Serials and Scenarios~ More Books I'm Going to/Want to Read

Discover the Spirit-Driven Life

In his new book Unexplainable, Don Cousins (co-creator of the bestselling Network curriculum)teaches readers how to experience what only God can make possible in our lives.

What’s the real reason behind whatever we’ve accomplished in life—whatever we’ve been able to become and achieve and fulfill? Is it our own hard work, our own talents and abilities, our own perseverance? Or have things happened in and through our lives for which none of those factors can account? In Unexplainable: Pursuing a Life Only God Can Make Possible (David C Cook, September 2009), trusted author Don Cousins guides readers in how to experience lives of such remarkable quality and impact that people who watch them have to shake their heads and honestly say, “There’s really no explanation for it—except God!”

Cousins, co-creator of the Network curriculum, believes that this kind of living is impossible—until we bring God into the equation and “lifeshift” our values away from worldly standards to be more in sync with God’s initiatives. “We must discover and cultivate lives that can be explained only by God’s participation…so that He’s the only explanation for our lives,” says Cousins. “In Unexplainable I explore how we can attain the kind of lives where God Himself becomes the all-fulfilling dynamic behind our unshakable contentment, our profound significance and our abiding success.”

In Unexplainable, Cousins offers readers a systematic approach to changing the way they live as he guides them through “lifeshifts” for experiencing contentment, success and significance to a degree that’s beyond anything the world offers. Readers will learn the five secrets for finding contentment in life, regardless of their circumstances, and discover God’s criteria for measuring the success of their lives. They’ll also come to see that God has already given them all they need to make a difference in the world.

Intended to create a new movement among all those who call upon God to lead their lives, Unexplainable is a strong complement to Cousins’ previously released Experiencing LeaderShift products. The individual life-change encouraged by Unexplainable will fit hand-in-glove with the organizational change encouraged in Experiencing LeaderShift.

A small-group curriculum DVD for Unexplainable: Pursuing a Life Only God Can Make Possible has also been created to further explore the profound themes and insights found in Unexplainable. Giving the reader and small-group participant a great start in making strategic adjustments in their lives, each of the eight sessions focuses on a section of Unexplainable and offers practical ways to pursue the kind of life made possible only by God.

Unexplainable: Pursuing a Life Only God Can Make Possible
by Don Cousins
David C Cook/September 2009
ISBN: 978-1-4347-6805-6/softcover/256 pages/$16.99




Legendary Clarity
Acclaimed Pastor Brings Experience, Wisdom to Transformation Study Bible

Dallas/Fort Worth, TX—As pastors seek to make the Word of God more understandable in an age that is unfamiliar with the Bible, and as growing disciples seek to discover the truth of Scripture in a skeptical culture, there is a great need for guidance in both the preaching and study of God’s Word. Whether you’re a pastor, a seminary student, or a truth-seeking disciple, an understanding of the Bible can be made clear to you with the help of one of the most influential, in-depth, and practical Bible scholars in modern history.

For over thirty years, millions have come to rely on the timeless wisdom of Dr. Warren W. Wiersbe’s “Be” Commentary series. Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary and insights on Scripture have helped readers understand and apply God’s Word with the goal of life transformation. According to Dr. Wiersbe, “It isn’t enough for us simply to read assigned portions of the Bible each day, as helpful as that is. A truly transforming experience involves meditating on what we read (Ps. 1:2), studying it carefully in the light of other verses, and then obeying what God tells us to do (Josh. 1:8).” Now available for the first time, The Transformation Study Bible offers the full text of the highly readable New Living Translation with accompanying notes and commentary from the 50 books in Dr. Wiersbe’s “Be” series.

“The Transformation Study Bible will better enable readers to appreciate, appropriate, and apply the Word of God, which will result in ‘purity, joy, right values, hope, comfort, freedom, new life, peace, guidance, wisdom, integrity, encouragement, and effective prayer,’” states Wiersbe. In other words, if you want to be a new person, knowing and obeying the will of God and becoming more like Jesus Christ, there is perhaps no finer tool to encourage that process than The Transformation Study Bible.

One of the most anticipated and comprehensive study Bibles of the year, The Transformation Study Bible has been a lifetime in the making by a man who is widely known as a prolific and trusted writer and theologian. The former pastor of The Moody Church in Chicago, an internationally known Bible teacher, and someone who has given his life to a deep examination of the Word of God, Dr. Wiersbe lends his vast experience and scholarly insight to the most beloved and revered book of all time. This effort is to encourage believers of all levels to know and love the Bible and to experience the same transformation that has radically changed his life. The result is a Bible that is clear, understandable, and applicable to the lives of its readers.

Dr. Wiersbe writes, “The remedy for discouragement is the Word of God. When you feed your heart and mind with its truth, you regain your perspective and find renewed strength.” By providing a new set of tools for Bible students of all levels, David C Cook and Warren Wiersbe have partnered to provide an essential tool to help bring the “perspective” and “renewed strength” that comes from a life transforming study of God’s Word. This fantastic and long awaited resource will bring more clarity than ever before to the study of God’s Word.


