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Merry Christmas from Christian Bookworm Reviews & Podcast

editor — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 22:25:59 +0000

We will be updating our book review section for the rest of the year and preparing to bring you more interviews and podcast features from your favorite Christian authors in 2010.

Have a Merry Christmas and Joyous New Year!

12 Pearls of Christmas: Just God

editor — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:59:00 +0000

A Tangible Reminder
by Mary Byers

Last year I read Me, Myself, & Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables by Phil Vischer, creator of the Veggie Tales video series. I was interested because my children grew up on Veggie Tales. But I was also interested because somewhere along the way I noticed Phil Vischer was no longer with Big Idea, the company he founded. I knew there must be a story there, so I picked up the book.

Though millions of children can sing the Veggie Tales theme song, Big Idea no longer exists. After expanding too quickly, the company was forced into bankruptcy. Vischer writes about the experience in his book, which is part memoir and part business tutorial. And it’s a touching example of how one man encountered grit and allowed it to be turned into grace.

At the end of the book, Vischer outlines the lessons he learned from the rise and fall of Big Idea. In part, he shares, "I was ready to be done, if that’s what God wanted. To just rest in him and let everything else fall away. At long last, after a lifetime of striving, God was enough. Not God and impact or God and ministry. Just God."

His words convicted me. As an author and speaker, I realized that I’m often more focused on my deadlines or my next speaking engagement than I am on God. I have it backwards. God first, then everything else will fall into place.

It’s a powerful message for us as women, too. When we focus on God first, we’ll have everything we need to handle whatever is happening in our families and our lives. As Vischer reminds us, God is enough. As we approach Christmas, I’m reminded that this is the time when God shared his Son with us-a tangible reminder of his love for us. And a reminder that when we have him, we have everything we need.

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Mary Byers is the author of Making Work at Home Work: Successfully Growing a Business and a Family Under One Roof. She offers advice and encouragement for moms work from home for profit at www.makingworkathomework.com.

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A three strand pearl necklace will be given away on New Year’s Day. All you need to do to have a chance of winning is leave a comment here. Come back on New Year’s Day to see if you won!

12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info

BOOK REVIEW | The Christmas Glass

Laura — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:00:56 +0000

THE CHRISTMAS GLASS
by Marci Alborghetti

Anna’s mother gave Anna the box of Christmas glass for a wedding present. It was a box that her own mother had been given as a wedding present years earlier. But now, with the Nazi’s invading, and Jews in danger, Anna feels that the Christmas glass would be safer with her sister, Filomena, who lived in the southern tip of Italy, and was hoping to move to America. So, Anna ships the box of Christmas glass off to her cousin.

Years have passed. Now Filomena is old, and living in an assisted living apartment. But her family is pushing her into moving to “the dying place”, the part of the nursing home for those who need more long-term help. But Filomena is objecting. Unless her family agrees to come together one last Christmas…and bring the pieces of the Christmas glass together, which she had divided up between her daughters and friends of the family.

But Filomena’s twin daughters, Marie and Catharine haven’t spoken in years. Not since Marie’s husband died, and she got remarried to Catharine’s high school boyfriend. Catharine feels that Marie had betrayed her. But since Catharine had returned Daniel’s ring and married someone else, Marie didn’t feel she’d done anything wrong. How can Marie possibly honor her mother’s wish and return home for Christmas when Catharine would be there? If she does go, will it be a wondrous reunion, or a disaster that would shatter them all?

THE CHRISTMAS GLASS is the first book I’ve read by this author. Beautifully published, in hard cover, this book would be excellent for gift giving this holiday season. However, the story is rather slow, and it takes some time to get into. I never did grow to care about the characters, and I couldn’t understand some of the mindsets some of the members possessed.

Filomena is a very strong willed, bitter woman, and it seemed as if her daughter, Catharine, was the same way. Marie fled as far from her family as she possibly could, going from Connecticut to California, both to be near her son, and to marry her second husband, but it also fueled the distance between the sisters.

THE CHRISTMAS GLASS is a story about a family trying to heal the fractures that occurred over time, fractures that have healed and scarred, and may not be able to ever be properly healed. Still, it is a Christmas story that will stay with the reader that stays with the book. $15.99 hardcover, 304 pages.

