Book Review - The Fight of Our Lives

The Fight of Our Lives by Bennett and Leibsohn is an eye-opening read that will either have you up in arms and wanting to fight for liberty and justice for all ‘Americans’ making you jaded against Muslims in general or cause you to wonder why we just can’t all just get along. Are we in a fight for religion, fight for freedom, or just a fight for survival?

I recommend this book because I think we all need to be more self-educated on what the real fight against terrorism is. We need to look at all the facts and not just those presented to us on syndicated networks. Bennett and Leibsohn refreshingly present facts that are outside of what the mainstream considers ‘politically correct’. The facts are not pretty. Are we so busy protecting people’s feelings that we’re missing protecting the public at large? Read The Fight of Our Lives and determine for yourself. The publisher of The Fight of Our Lives has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book or advanced reading copy through BookSneeze®. I enjoyed this book and highly recommend this read.

Book Review - The Final Summit

Andy Andrews returns with David Ponder in The Final Summit bringing us a welcome reunion with a favorite hero. Taking place years after David Ponder was given The Traveler’s Gift, we learn how his life has turned out.


The Final Summit reads like a fine mystery uniquely padded with some of Andrew’s favorite characters from history. Ponder is not only reunited with those he has met in his previous adventure but he is honored with the presence of historical greats as he struggles to find the answer to the continuation of life.

The reader is swept up as he yearns to help David Ponder in his quest. This read is highly recommended to those seeking a good page turning read that keeps you on the edge of your seat. The publisher of The Final Summit has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book or advanced reading copy through BookSneeze®. I enjoyed this book and highly recommend this read.

Book Review - Max on Life

Max on Life by Max Lucado



Max has taken over 170 common life-affecting questions posed from his readers and answered them as only Max can in his easy reading style while also offering scriptural guidance. From financial worries to relationship and family issues Max brings light to what’s bugging us. To the lost struggling for answers to life’s most difficult questions Max is compassionate and convicting. Struggling with debt? Max speaks the obvious – “stop spending”! With his laid back deliverance Max leads the reader to hope and healing, guidance and comfort. The scriptural references are refreshing as we see the answers to our questions have been answered before we thought of them! With a separate index of listed subjects and scriptural references Max On Life promises to be a valuable reference book for the shelf of any family or individual.  The publisher of Max On Life has provided me with a complimentary copy of this book or advanced reading copy through BookSneeze®. I enjoyed this book as I do all of Max Lucado's books and highly recommend this read.

Life in a Fog (C)

Driving to work this morning my progress was slowed, hindered, and made more dangerous by fog. Fog is literally a cloud sitting on the ground; its density reducing the visibility of those caught in its midst. Within the fog are hidden dangers. We cannot avoid what we cannot see; likewise we cannot run to that good thing that is hidden from our view.

While driving through this physical fog I was reminded of the spiritual or mental fog we can sometimes get caught in. Our minds can become foggy; we can’t think or ‘see’ things clearly. The busyness of life can fog our minds; distractedness steals our vision. While the fog of our mind is present we are exposed to hidden dangers. We act without thinking clearly or sometimes thinking at all and we make wrong choices. Other times good things pass us by as our vision is clouded. We aren’t even aware of what we’ve missed as we go about life ‘in a fog’.

As my 2 hour trip approached its completion the bright and morning star made an appearance and the fog cleared. We have our own bright and Morning Star that is always available to help us see things clearly revealing the truth of what is ahead. When we focus on our Savior, the Son shines brightly in our lives casting out darkness and fog. With Him “there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known” Luke 12:2. If we rely on Jesus He will put his hands on our eyes and like the man in Mark 8:25 we can have eyes opened, sight restored, and see everything clearly. Today let our fog be lifted and let us receive that good thing He is waiting to bestow on us.

