Soul Care: Daily GIVEAWAY #2 (new chance to win each day this week)

Congrats to yesterday's winner of this great book, Jessica B!!!

Just like yesterday, I'm giving away a wonderful book by Steven W. Smith, called Embracing Soul Care: Making Space For What Matters Most.  I've been writing a series sharing ideas and encouragement from the book, and Mr. Smith wrote and offered  FIVE copies of this amazing book for me to give away through Making Home!  

Today is the 2nd giveaway.  Every day this week you will have an opportunity to win this book.  Each day, I'm asking you to answer one question in the comments & leave your name & e-mail information (so that I can get in contact with you if you win)!

Last night, I read a portion of the book where he talks about times of going through the transforming fire of God:

"People who have endured a furnace of transformation attest that there's nothing else like it.  The fires can become so hot and furious that the one tested wonders whether survival is possible.  ...Once you feel the singe of the fire you begin to give up expectations.  You bend low into the process and trust the hands of the One who brought you there.  ...The Potter's furnace is where true transformation occurs.  Without the heat, and without change, the pot will not last."  

TODAY, the question is:

Have you been in a situation like he describes, "a furnace of transformation"?  (yes, no, maybe)  Please share as much or as little as you like.  Consider these questions: are you in a hot spot right now, or have you recently come out of the "Potter's furnace"?  Do you bend low into the process & trust the Potter in difficult times, or do you tend to buck and try to make for a more comfortable place?  Can you look back in your life and see times when the "heat" in your life actually transformed you and did things that ease & comfort would not have produced in you?

Leave a comment, even if it's a brief one, to be entered into the giveaway.  I look forward to reading your comments!

*** Contest Details: Entries will be taken until 8pm CST, at which point I will use a random number generator to select the winner.  I will announce the winner both in the comments of this post & at the top of tomorrow's post.  ***

Don't forget to LEAVE A COMMENT w/ your answer, name, and e-mail address!!!

Soul Care: Announcing a DAILY GIVEAWAY!!! (Beginning today)

(Today's giveaway is now closed.  Congrats to Jessica B, the winner!  Check back each day this week for more chances to win!)

Perhaps you've been keeping up with my recent "soul care" series... all based on a wonderful book I'm reading by Steven W. Smith called Embracing Soul Care: Making Space For What Matters Most.  I hope it's been an encouragement for you.

Mr. Smith wrote me and offered up FIVE copies of this amazing book for me to give away through Making Home... I'm so jazzed!  Thank you so much to Stephen Smith for this great giveaway!

So many of you have written me, commented, and/or facebooked me, saying what an encouragement these ideas have been to you, and so I can't wait to let FIVE of you get your hands on his amazing book!

Every day this week you will have an opportunity to win this book.  Each day, I'll ask you to answer one question in the comments & leave your name & e-mail information (so that I can get in contact with you if you win)!


TODAY, the question is:


Which phrase would you say BEST DESCRIBES the current state of your physical body/physical health?

1. Used up & spent 
2. Weary but still moving 
3. Mediocre. 
4. Doing pretty good, feeling pretty good 
5. Fantastic!

*** Contest Details: Entries will be taken until 8pm CST, at which point I will use a random number generator to select the winner.  I will announce the winner both in the comments of this post & at the top of tomorrow's post.  ***


Don't forget to LEAVE A COMMENT w/ your answer, name, and e-mail address!!!

Book Reviews- 2012

My goodness, we're into March & I haven't yet posted a "Book Reviews" page for 2012.  So here goes.  I'm reading a ton of things at present, but I'll hold off on reviews until I actually finish them.

1. Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives - Richard Swenson - (see my posts on the book here) This book is revolutionary, and stands as a direct challenge & wake-up call for modern American life.  Certainly as followers of Christ, with the model set by God of Sabbath rest, and the model of Jesus Himself taking time in the wilderness and outside of cities to pray, rest, and have times of retreat and recharging, we should be more diligent in the pursuit of "margin" in our lives.  Swenson does a wonderful job laying out a critique of the marginless life, and spends a good portion of the book offering encouragement and ways to begin building margin into your life.  I greatly appreciated and highly recommend this wonderful book. 
2. What Did You Expect? Redeeming the Realities of Marriage - by Paul David Tripp - My ladies Bible study group has read through this book since Fall of 2011, and it has been so challenging, thought-provoking and encouraging.  Tripp continually reframes marital stressors & conflicts in spiritual terms and challenges us all to focus on being more like Christ in the way we love & submit to one another.  The marital picture he paints-- one of reconciliation, grace, and understanding our humanity in light of Christ's sacrifice for us-- is rich and wonderful; every woman in our study has been wowed and challenged by Tripp's words.  Highly recommended.
3. Walk By the Spirit In Your Homeschool Decisions - by Marilyn Howshall - This booklet is one in a series about homeschooling topics.  Because I heard so many raves about this particular installment, I purchased it late last year (you'll notice that, for a paperback booklet, it comes at a dear price).  It has truly been one of the more important homeschooling books I've read, and frankly, an encouragement to me as a believer.  Howshall offers encouraging instruction about listening for the guidance and wisdom of the Holy Spirit as we go through life in general, and homeschooling in particular.  I feel both free in my homeschool decisions, and wonderfully constrained in the way I lean in to hear the voice of God, after reading this small book.  Highly recommended for anyone, particularly for homeschoolers.
4. My Lady Ludlow - by Elizabeth Gaskell - (free on Kindle) - Having watched BBC's delightful series, "Cranford", when I saw the Kindle version of this book (one of the 3 books BBC interwove to make the movie version of Cranford) offered for free, I snatched it up and began reading.  As with other of Gaskell's works, I find her writing far superior to Jane Austen's in character development & the inclusion of real-life scenarios (like death of major characters, true disappointment in love, etc.).  This book was enjoyable and insightful (particularly for fleshing out the history of Lady Ludlow and informing some of her decisions seen in the movie).  This is an enjoyable little book that would be particularly enjoyable to fans of Austen or Gaskell.

Soul Care #6: The Need for Maintenance

"Does your spiritual life sometimes seem more like a burden than a blessing?  Does your spirituality seem to exhaust you as often as it refreshes you?  Have your spiritual practices become "just another thing to do" in an already overcrowded, stress-filled schedules? If so, then you need to simplify your spiritual life." ~Donald S. Whitney

Have you ever blown an engine?  We did, once.  It was embarrassing... it was a very, very old vehicle and we had gone a few additional weeks than we should've without checking (and then recognizing the need to replenish) the oil supply.  The effects are disastrous-- once you blow an engine, it is pretty much worthless, all because the oil wasn't properly maintained and things weren't able to move and flow like they should've.


After telling the story of a time he blew an engine, Stephen W. Smith, author of Embracing Soul Care, puts it this way:

"The blown engine became an important symbol in our lives.  In the midst of busyness and ministry, I had not maintained my van.  It was now too late to simply get a read on the engine by checking the dipstick.  It was an expensive mistake.  The van needed a replacement engine.  That weekend, as the van's engine was replaced, I looked at my own internal engine.  The state of my soul was crying out for some serious maintenance.   The soul functions much like a car's engine.  If we want to function properly for life's long haul, we need to check our soul's dipstick." 

If you were to "check the dipstick" of your soul, what would be the reading?  Would you be well-oiled, with things running well in your life?  Would you be a few quarts low?  Would you be bone dry and about to blow?

In what ways could you rescue your souls from burnout by performing regular "dipstick checks" and keeping up more intentional "maintenance" of your soul?  Do you need to do like Donald Whitney wrote, and "simplify your spiritual life"?

"Let us test and examine our ways

and return to the Lord!" 

~Lamentations 3:40~

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