The Transformation Study Bible with General Editor Warren Wiersbe
David C Cook September 1, 2009
ISBN-13: 978-1434765307/2100 pages/$24.99

The review for The Transformation Bible Study will be a bit. I plan to read through it this year. For starters I love the New Living Translation which makes the Bible easy to understand in common and modern language. Secondly, I have most of the BE books and Rob and I use them often. We appreciate Wiersbe's insight and simple to understand writing. More later.

Scribbles and Scrambles ~ONE STEP CLOSER

So the Construction (very amazingly manly, super-powered) Fairy visited between Christmas and today.

Picture one and two are BEFORE


Pictures three, four and five are AFTER....

Electrical...check.
insulation....check.
drywall....check.

Next: Final Kitchen Wall goes DOWN, Baby...then there's no stopping the progress to the new and improved living/kitchen/entry/dining suite!

Thanks, Rob!!! And Mom and Dad and Mark and Jordan and Grandma....

Serials and Scenarios ~ The One-Day Way Chantel Hobbs

Book Summary:

The One-Day Way produces lasting results by taking you back to basics. No more complicated weight-loss strategies. No more expensive diet plans that achieve only temporary results. Instead, you will lose weight and get fit with Chantel Hobbs’s simple, high-energy meal plans and her at-home program for cardio exercise and strength training. She will teach you how to change the way you think, which leads to new actions. Before you know it you will be strong, fit, and healthy. All it takes is doing things differently for twenty-four hours—and then repeating it.

The One-Day Way gives you everything you need to lose weight and get fit in body, mind, and spirit:

* Break free from past dieting defeats
* Learn a realistic, life-changing way to measure success
* Change the way you think so you can change your life
* Translate your dreams into goals, and your goals into lasting achievements
* Get strong with thirty-one simple exercises, no fancy equipment required
* Take advantage of ten ways to eat better while you lose weight

By focusing on food, faith, and fitness, Chantel shows you not only how to lose weight, but how to build the new life you were designed to live. You don’t have to wait any longer. The One-Day Way gives you all the tools for success, starting right now.

Author Bio:

The author of Never Say Diet and The Never Say Diet Personal Fitness Trainer, Chantel Hobbs is a motivational speaker, life coach, personal trainer, marathon runner, wife, and mother of four whose story has been featured on Oprah, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Fox & Friends, the 700 Club, and the covers of People and First magazines. She appears weekly on two fitness-themed radio programs and promotes her One-Day Way Learning System on television. Visit Chantel at ChantelHobbs.com for fitness updates and coaching tips.

My Review:


Common sense and helpful advice for anybody who is ready to make life changes.

In her follow-up to Never Say Diet, Chantel Hobbs makes her plan even easier to follow. With very few rules, some unconventional, she manages to make her plan an easy to follow life change.

Hobbs is part expert, as she has lost and kept over 200 pounds, and part cheerleader. Her rules are so simple they could be easily summed up in a magazine article, really. But without the helps, encouragement, examples and stories that are included in the book, it would just be the same old, same old common sense guidelines. Included, also, are 31 exercises and some basic nutritional guidelines/suggestions. The exercise pictures are small and black and white and there are no recipes, so if you're looking for big glossy pictures and/or recipes or weekly diet plans with recipes you won't find them here.

Her plan is basically making small choices, one choice at a time. And that's magical when they are all added up and result in big changes. But as in all things regarding life changes, the proof is in the pudding....or maybe I should say organic yogurt.

The bottom line on this book - if you are looking for magic wands, this isn't it. But if you like the idea of one small step toward health becoming one giant step toward the body you want, well, then here you go.



This book was provided for review by the WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.

Happy 2010

After a different-than-planned but special Christmas we have continued our celebration with our Minnesota friends.

Our New Year/post-Christmas fun has included shopping. Oy! Construction. YAY! Lots of food. And even more laughter.

We ended the old year and ushered in the new one laughing like crazy folks.

Hope your 2010 is blessed with much laughter and great people.

Serials and Scenarios ~ Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

Product Description

A hilarious and moving memoir—in the spirit of Anne Lamott and Nora Ephron—about a woman who returns home to her close-knit Mennonite family after a personal crisis

Not long after Rhoda Janzen turned forty, her world turned upside down. It was bad enough that her brilliant husband of fifteen years left her for Bob, a guy he met on Gay.com, but that same week a car accident left her with serious injuries. What was a gal to do? Rhoda packed her bags and went home. This wasn’t just any home, though. This was a Mennonite home. While Rhoda had long ventured out on her own spiritual path, the conservative community welcomed her back with open arms and offbeat advice. (Rhoda’s good-natured mother suggested she date her first cousin—he owned a tractor, see.) It is in this safe place that Rhoda can come to terms with her failed marriage; her desire, as a young woman, to leave her sheltered world behind; and the choices that both freed and entrapped her.

Written with wry humor and huge personality—and tackling faith, love, family, and aging—Mennonite in a Little Black Dress is an immensely moving memoir of healing, certain to touch anyone who has ever had to look homeward in order to move ahead.

My Review:

After seeing People Magazine's write-up on this little memoir I thought it would be right up my alley. When, a few days later, I was offered an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) for review I jumped at the chance.

