Digital ASIN: B008EKMBDM, (from ISBN:
1594631298, 113 pages) 386 KB. $14.95
MP3.
Audiobook. $11.95
Genre: Christian Living
Tags: Spirituality, Prayer
★★★★★
Lamott encourages her readers to “not get bogged down on
whom or what we pray to.” Rather one should identify prayer as communication
from our hearts to “something unimaginably huge and not us.” Her slightly
irreverent humor allows one to experience the distillation of anything one says
“to the amazing energy of love we are sometimes bold enough to believe in”
regardless of the name we attach.
In Help, Thanks, Wow, Lamott has identified the content and context of
prayer that asks for assistance, that appreciates the good we witness, and that
expresses one’s awe at the world. These are the words that get us through the
day, and show us the way forward. Through anecdotes and stories she puts skin
on those times one can be in motion, and stillness, and energy – all at the
same time. All three prayers are the beginnings of a conversation with God about
anything – barely, honestly, bitterly, insanely or brokenly – “probably the
best possible conditions under which to pray.”
Whether a beginner or veteran user
of the spiritual discipline of prayer, Lamott, once again leads us to breathe,
to slow down, to pay attention so no opportunity to love and help God’s
children, including learning “to love our depressing, hilarious, mostly decent
selves.”
The simplicity of theses three
prayers opens the complexity of our lives, our relationships, and our world
into our messiest places and our greatest needs. Like flossing one’s teeth
prayer must be repeated until it becomes habit, not because we can get our way,
or can change God, but so God can change us, so we can “pray constantly between
bouts of trying to live life on life’s terms.”
Although most of the formative pieces of Lamott’s personality, sense
of humor, descent into and ascent from addiction, deep spirituality, and intentional
writing are mostly caught in the reader’s peripheral vision. This is one book I
want to take up space on a shelf, because she speaks to my meaning through her
meaning formed by words seemingly strung along, but intentionally placed.
Round, Carol. Journaling with Jesus: How to Draw Closer to God. Bloomington, IN:
WestBow Press: 2012. ISBN: 978-1104497-3661-3 (sc) ISBN: 978-1-4497-3662-0 (e)
A Compilation of
Experience and Encouragement
Protestant theologians, both
“mainline” and “evangelical,” are currently exploring many of the ancient
spiritual disciplines that never entirely disappeared in the Catholic and
Orthodox traditions. Three among these Christian disciplines are praying,
reading and journaling. These Christian spiritual
practices are found as far back as the New Testament where the gospel writers,
at the encouragement of others, have given us the words and prayers of Jesus now in
written form.
Carol Round discovered prayer
journaling, as she focused on the pain and confusion of an empty nest and a recent
divorce. As the mornings passed, she found healing, growth, and potential in
seeking deeper intimacy with God. She draws not only on her own experience, but
also on the experiences of other women and saints of the past and present.
Based on those experiences, Round
encourages and challenges her readers to record their spiritual journey in a
daily prayer journal over a forty-day period. She reminds them: “Prayer is not
complicated. We make it that way.” Praying
and journaling are not about word choice, but about being honest with God,
inviting Him to be present and asking Him “What now? What lesson would You have
me learn?” What message should I carry away to share with others?
Lessons learned over ten years of
daily practice are shared in this book. There are also reminders such as “It is
not about the tools [the pen or book used]. It is about the journey.” “Don’t
worry about His showing up. He will.” Suggestions
are included like use a concordance to find scriptures relevant to your
situation, prayerfully read the scripture and ask God how He can apply it in
your life.
Journaling
with Jesus invites the reader to come as they are and to raise the two
questions Paul asked on the road to Damascus in Acts 9: “Who are You, Lord?”
“What should I do, Lord?” There is a list of books on prayer journaling and a
list of websites, with a proviso that websites and the internet are fluid; however,
only one of sixteen URLs led nowhere. The scope of the book will be useful to
the new or prospective prayer, spiritual, or Bible-study journalist, and
affirming to those who are already practicing the disciplines.
Rather than offering pages of
printed scripture and written prayers, this book concentrates on spiritual
disciplines themselves. What is prayer? Why will journaling about scripture
help to ease my pain? What do I need to get started? How do I talk to God? How
do I know if he is listening? How do I prepare to meet God? The author’s style
and manner invite and let the reader look over the writer’s shoulder with
impunity and promise, with commitment and covenant, with action and
accountability.
There is a companion workbook for Journaling with Jesuscoming out in a few weeks calledThe 40-Day Challenge. It is free as a .pdf file until September 6 at her blog:www.carolaround.com. Round also has two books compiled
from her faith-based columns syndicated in twelve Oklahoma newspapers and one
online publication,http://www.assistnews.net/ She also has two other books:
A Matter of Faith (2005) and Faith
Matters (2009), both published by Buoy Up Press.
The intent of the
guide is to reintroduce just one of many keys to effective prayer, using
scripture to garner the words of God to access divine response and a greater
relationship with God the Father, through His Son Jesus Christ, with the
enabling assistance of the Holy Spirit.
