Take This Cup by Bodie & Brock Thoene

Take This Cup by Bodie & Brock Thoene is a gripping tale of the adventure of a young boy named Nehemiah who is given the task of carrying a sacred cup to Jerusalem.  It begins with his life in a shepherd camp in what used to be Eden and ends with the Last Supper.  Part legend of the Holy Grail, part coming-of-age and woven throughout with rich symbolism and memorable characters, this book is gripping.


This book is a continuation of the Jerusalem Chronicles series (the second book in the set).  Even though I didn't read the first book, I had no trouble jumping right into this book.  I feel it can easily stand on its own.  I have read many of the Thoene's books and even recognized characters from some of their other stories. 


One of my favorite things about the stories the Thoene's write, including this one, is how they take scenes and characters from the Bible and expand them to include details not given in the text.  They bring them to life in a way that is consistent with the Scripture and teaches while it entertains.  Whenever I read one of these stories, I feel like the Bible is brought to life and I want to go back to it and read the stories again. 


This is an excellent book and I highly recommend it.

Let There Be Light by Archbishop Desmond Tutu

I have two preschool-aged children, so when I saw the beautiful cover of Let There Be Light by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and illustrated by Nancy Tillman, I couldn't resist it (for their sake as well as my own).  The book did not disappoint.


This is a beautifully illustrated picture book for children telling the story of creation through its whimsical and almost magical illustrations.  The colors are vibrant and the text on each page is short, which allows the children to really enjoy the pictures.  The story chronicles Genesis 1 fairly accurately, with the artist's illustrations perhaps a bit simplistic, but beautiful nonetheless.  My children truly enjoyed looking at the pictures.


The only fault I could find with the book was that instead of Adam and Eve on the sixth day, just "people" were created and the illustration shows a group of children.  This is not scriptural but rather a generalization and I don't really have a problem with it, as my children have heard the story of Adam and Eve being the first people created but it is a variation from the Scripture. 


Our family enjoyed this story and I imagine most families would.  It would also make a wonderful gift for a new baby as it is absolutely beautifully illustrated.

The Sinners' Garden by William Sirls

I enjoyed reading The Reason, William Sirls' first novel and so I quickly snatched this book up.  Another story that requires the reader to think outside the box and make allowances for the supernatural, The Sinners' Garden, does not disappoint those looking for an unusual story and weaves another story of redemption, love and lessons learned.


In the small town of Benning Township, mysterious happenings bring about reconciliation and healing in the lives of those who have believed lies and wrestled with questions about their respective pasts.  A benevolent stranger dressed in black has been leaving gifts in the night, a supernatural garden grows near an abandoned factory and the mystery of a past murder begins to unravel all while the characters face unanswered questions they have been dealing with for years.  A police officer doubting her ability to confront evil, a past drug-dealer looking for redemption, a teenager dealing with the disfiguring burn from his childhood, a wise pastor and a mother who blames herself for the growing distance between her and her son all come together as they learn lessons of God's love and forgiveness.


While I did not find this book to be quite as suspenseful or thrilling as The Reason, I again enjoyed Sirls' ability to develop characters and make them believable and I also loved his ability to bring about a plot twist right at the end.  A thoroughly enjoyable read!

Tenacious by Jeremy and Jennifer Williams with Rob Suggs

I couldn't quite fit the entire title and author line on my blog post title:  Tenacious: How God Used a Terminal Diagnosis to Turn a Family and a Football Team Into Champions by Jeremy and Jennifer Williams with Rob Suggs.  But despite the length of the title, it is apt and appropriate. 

The book opens with the story of the Williams family's experience with the TV reality show Extreme Makeover:  Home Edition and then backtracks and tells the tale of how they got to the point where they were shouting "MOVE THAT BUS!" with their friends, family and neighbors tearfully watching.  Not being much of a TV watcher or sports fanatic, I had not heard of the Williams family but I was fascinated by their story.

They are ordinary people who have chosen to follow Christ and make that part of their every day lives, whether that is coaching high school football, dealing with a child with special needs or receiving a devastating diagnosis of ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) at a fairly young age.  The theme of the book is a tenacious faith in God and a tenacious approach to living life like you mean it.

I enjoyed the story quite a bit, but then I always love memoirs.  I did find the writing style at times to be a bit "preachy" but from what I gleaned from the book every bit of "preaching" comes from genuine faith so it is hard to fault that much.  I thought the book was a very uplifting and positive story, despite the difficult challenges that the authors face.  I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a feel-good encouraging story about facing tough times with a good attitude.

