Stretch Marks, by Kimberly Stuart from David C. Cook on Vimeo.

THE GREAT CHRISTMAS BOWL
by Susan May Warren

Marianne Wallace has always celebrated Christmas with her family gathered around her. It was the big deal of the year with lots of family traditions and togetherness. Marianne was just as determined to make this year rival the other years. After all, her youngest child, Kevin, was a star football player, and since her family wouldn’t make it home for Thanksgiving, she would go all out for Christmas. But things have a way of changing. A heart attack leaves the school mascot grounded, and Marianne steps in to fill in the need. Then she somehow finds herself on the church hospitality committee in charge of planning the Christmas tea, a tea she doesn’t even attend! And one by one, all Marianne’s plans come unraveled, leaving a Christmas that will change the Wallace family—and the community—forever.

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Jim, describe yourself for our visitors.

I am 50 years old.  For the last 20 years, I have lived my life as a blind person.  I’m a former national champion Olympic weightlifter, and I am president of the Emmy Award-winning Narrative Television Network which produces accessible broadcast and cable programming for the 13 million blind and visually impaired Americans and their families.  I have written 12 books.  One of them, The Ultimate Gift, was made into a major motion picture by 20^th Century Fox, and several other titles are in development for television projects or films.

How do you find time to connect with God?

I am learning more as life progresses to do as Paul said when he stated that we should “pray without ceasing.”  While I have my quiet time each morning, the boundary between my personal devotion and my daily life has diminished to a point where I hope I live my life as I pray, and I pray as I live my life.

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WHO DO I TALK TO?
by Neta Jackson

Gabby Fairbanks isn’t real sure where to turn when she returns home from resigning her job, at her husband’s request, to find out that her husband has changed the lock on the apartment, put her and her mother’s belongings outside, and took her boys off to parts unknown. Gabby is a basket case, and with no where to turn, she goes back to the homeless shelter where she used to work, but this time as a resident.

The next morning, Gabby meets with her former boss, who graciously helps Gabby out by giving her back her job and a game plan to follow to start getting her life back into order. Under her boss’s directive, Gabby visits a lawyer to see if she can get her boys back. The lawyer does much more than that, he helps Gabby to come up with a bit more of a game plan to make her case more appealing to the courts.  Like first, she’ll have to find someplace to live. No court will look favorably on a homeless person.

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JUST BETWEEN YOU AND ME
by Jenny B. Jones

Maggie Montgomery inherited her wanderlust from her mother. When she graduated from high school she packed her bags and didn’t look back. With her job as a cinematographer, she travels all over the world, but nothing would make her go home to Ivy, Texas.

Nothing, that is, except her sister.

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Designer Women
by Ruth Tuttle Conard

Ten different attributes women are designed to be are discussed in view of ten different women (groups of women) from the Bible. The author chose five from the Old Testament and five from the New Testament.
The main problem is there aren’t very many passages about any of these women. The author takes what little there is and then imposes what she thinks each woman would do in a given situation and then discusses how women were designed to do that. There are times when she really stretches it and has no basis in Scripture for most of what she says.

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What’s a Mother (in-law) To Do?
by Jane Angelich

There’s a big difference between the mother of the bride and the mother of the groom. This book is written from the perspective of the mother of the groom, trying to do what she can to develop a good relationship with her new daughter-in-law.

The author starts the book describing how she herself became a mother-in-law and the relationship she had with her own mother-in-law.
She then goes on to establish five different steps that she found helpful to develop a relationship with her daughter-in-law. The steps that she’s developed are "Hold Your Tongue," "Embrace Her!" "Keep Out," "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell," and "Be a Role Model." She then ends by encouraging her readers. She knows that building a relationship takes time so encourages her readers not to get discouraged.

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Treasure Under Finny’s Nose
by Dana Mentink

The first thing I noticed about the book was it’s size. It’s smaller than a lot of books which means the author has less time to develop the characters. The author packs a lot into this book. The heroine, Ruth, is an older woman who’s trying to deal with the fact that although her son has moved out to start a family, she’s in the "family way" again herself. The father is her second husband. She’d lost her first husband a while before. Monk is thrilled with the idea of starting a family.

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RAISING GODLY CHILDREN IN AN UNGODLY WORLD
by Ken Ham and Steve Ham

Ken and Steve Ham are siblings raised by a educator/missionary father in Queensland, Australia, a far from Christian environment. However, their parents were so on fire for the Lord, that Ken and Steve couldn’t help but soak up some of their teaching, even though they are first to admit that their parents were far from perfect.

Now, both Ken and Steve are parents of grown children, and grandparents to a whole new generation of Hams. And they feel they’ve learned something about raising children that love the Lord. Now the United States is extremely hostile toward Christian values, and parents are searching for answers and strategies to be more effective. Young people are leaving the church in droves, and parents want their children to have a strong biblical faith and understanding.

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