BOOK REVIEW | Christmas Miracles

Laura — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 01:13:45 +0000

CHRISTMAS MIRACLES
by Cecil Murphey & Marley Gibson

CHRISTMAS MIRACLES is a collection of many short stories, all of them true, that the authors consider miracles, and all of which happen around Christmas time. In this book, the authors show how miracles can happen to real people during the Christmas season, people who have overcome desperate situations through a miraculous twist of fate.

For instance …a young boy sits down to read a book and discovers that his learning disability has vanished. .. a woman stranded in a blizzard is rescued by a mysterious stranger she believes is an angel … a couple traveling during the holidays have their tire changed by strangers they believe are angels.

I could really relate to a few of the stories. We had “angels” appear and help us – when we had car trouble on a trip, people just appeared after we prayed who had everything we needed – this happened to us twice. I truly believe that God sent Angels to us these occasions, though I know many are skeptical.

CHRISTMAS MIRACLES is a book that anyone would enjoy getting for Christmas. This is a book full of hope, happiness, and holiday cheer. An excellent gift for anyone this season. $14.99. 256 pages.

12 Pearls of Christmas: Home

editor — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 00:56:11 +0000

COMING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
by Virelle Kidder

My mother had remarkable zeal for Christmas. Weeks in advance, she would come home from teaching school and bake late into the night. I helped clean the house and decorate the tree while my older brother Roger wired the house with Christmas lights, transforming our humble red house into a place of magical beauty. Following the church candlelight service, a crowd of happy people crunched through the snow to our house for cocoa and cookies.

We were, like many, quite alone in the years after my father left. Our Christmas open house was my mother’s supreme effort to make us feel complete. It almost worked.

Despite years in church and Sunday school, God was more a distant relative I wished I knew. I grew up with a gnawing sense of incompleteness, and longed to find meaning and purpose in life. Strangely, it was shortly before Christmas years later that it found me.
My husband Steve was fully absorbed with his new job at Johns Hopkins University, and I was home with a two year old. We wanted friends, but were both hesitant when Steve’s officemate his wife invited us to attend their church. We had nothing in common with “religious types,” but Steve said, “Let’s be nice and go just once.”

Sitting in church that Sunday, my temples pounded. Hymns and Scripture verses long ago ignored called to me from my childhood. Could others tell I didn’t belong here? Oddly, I felt jealous of their peace. They looked happy.

First thing Monday morning I began tearing through the unpacked boxes in our basement. At last, I found my mildewed Bible from fifth grade. I resolved to read it cover to cover. I opened to Genesis, chapter 1. Same old story; I’ve heard this a hundred times, and quickly slammed it shut.

No one told me God could hear my thoughts. A soft Voice whispered, Why not read as if it were true? I opened my Bible again. Suddenly I was listening to the most interesting person I had ever heard. By afternoon I was still reading in my pajamas. I couldn’t stop.

I read for weeks until one day, a picture popped in my mind of a beautiful old house with wide porches, brightly lit at night. Music, laughter and lively conversation carried onto the porch where I stood in the dark, peeking in. I saw a feast and a fire on the hearth, much like the Christmas open houses from my childhood, with one important difference. There was a Father here whose face mirrored love and warmth at His children’s presence. This was God’s family, and I desperately wanted to be inside. But how?

A voice taunted, Why would God want you? You don’t fit in this crowd! It was true. I considered giving up. Instead, I marched upstairs to our bedroom, knelt down and prayed out loud, “Lord, help me find the way! Please don’t let me go!”

Verses I’d read made sense. Jesus said, “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6)

Our friends explained that God already knew I was a hopeless mess and loved me anyway. Opening the door to Heaven was a gift that cost God everything. It was on the cross Jesus died to pay for my sins. He rose again to prove forever that He is the Truth. Weeping at such love, I knelt and gave Christ my life. I found that, with or without a happy family, no one is ever complete without Jesus.

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Virelle Kidder is a conference speaker and the author of six books and numerous articles whose passion is sharing the love of God with women around the world. For her latest books, please visit her at www.virellekidder.com and www.meetmeatthewell.fm

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A three strand pearl necklace will be given away on New Year’s Day. All you need to do to have a chance of winning is leave a comment here. Come back on New Year’s Day to see if you won!