By Liz Hall

Psalm 84:11

For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

See Saw(C)

By Liz Hall

My work office has once again been moved.  For those of us that work in corporate America we know that there is no such thing as permanence anymore.  Gone are the days when you work for a company straight out of college and retire from the same company 30 to 40 years later.  These days it seems that even the very office space that you occupy is subject to repeated relocations depending on company re-structuring, leasing of new office space and on and on.  And so, my office has been moved.  It is now deep inside a building once occupied by ESPN, far down a narrow hallway and further still from any kind of discernible cell phone service.  This later issue troubles me a bit.  I often have missed calls from people I need to talk to.  I was attempting to make a call recently and meandered to the end the building near an emergency exit door just to get a couple of bars on my cell.  Waiting for a connection, I decided to sit on a stray conference table left in the hall.  Here is where the situation becomes interesting.  Apparently, I sat at the very end of this long table but did not realize that the legs were closer to the middle of the table rather than the end.  As the connection came and the phone started to ring I was suddenly in motion.  I was going down as the opposite end of the table went up!  Plop!  My would-be table seat became a singularly occupied See Saw and I hit the floor.  For a moment, life seemed turned upside down.

Have you ever had your life turned upside down?  That’s a loaded question I know and many will say ‘Oh sure, I know exactly what you’re talking about, I’ve been there’.  In today’s economy and high unemployment rate many have had life as they know it completely altered.  In 2003 I lost my job of 16 years and was out of work for 2 ½ years.  As a single, working Mom things for us changed to say the least.  In hindsight I consider myself lucky.  That was before unemployment was the crisis that it is today and eventually I rejoined the work force.  Natural disasters have recently paid an unpleasant visit to the Northeast.  Tornados in Massachusetts, earthquakes felt from Ohio to Canada, hurricane Irene battering the Carolinas to Vermont and flooding in the weeks to follow due to additional tropical weather.  Sometimes these things are forecasted and we heed the warnings and prepare.  Sometimes there is no warning.  From unemployment to loss of electrical power our comfort zones are removed and it feels as though life has been turned upside down.  And yet, when we finally get that job or when the power is eventually restored, the recovery process continues.  The cost can take years to overcome.

This business of having life turned upside down is not new.  Those who followed Christ and were witness to his life, death and resurrection were accused of this very thing!  Turning the world upside down!  In the 17^th chapter of Acts when Paul was in Thessalonica preaching that Jesus was the Christ, unconvinced Jews caused a riot and claimed “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.  Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king—Jesus”  Acts 17:6.  The Jewish people seemed surprised, yet the coming of Christ was foretold. 

And so I suggest that sometimes having our world turned upside down is a good thing.  It is often in retrospect that we realize the gift of what having gone through an unsettling time is.  I lost my job, but I gained perspective and learned not to lean on my own understanding.  I was encouraged and supported by family, friends and a community of believers.  I was humbled at a community food bank and that’s a good thing.  My faith was strengthened as I comforted others who worried about my ability to raise my family and pay my bills.  My son was 13 at the time and he finally got to go to a skate camp that had previously not fit into my work schedule.    I worried less about the whys and focused more on being thankful.  I can look back and say that what I gained during that time far outweighed what I lost.  The benefit outweighed the cost.  I can’t say I look forward to the next bump in the road, the next time life is turned upside down, but I don’t fear it either.  After all, I have been warned…tribulations will come, but I believe in the One who has overcome the world and He is always with me reminding me to be encouraged and of good cheer.   

Locked Out©

Cars. Don’t we just love to hate them sometimes? If you’re anything like I am, you have a vehicle with high miles that you’re trying to have carry you through another 100,000 or so. Maybe that’s a bit too hopeful but in these economic times we try and make a dollar go further and further. Along the way we may have to give up some luxuries. In the case of my car, it seems I’ve given up the luxury of working windows, a quiet ride and a working remote door lock/entry system which is attached to my keys. This later issue has led to the somewhat embarrassing situation of locking myself out of my car, sadly to say, on more than one occasion. It’s likely we’ve all been there at one time or another; peering through the window of our locked vehicle staring at the car keys in the ignition, on the seat, in the purse on the seat etc. We don’t know whether to laugh or cry, sometimes we do both.
I’ve also managed to lock myself out of my house several times. I remember once, just as we were leaving for vacation, I locked all of the windows, secured even the garage door which does not have an automatic door opener, packed the car and the kids only to realize the keys were in the house! How these things happen, I don’t know. I was forced to shove my daughter through a small octagonal window in our dining room that time to recover the keys. Such fond memories! I had to chuckle recently when a friend told me of her embarrassing dilemma when she put in a load of laundry to wash including the clothes she was wearing only to discover her bedroom door had locked behind her. Being a self-reliant person she removed the doorknob to no avail, looked for hinges which were on the inside and exhausted all means of unlocking thesituation. Her washer was in her apartment, so luckily a coat closet and her long raincoat were available to partially ‘cover’ her embarrassment. Still, she had to call the maintenance man and have him come to fix the problem. And so I chuckled, not at her situation, but at the fact that I had yet to find found myself in that predicament.