As we experience
various emotions throughout our life experiences there is a “cry” or sound from
our spirit that will command or demand a response from something or someone
greater than ourselves. “The cry of every man’s heart is for provision,
protection, health and well-being. We require direction, revelation, truth,
justice and more.” That heart cry can take many forms as they are found
throughout scripture; the result of the divine response from God is peace and
joy.
Martin follows with the lies of Satan we hear most often, and allows the scripture to speak
the truth. “God has made a provision for His creation. It is the words of His
holy scriptures. When we choose to read, hear, learn and speak the Word of God
it is able to save us, deliver us, and protect us from lies and liars.” She
then explores the meanings of “truth” as it is found in the Word of God.
Whether we choose to embrace lies or truth, “what we take to heart rules and
governs our emotions and affections.”
Communion and
union with God through praying His word allows us to get God’s attention and
“invites Him to intervene in the affairs of the earth and your life.” “Prayer
facilitates the manifestation of God’s will and purpose.” Prayer establishes
HOPE: Hearing God through His word,
prayer and your experiences. Obedience
to His word and the pastor He has designated to shepherd over you. God expects
you to pray without ceasing and to expect His response. You will receive
HOPE: God’s hearing ear, open access to His presence, peace while you wait for His response to your prayers,
and eternal results. She also
provides such mnemonics for TRUST.
Praying God’s word allows Him to transform, prepare, build and establish
your spirit in His presence.
Praying God’s word can take
the form of intercession or meditation. The last chapters of the book provide
topical scriptures for preparing oneself to be transformed and consecrated so
you can achieve spiritual growth and strength to trust and forgive, and exhibit
wisdom and the fruits of the Spirit in your life. There are also scriptures for
those things that most affect our personal spiritual lives: family, finances,
career, health, and emotions. She also provides scriptures for our relationship
through God that affects church growth, nations, leaders and missions. What she
calls a glossary contains no definitions, but provides an alphabetical topical
index with page numbers
These
three books are written by authors who not only understand but have experienced
raw pain and the soothing balm that only God can provide. The suffering for
each is different, but the answering still, small voice of God that whispers
His love and compassion into the hardest places is found by each and expressed
in their own wondrously powerful way.
This book is a collection of poems
Perez wrote as she was “introduced to pain, was married to pain, divorced pain,
and remarried a few years later.” Perez reminds us, “It is not easy to live
with pain, but it is possible.”
Perez shares her inmost heart. Her pain-filled cries go out to a God she
knows is there even when He seems not to be. Even when she finds herself drawn back in to
relationships and feelings that move her away from a place of safety, she
remembers the God who has sealed her to himself. Perez has selected poems that take
the reader through betrayal, sorrow and a marvelous comfort as she is pulled
from and through what most troubles the soul. In her words are not only
brutality and evil, but love and forgiveness.
Perez is a former marine and a
disabled veteran. She lives in, through and beyond her chronic pain, in ways
that will take you to your knees.
Shelley Hitz. (August 1, 2012)
Finding Hope in the Midst of Tragedy
Body and Soul
Publishing
ASIN: B008RSQFJC
Following her
father’s brutal beating resulting in traumatic brain injury and a coma, Hitz
began a journal to deal with her feelings. As God worked through her father’s
slow but steady improvement, Hitz encouraged her family and their friends by sharing
her diary through a blog. Through her battle with rage and despair and release,
God worked an act of grace in her heart.
Finding Hope, coming from
her blog, becomes an opportunity for anyone struggling with the unfairness, the
pain, the inability to cope and understand. She shares not only her experiences
but opportunities for the reader to create their own journal, their own freedom
to talk honestly with God.
Elizabeth L. Chalker
Hanging on By the Scratch Marks My Nails Left
Behind (Raw Faith)
Elizabeth Chalker suffers from late stage lyme disease, probably
fatal, offering nothing but a slow,
agonizing death. Lyme disease is complicated and compounded by other serious
health issues that have left her bedridden and mostly alone. In this roaring
furnace where she experiences daily frustration, unbearable pain, and, like
Job, unjustifiable suffering, she has found the way to walk with unbound faith
and trust in God.
In her book, I was at first witness, but soon became her
companion, experiencing through my own chronic pain such wonder at her passionate
love and unquenchable thirst for God. I have lived eighteen years with chronic
pain. At times, her cries to God for deliverance were so intense I had to stop
reading.
The book had somehow become not only Chalker’s story, but mine, as
well. I had to stand in awe like King Nebuchadnezzar, “It is my privilege to
report to you the gracious miracles that the High God has done for me. His
miracles are staggering, his wonders are surprising, His kingdom lasts and
lasts, his sovereign rule goes on forever.” *
If you are hurting, crying out in anger or fear, or if you know
someone who seems to be weighed down with their hurts and their needs,Hanging on by the Scratch Marks My
Nails Left Behindhas a place
on your shelf beside C. S. Lewis’sThe
Problem of Painand Philip
Yancey’sWhere Is God When It
Hurts?It is a terrible, dark
place that can only be lit by God's grace in all the ways it comes.
*Daniel 4:2-3
MSG - A Dream of a Chopped-Down Tree - King - Bible ... (n.d.). retrieved from
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Daniel+4&version=MSG (8/9/2012)
Check out this interview with Kimberly Payne author of Women of Strength; sign up to win a copy of her book.http://www.psalm451.net/