12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info

12 Pearls of Christmas: Life Beautiful

editor — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 12:13:00 +0000

Life Beautiful
by Margaret McSweeney

During a quiet moment after Thanksgiving, I started reading my parents’ stack of love letters that I recently found in a storage box. As a Christmas gift to you, I would like to share my father’s words to my mother written to her during Christmas 1949. This incredible "hug from heaven" has been a tangible affirmation that Pearl Girls has true meaning and great worth for women throughout the world. I pray that God will continue to bless this ministry and outreach. May we all realize that the grit in our lives can be transformed into grace through the love of God.

This is what I found written on a tiny folded card inscribed with "Christmas Greetings" on the front:

Christmas 1949

My Dearest Carolyn,

Truly a jewel is a thing of beauty, but a life that is lived to serve others and to glorify our Christ, such as yours, is my dearest, a far surpassing gem in radiance and beauty.

Pearls to me, symbolize this "Life Beautiful" that you have achieved, Carolyn. Each pearl is a result of a great hurt to the oyster’s life. But the little mollusk builds an iridescent coat around this source of hurt, and as a result, the precious pearl comes into being. Life is like that too.

If we, like the pearl, can make of our hurts the basis of a thing of beauty, then we can bear witness to an on-looking world how Christians can overcome through Christ, blows that are seemingly insurmountable.

At this happiest season of the year, I give thanks to God for you, Carolyn – my Pearl of Great Price.

Your Claude

Isn’t this an amazing Christmas Pearl? I hope this message has touched your heart, too. Another Christmas gift I would like to share with you: My father’s lessons on leadership. These can be found on my guest blog post at Michael Hyatt’s website.

During this holiday season, decorate your life with Christmas Pearls — strands of God’s grace-reminders that nothing can separate us from his love, not even the grittiest of circumstances.

And please celebrate the "Pearls of Great Price" in your life through Post a Pearl It’s a fun and free gift that you can share with special people who have been a blessing to you over the years.

Merry Christmas!

Margaret McSweeney lives with her husband David and two teenage daughters in the Chicago suburbs. She’s the founder of Pearl Girls and a published author. Please visit www.pearlgirls.info for more info. You can also find Margaret at her writing blog, From Finance to Fiction or on Facebook and twitter.

A three strand pearl necklace will be given away on New Year’s Day. All you need to do to have a chance of winning is leave a comment here. Come back on New Year’s Day to see if you won!

12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info

12 Pearls of Christmas: Gifts of Purpose

editor — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 21:03:25 +0000

Too Precious to Wear
by Sarah Sundin

One Christmas when my mother was a girl, she received a string of pearls from her father. Since her parents were divorced-an unusual situation in the 1950s-she treasured the pearls as a sign of her father’s love. When he passed away her senior year in high school, the pearls took on even greater significance.

When I was growing up, my mother talked often about the pearls, but my sister and I never saw them. Mom kept them safe in their silk-lined velvet box tucked in her jewelry box. For dressy occasions, she wore other nice jewelry, but never the pearls.

The pearls were too precious to wear.

What if the strand broke and even a single pearl was lost? What if the clasp broke and she lost them forever? She couldn’t risk it. Better to keep them cocooned in silky security.

When my mother offered to let me wear her pearls on my wedding day, I was deeply touched. This was more than "something old" or "something borrowed," but a sign that she trusted me and loved me.

A few days before the wedding, my mother pulled the box from seclusion. My sister and I watched with curiosity and awe.

The pearls had turned a deep grayish-yellow, they were flaking, and some had fallen apart.

They were fake.

For over thirty years, my mother nurtured a piece of costume jewelry. All that time she could have worn them and enjoyed them without worry. Her father gave them to her for a purpose-to wear them and feel lovely and ladylike and special. He didn’t mean for her to hide them away.

On our wedding day, my husband gave me a strand of real pearls. They symbolize my husband’s sacrificial love for me-they were expensive for a graduate student with half-Scottish blood.

I vowed never to tuck them away but to wear them often. Yes, I’m careful. I inspect the cord and knots and clasp, and I plan to have them restrung when necessary. But I wear them and enjoy them. That’s why my husband gave them to me.

Our heavenly Father gives us gifts too-brilliant and costly. We should cherish them, but we should use them. Whether our individual gifts involve serving, teaching, encouragement, evangelism, or even money-they have a purpose. The Lord wants us to use our gifts to bless others and to spread the message of His love.

While pearls make women look lovely, using our God-given gifts for His kingdom makes us even lovelier. And just as pearls grow more lustrous with frequent wear, our gifts from God grow in beauty and strength the more we use them.

