Review- Jesus Lives

Jesus Lives by Sarah Young is such a pretty book. It is compact and what I would call a "soft" hard cover. The first few pages of the book offers a guide to the themes of Jesus Lives. The themes include peace, adversity, fear, worship, and 42 others for a total of 46 different themes. All total, there is a year worth of devotionals.

The author offers at least 3 scriptural references for each devotion. The devotions are written as if Jesus himself is talking to the reader. The devotions are easy to read, thoughtful, and encouraging. I really enjoy this book and find the guide especially useful for finding devotions for topics that I might currently be dealing with.

Review-The Language of Love and Respect

The Language of Love and Respect-Cracking the Communication Code with Your Mate by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs

The Language of Love and Respect - Cracking the Communication Code with Your Mate is a follow up to his successful book and conference series entitled “Love and Respect” which is based on Ephesians 5:33 which states “However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.” Having attended the conference and read the first book I had a basic understanding before starting the book. But for anyone who has not read the previous book or attended the conference, there is a review at the beginning of this book. As a whole, I found the book to be “wordy” and long. There were many examples which were helpful but I felt that some of the examples could be considered petty or mild. Couples with more severe issues would not necessarily benefit from the examples that were used.

The positives of the book are many. There were scripture references throughout with side boxes that drew your attention to key verses. Eggerichs uses many acronyms to help couples remember the steps in communicating with your spouse such as COUPLE (Closeness, Openness, Understanding, Peacemaking, Loyalty, Esteem) and CHAIRS (Conquest, Hierarchy, Authority, Insight, Relationship, Sexuality). The book also goes through the 3 cycles of a marriage, The Energizing Cycle, the Crazy Cycle, and the Reward Cycle.

The book does a good job of explaining how men and women are not wrong, just different. We are basically pink and blue. But if we apply biblical principles, we blend those colors to become purple, the color of royalty, the color of God. In essence, we have a marriage that God is pleased with. I was most impressed with the chapter on forgiveness as well as the sample prayers that readers can use to ask God to help them through this journey.

All-in-all I liked the book but I do feel that it could have been condensed. I believe the book would be an asset to any marriages’ library.

Review- Redefining Beautiful

Redefining Beautiful by Jenna Lucado

The book Redefining Beautiful helps young girls understand that “…your life becomes more beautiful when you know what God sees when God sees you.” (page 212). This book does an incredible job of talking to adolescent girls in a way that they would understand. It is clear, concise, and empowering. The book provides areas to write in your own insight and even a place to write down your story, in an effort to understand yourself better.

Jenna provides beauty tips throughout, from using Vaseline, not forgetting to take off your slippers when leaving to house, and how to embrace your weirdness.
The book also provides segments throughout called “Notes from Max”. These are great side bars by Jenna’s dad, and well known author, Max Lucado. The notes add another dimension to the book and great scriptural commentary.

Girls explore how our earthly dad influences our lives, who we are, how we look at ourselves, at others, and even how we look at God.

I was impressed with the culturally relevant message that Jenna delivers, while using scripture and sound doctrine to back it up. Jenna wants girls to know that they are strong, confident, worthwhile, and priceless. A message that every girl deserves to hear.