There are many places we can be locked out of. Cars, buildings, rooms, computers, events, clubs, and even hearts are ‘places’ from which we can be locked out of. Some of these situations are at least partly in our control, others are not. If we don’t bring the right credentials we can be locked out of certain venues or events. If we don’t have a membership we may be locked out of a particular club. If we’ve hurt someone and they aren’t forgiving we may be locked out of their heart and it may not be in our control to change that.

Sometimes being locked out can be a life or death situation. Critically ill or injured people behind locked doors can lose precious time when help from the outside world is locked out. But there is another life or death situation that involves being locked out that I’m most concerned with. There is a very special Kingdom that has a very specific requirement for entry and without it the doors are locked, impenetrable. In this case it isn’t who someone is or even what they’ve done or haven’t done that keeps them from having the proper credentials for entry. It is their belief or lack thereof as the case may be. Luke tells us of Jesus’ warning when He said “Work hard to enter the narrow door to God’s Kingdom, for many will try to enter but will fail. When the master of the house has locked the door, it will be too late. You will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Lord, open the door for us!’ But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from'”. Luke 13: 24-25, NLT. The life I speak about is eternal life and it is a gift for all who believe in Jesus and are willing to take the time to know him and accept him as their savior. In this case, we can’t afford to wait until we’ve put a few more miles on these bodies before we decide to believe or not. No one is promised tomorrow. This isn’t some luxury item we can do without for a time. This is a matter of life and death. Membership to this Kingdom is in our control, the decision is ours, yet it is the submission of giving control to Jesus that will unlock the door to an everlasting life with the Savior. That is one place that I don’t want to be locked out of.

by Liz Hall

Reflection

Reflection. It’s a pretty simple word really. Have you ever stopped to think of the significance of reflection? As I sit here and try to think of what I shall write about, I glance over my blog and think of the reason I started writing it and what I was trying to reveal with it. The blog’s title, Analysis of a Season, contains the key word Analysis. Wikipedia© says Analysis is ‘the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it’. When I think of reflection, or the act of reflecting back on something, I think of trying to better understand it. This type of reflection is called introspection. In my blog I began to look back at some of the things that have occurred in my past and I reflected on how I felt and thought while I was going through them. The reflection lead to understanding, lessons learned, truths discovered and lies unveiled. It is good to reflect, to accept ourselves and our history and understand that these things are part of what makes us who we are. I am a scientist; therefore analysis is part of who I am. It only stands to reason that self-analysis or reflection is also part of who I am.

There are other types of reflection. The sun or a bright light can reflect off of glass or a mirror and be blinding. Reflection of headlights in a rear-view mirror can be distracting and make seeing what is in front of us difficult. This line of thinking leads me to believe certain types of reflection can be dangerous. Is it possible reflecting on the past can be dangerous as well? This is a new revelation to me. How can a reflection on what is behind us become a distraction from what is in front of us? I suppose the answer is in how much time we spend in reflection and take care not to let it become an obsession.

Some reflections are absolutely beautiful. The reflection of a mountainous scene off of a clear lake revealing a mirror image can be breathtaking. Many of us don’t like our own reflection. We prefer not to spend much time in front of the mirror. We might think it vain or just don’t like what is starting back at us. But, perhaps we should spend some time there anyway. Consider that when we look upon our reflection we are looking into the face of someone’s child. Perhaps we are gazing upon someone’s mother, someone’s wife, sister; best friend. As Christians we are called upon to love one another. And we do, we try to. We are often successfulat encouraging someone, making someone laugh, giving a word of wisdom, brightening a day with our smile. The next time we look closely into our own reflection, shouldn’t we see what they see? Shouldn’t we see the friendly smile, encouraging glance, ready laugh? Shouldn’t we see the love that we have for others? And then, if we look deeper still, we should see our Savior. He is our shining example and we are called to be like Him. It is through Him that we can love. As we strive to be more like Him we become the reflection of his goodness, his mercy, his kindness, and his compassion.

I avoid mirrors, but I think the next time I pass one by, I just might stop and gaze for a minute and look into His image and then walk just a little bit taller and shine a little bit brighter.

By Liz Hall ©