devotionals... For Girls!", and her and C.J. co-authored the book "The Mathematics of Jesus".





You can learn more about Shelley and C.J. Hitz by visiting their speaking website at: christian-speakers.org.

Writer's Workshop: If I could stop time...

If you could stop time for 24 hours, what would you accomplish?

If I could stop time for just 24 hours, including other people of course, I would accomplish tons of things! I would get some much needed cleaning done, along with some reading that I wanted to do. I would work on my writing and my Bible study. I would take a walk, a bath, and a nap... 24 hours of time, to get stuff done would be great! I can just picture it now, almost like a dream... By the end of the day I would feel like superwoman! Looking around at my clean house, feeling rested, and rejuvenated!

Thankful Thursday

On this Thankful Thursday I am Thankful for the book of Job. You see, we had a terrible thunderstorm last night, and while my two year olds joined us in our bed, our boys didn't. One of my favorite Bible passages is in the book of Job, and I have read it to them time and time again. So they know when they hear the thunder, they aren't frightened, but almost comforted by it.

I thought I would take a moment to share it with you today. Starting in Job 36:27-37:14 (NIV):

"He draws up the drops of water, which distill as rain to the streams; the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind. Who can understand how he spreads out the clouds, how he thunders from his pavilion? See how he scatters his lightning about him, bathing the depths of the sea. This is the way he governs the nations and provides food in abundance. He fills his hands with lightning and commands it to strike its mark. His thunder announces the coming storm; even the cattle make known its approach.

"At this my heart pounds and leaps from its place. Listen! Listen to the roar of his voice, to the rumbling that comes from his mouth. He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven and sends it to the ends of the earth. After that comes the sound of his roar; he thunders with his majestic voice. When his voice resounds, he holds nothing back. God's voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. He says to the snow, 'Fall on the earth,' and to the rain shower, 'Be a mighty downpour.' So that all men he has made may know his work, he stops every man from his labor. The animals take cover; they remain in their dens. The tempest comes out from its chamber, the cold from the driving winds. The breath of God produces ice, and the broad waters become frozen. He loads the clouds with moisture; he scatters his lightning through them. At his direction they swirl around over the face of the whole earth to do whatever he commands them. He brings the clouds to punish men, or to water his earth and show his love. "Listen to this, Job; stop and consider God's wonders.

I am so thankful that my kids know that they don't have to be scared of thunder and lightning. I am so thankful for this passage in the Bible. I love reading it, and I love sharing it's beauty with others!

To read other thankful Thursday posts check out this month's host, Lynn's blog by clicking here.

Patience

My kids watched the movie Fireproof tonight, it's one of the movies we own, and one of the songs stuck with me. In our study of 1 Corinthians 13 we have come to verse 4 and are pondering on patience. So when I heard this song, it just stuck. I wanted to share it with you...



When God asks me to be patient do I respond with praise and worship? Not usually. I'm not usually peaceful when I'm faced with the unexpected, and in all honesty, I'm not always that hopeful or confident either... This song just sings patience to me, and it's something that I know that I need to pray about and just really think on for a while. I love God so much, but I don't respond to Him as if I loved Him at all...

Word-filled Wednesday!

Last Thursday I found out that there was a blog hop full of other wonderful ladies posting Word-filled Wednesday posts! How amazing!!!! God is soo good! To check out other Word-filled Wednesday posts, please click the button above :) And now, my Scripture for this week, followed by a song that I found that goes with it :)

Psalm 36:5 -- Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.

Thoughts on Halloween

It's October, that means that there is tons of talk of Halloween everywhere we turn. Last year was the first year that I realized that origins of Halloween and even dreamed that there was something wrong with celebrating it. I was so thankful that my husband had to work and I was allowed to stay home with my children. We passed out bags of candy with Scriptures taped to them, and in each bag was a thank-you card for the children to color and give to the adult that took them trick-or-treating. This year, my husband does not have to work. He would like to take the boys out, and sees trick-or-treating as harmless. I don't know what to think. I will not be going, I believe it is wrong, I would rather that we all stayed home and blessed others together. But he is the head of our home and I do not believe it is worth an argument...

Last year around this time was also when I first began to have the desire to homeschool our children. The public school that they were attending couldn't celebrate Halloween because it violated some peoples religion, and I was thankful for that, until they said that instead they would be celebrating the Day of the Dead... I was not okay with that! I spoke with the teacher and she assured me that they were just watching a presentation, but in the end they did a bone dance accompanied by a chant...

If any of you don't know that history behind Halloween, I encourage you to look it up. However, there is a TON of history there. The supposed Christian roots of Halloween would be All Saints Day, but even that isn't biblical. It is a day that the Catholics pray for the dead Saints as they believe they are in purgatory. They also pray to them, asking them to intercede on their behalf. However, the Bible clearly states that there is only ONE mediator between God and man and that is Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). The Bible talks repeatedly about Christ interceding for us, but never asks us to pray to the dead asking them to intercede for us...

So I would like to ask you how your family handles Halloween. Do you trick-or-treat? Decorate? Discuss the history and talk about what is going on? I don't know what my children will be doing this year. Please pray that my husband and I get the opportunity to discuss it and I will be at peace no matter what the outcome.

The above picture was taken from this blog. It is accompanied by a great post about Halloween that I really recommend!