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January Book Reviews

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 This year, I have a reading goal of 50 books, of varying genres. A friend suggested I return to my blog for a monthly book review, giving you a list and brief description of the books I read, and highlighting one book that I recommend. So here we are, at the end of January... let's give it a try!  In January, I read five books - two hardback books, two on Audible, and one on Kindle. I tend to be a fiction girl, but amazingly, all five of these books were nonfiction, and had pretty lengthy titles...  The Deepest Place: Suffering and the Formation of Hope, Dr. Curt Thompson   I had been reading this one slowly for a while, because my small group at church is reading and discussing it together. But I finished it up at the end of January, so I am counting it in my list of things I've read! Dr. Thompson frames the chapters around Romans 5:3-5, showing how it is through suffering that we develop perseverance, character, and hope. Honestly the cover art looked so depressin...
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Jars of Oil

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 Earlier this year, I read the story of the widow's oil in 2 Kings 4:1-7, NIV, and it has stuck with me, so I thought I'd share it with you. (NOTE: This is not the same story as the widow's oil in 1 Kings 17, in which Elijah asked the widow to use her last drops of oil to make him a cake, and the oil didn't run out. There are several miraculous Elijah stories that are similar but not the same as miraculous Elisha stories, and they are all fascinating to study and compare, so I recommend it!)  WHEN WE HAVE "NOTHING" The dilemma of 2 Kings 4 is that a prophet of God dies and leaves his widow vulnerable because of debt and a lack of resources to provide for their family. Elisha asks how he can help and what she has on hand. The widow responds that she has "nothing at all" with the exception of "a small jar of oil," which surely is inconsequential in such a catastrophe.  To me, this sounds suspiciously like the account of Jesus feeding the 5,00...
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The Church Being the Church

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 A crazy thing happened to me this spring.  At the beginning of April, I learned (by accident, in fact) that I had been dropped from Medicaid and lost all my benefits without notice, warning, or reason. That meant an immediate cut off of funding for my daily medicine, my nightly caregiving, and my new wheelchair that I had ordered four weeks prior - none of which I could afford to pay nor afford to be without. To this today (and probably until Kingdom come) no one can explain what happened, and some have simply chalked it up to "a glitch in the system." It resulted in an insanely frustrating and wearying month of hours and hours on the phone, trying to find one person in the state of Indiana who knew anything and who had any authority to do anything. It convinced me that Medicaid is now fully operated by AI and no one had autonomy over it... but that is a whole rant in itself that is for another day, or maybe never.  As crazy as that was, it wasn't the truly crazy thing t...
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