This Christmas I plan to wear my string of pearls, a sign of my husband’s love-and to display my pearls from heaven, a sign of my Father’s love.

Have a lustrous Christmas!

Sarah Sundin lives in northern California with her husband and three children. She works on-call as a hospital pharmacist. Her first novel, A Distant Melody, historical fiction set during World War II, will be published by Revell in March 2010. Please visit her at http://www.sarahsundin.com or her blog or find her on Facebook.

A three strand pearl necklace will be given away on New Year’s Day. All you need to do to have a chance of winning is leave a comment here. Come back on New Year’s Day to see if you won!

12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info

BOOK REVIEW | Engaging Father Christmas

Laura — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 15:04:13 +0000

ENGAGING FATHER CHRISTMAS
by Robin Jones Gunn

Miranda Carson has just returned to England to spend Christmas with her Scottish boyfriend, Ian, and his family, who manages a tea shop in a small town in the English country-side. But Ian is running late meeting Miranda at the airport, and the first person Miranda sees is her former boyfriend, Josh. After a few minutes spent catching up, Josh goes his way, and Ian arrives, whisking Miranda off to…the hospital, where his dad had just been admitted with a heart attack.

While visiting with Ian’s mother in the tea shop, Miranda’s deceased father’s wife shows up, and Miranda spends a few minutes talking with her, hoping that the family matriarch will make her welcome. But Margaret is as cold and stand-offish as ever, making Miranda wonder if she will ever truly be welcomed as her father’s daughter, a member of the family. Still, her brother Edward does extend some effort, and Miranda loves Edward’s two children, Julia and Mark.

But, as Miranda searches for love and acceptance, a family to belong to, she finds some more in the arms of Father Christmas.

In this long awaited sequel to Finding Father Christmas we see Miranda returning to England. I enjoyed the way this novella played out, revising the charming people and country I encountered in the first book and getting to know the characters in a slightly deeper level. Miranda has changed a lot in the two books, becoming more open to love, and not as skittish. I enjoyed seeing her transformation.

Don’t miss this charming Christmas novella, and even though I read the book in July, that doesn’t mean you have to! Christmas will be coming very soon, and this will be a book to look for when they start stocking Christmas novellas in November. If you pick up Finding Father Christmas and ENGAGING FATHER CHRISTMAS the dual will make a charming gift for someone, especially if you include a pack of their favorite English tea.

$13.99, hardcover. 159 pages.

BOOK REVIEW | One Perfect Day

Laura — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:05:31 +0000

ONE PERFECT DAY
by Lauraine Snelling

One Perfect Day. One Perfect Christmas. And that is what Nora Peterson is aiming toward. Next year, her two twin teenagers will be off at college and she wants this holiday to be one to remember. If only her husband would cooperate. But Gordon is delayed on a business trip overseas, and all the preparations are left to Nora. Of course.

Jenna Montgomery is used to handling the fast, frantic pace of the emergency room, but she still can’t come to grasps that her daughter needs a heart transplant, or she will die. Now this possibly might be Heather’s last Christmas, unless they get a miracle. A miracle she is desperately praying for.

Christmas eve…and Jenna gets her miracle. But for the miracle to occur, then someone has to die. And when Nora gets the news that shatters her life, then somehow she must struggle on. Is there any such thing as ONE PERFECT DAY?

ONE PERFECT DAY is definitely a book to read with a box of tissues by your side. No one truly understands what it is like to lose a child until they have gone through it. And no one can truly know what it is like to be on the waiting end for a transplant unless they have been there. Somehow, Ms. Snelling has managed to pull all the emotions from both ends of the spectrum together so the reader can identify and relate to both Nora and Jenna.

ONE PERFECT DAY is a Christmas story which I think is actually better read in June than in December. It is not a story of peace and good-will, but instead a story about depression. Grief. And miracles. Miracles that sometimes are not exactly easy to receive.

Don’t miss ONE PERFECT DAY. If you know anyone who has lost a child, or been on a waiting list for a transplant, (and who hasn’t known one or the other?) then ONE PERFECT DAY is a must read. And this is a gentle reminder that everyone needs to mark the place on their driver’s license to be an organ donator. Discussion questions are included at the end. $13.99. 303 pages.

Reviewed by Laura Hilton

ChristianBookwormReviews.com » Christmas

Merry Christmas from Christian Bookworm Reviews & Podcast

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