I love quirky writing. I am also intrigued by a simpler life. Not simple as easy, but simple as less complicated. I also thought I was a fan of memoirs written by quirky and interesting women. But I've read a handful of memoirs this year and I've been disappointed more than not.

Rhoda is a talented lady. I wish I had the grammatic grasp that she does, that I was capable of her wordsmithery. But...I tend to like to get lost in a story, not be reminded of who is writing it. And I couldn't help feeling a bit intimidated by her word talents, and her PhD, and her advanced knowledge. Her chapters were bits of memory woven through near and distant past and near and distant present and sometimes those memories didn't always flow easily. I often had to stop and rewind to get the timing established.

Rhoda has my sympathy for the life she has had to endure, a debilitating car accident within a week of being abandoned by her husband, followed by financial difficulties and the need to go "home" to heal. I appreciate that she attempted to keep a sense of humor about the whole thing.

I also understand fleeing from the religious persecution and suffocation that she felt growing up in her tight-knit community. I, too, ran far away from my Baptist upbringing and invited a bunch of natural consequences into my life. I, too, considered my parents, my church, my white-haired, lightning-flinging, angry God, and my peers as life-hinderers or fun-haters. But there came a time when I had to own up to the fact that I chose to see those people, that God, in the light of being life-ruiners. After all, I was the one who was either too afraid to take what I wanted or too greedy, grabbing more than what I should have. I actually, in all the gusto I grabbed, became my own life-ruiner and God was merciful enough to help me put the pieces back together again. I'm not saying Rhoda is laying all the blame on those folks for much of her own bents, quirks and life struggles, but I detected the scent of victimization coming from her story and it tested my patience.

I recently read another "humorous" memoir about growing up in the church and felt the same struggle with the other story I felt throughout Rhoda's journey, the concern that some well-meaning, very misunderstood people may have been wounded by the women who wrote about their perception of facts. I hope her words haven't caused more problems.

Did I laugh at some scenes? Absolutely. There were some truly charming, quirky moments. Did I enjoy the few little bits and pieces I learned about the Mennonite culture? You bet and would have loved to share more of those moments. Content warning...if you think this is about the Mennonite culture, it's not. It's about the Mennonite upbringing of one woman. And there is very little day-to-day detail of that type of life. There are also some f-bombs and interesting discussions about hairy women and sexual situations that may make for squirmy reading for some of you.

I hope Rhoda finds the spiritual north that she's looking for. I hope she puts her well-educated intellect to work digging for the truth beyond the misshaping and mishandling of imperfect humanity.

Serials and Scenarios ~ Silver Birches by Adrian Plass

Book Description:


When David Herrick receives an invitation to a reunion from a long-forgotten acquaintance, his first reaction is to refuse. He isn't feeling very sociable since his wife, Jessica, died six months ago. But the invitation comes from Angela, one of his wife's oldest friends—and mysteriously, she has something for him from his beloved Jessica. Reluctant but curious, he visits Headly Manor. When the friends gather, they no longer resemble the fresh-faced group of twenty years ago. One has been deserted by her husband, another has lost his faith, and another is filled with anger and Bitterness. As they have less than forty-eight hours with each other, they decide to be vulnerable and bear their souls. This poignant and moving story blends Adrian Plass's rich style of writing with his knack for addressing the deep issues we all face, such as faith, grief, love … and fear.


Book Review:

I can't believe that this book sat in a to-be-read pile for months. I don't know if it was the bland cover in the monochromatic silvers and grays. Or if it was the subject matter, a well-known Christian speaker loses his wife and the story begins in the midst of his depression and struggles. Whatever it was, don't make the same mistake I did.

If you love prose that often reads like poetry (the good kind), thought-provoking, faith-tweaking, realistic fiction, or love British authors, then pick up this book.

Rich, rich, rich details and storytelling poke at sensitive spots in Christ followers. The scenario of half a dozen youth group friends meeting for a weekend twenty years or so after last seeing each other sounds like it might be a bit like a Christianized/sanitized version of The Big Chill. There are moments it feels like that. But that might be because real Christians also have personalities and issues that don't look a whole lot different from unbelievers. And though similar to the storyline of The Big Chill, it's not actually sanitized a whole lot. A big theme is the Christian and his or her sexuality. Then toss in the waves that nearly drown followers when God does not do as He is expected and instead bad, awful, inexplicably hideous things happen that leave us gasping for air and a break. An even bigger one...what if a person, a good person prays and asks to be delivered from something yet still struggles with it twenty years later? Oh yeah. This book, tiny though it is -- less than 200 pages -- is heavy and deep.

I am so glad I read this book. I'll be investigating other Plass offerings. Powerful.

Scribbles and Scrambles - Yay! I Actually Won a Round....

I have to brag. It's kind of lame because I'm talking about a board game.

But this is a board game I've won only one other time and that was, like, 4 years ago and was purely beginner's luck. Last night I played against the family Master's of Catan and I whupped them. Wah, ha, ha, ha.

My weeping and beaten cousin/nephew was kind enough to send pictorial proof via his I-Phone. He then went on to soundly beat me senseless in the next round.