A Walk Through the Dark: How My Husband's 90 Minutes in Heaven Deepened My Faith for a Lifetime by Eva Piper

With one of the longest subtitles ever, A Walk Through the Dark:  How My Husband's 90 Minutes in Heaven Deepened My Faith for a Lifetime by Eva Piper gives us the other side of the story to the popular book 90 Minutes in Heaven by her husband, Don Piper.

Told by Eva with the help of Cecil Murphey (who also co-wrote Don Piper's book), this book chronicles Eva's experience of hearing about Don's terrible car accident, his recovery process and eventually the story of how he died and went to heaven and was "prayed back" to earth.  It tells of her personal struggles, what she felt and how she responded to having a husband who was severely injured and underwent a lengthy and painful recovery.

I enjoyed the first part of the book, where it tells of how Eva found out about the car accident and her experiences watching Don struggle.  I found it to be a good look into what spouses and caregivers of those severely injured go through and I haven't found that to be a popular perspective in memoirs.  Typically memoirs are about the injured person, not those who have to watch and support the recovery without actually having any control. 

However, I thought that Eva did a bit too much defending of her choices and decisions.  The second half of the book felt a bit defensive at times and a bit preachy too.  I come from a church background so the vernacular was familiar to me, but at times it seemed a bit too Christian cliché for my taste.  However, I have never undergone a similar situation and I am not faulting her responses or emotions at all, just the style in which the book was written.  She is brave to tell her story and I have to give her that.  It just wasn't my favorite style of memoir writing.

All in all, this book was a good companion book to 90 Minutes in Heaven and I think would be a good read for anyone who has been a caregiver for someone with a life-threatening and lengthy illness.

Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir...Of Sorts by Ian Morgan Cron

After reading Chasing Francis by Cron, I was interested in picking up his memoir, Jesus, My Father, the CIA and Me: A Memoir...Of Sorts.  I wanted to learn more about the man who came up with the story behind Chasing Francis and of course, I'm always a sucker for memoirs.

I found this book to be easy to read as it chronicled Cron's childhood growing up with an alcoholic father.  The majority of the book covered Cron's school years and the significant life events and interactions that shaped him, particularly those with his father and how they affected him as he grew up.  Cron writes with a sense of humor, and I often found myself chuckling out loud.  The humor wove its way around the painful incidents of his childhood and helped the memoir from being overly sad or dark.

My only criticism was that there was a part of the book that didn't seem to flow chronologically.  At the end of one chapter, Cron is floundering a bit as a college student.  In the next chapter, his dad dies, he finishes college and gets married.  I had to flip back through to see if I had missed something.  Maybe the author intended to use it to get across the abruptness and chaos that his father's death brought to his life or maybe it just needed a little more in the way of details to make it flow better.  It also seemed to jump whole periods of his life towards the end of the book, as if he was trying to finish it in a certain number of pages, after spending a lot of time and detail on his childhood.  And even though the title has CIA in it, the CIA was really just a very small part of the book.

Other than that, I really enjoyed the book and also the way he explained his search for his father's love as being integral to almost everything else in his life.  I liked his writing style and would definitely recommend the book.

Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim's Tale by Ian Morgan Cron

Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim's Tale by Ian Morgan Cron is part fiction, part non-fiction, a genre called wisdom literature according to the author's notes.  The story follows the crisis of faith of a contemporary pastor and his discovery of a new way of living a spiritual life focused more on Christ than religion. 

The author provides a lot of historical information and deeper thoughts about the life of St. Francis in the context of Pastor Chase Falson's search for true faith.  This nonfiction information is nicely balanced by the fictional character development and plot.  A book more about thoughts and feelings than actions, the reader is drawn to think more about what it means to be a Christian in the postmodern world and what the church should look like.  The example of St. Francis's life is used to introduce themes about faith, art, embracing culture, service and love in the context of the contemporary church.  There is also a lengthy section in the back of the book with more information and lots of discussion questions, should you want to read the book with others.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit.  I didn't know anything about St. Francis before reading and I found him to be an intriguing historical figure.  I would never have picked up a nonfiction book about him or about the subjects/ideas introduced in this book so this was a good chance to learn and be prodded to think, yet have the framework of a fictional character's pilgrimage to hold up the ideas and demonstrate them.  I think many of the questions brought up in this book about faith and church in the postmodern world will continue to be hot topics of discussion in the years to come and this book does a great job of introducing them.