4 Joyful Spring Reads for You and Your Family

One of the great gifts of blogging has been the privilege of helping authors with book launches as they release their good words into the world. Here are four books that have been joyful additions to my personal reading for the month of March.

War Against Distracted Living

In a world where our brains are going 100 miles an hour–and still are not keeping up–Betsy de Cruz invites readers to find the still place in the midst of the topsy turvy.  The streams of living water that have sustained Betsy against all odds in the spiritual desert of the Middle East continue to run deeply as she wars against distracted living.

More of God: A Distracted Woman’s Guide to More Meaningful Quiet Times offers insights for cultivating daily habits of focus in our marriages, parenting, and ministry lives which will also keep us from desert living. Betsy’s warm encouragement is motivation to keep charging through the dry times with twenty minute “dates” with God. Then we close our Bibles, stand up, and take the truth with us because our life is lived one moment at a time, and, by grace, we can get past our distracted living by cultivating a greater focus on God.

Sacred Family Fun

Conscientious parents struggle to incorporate cultural traditions with the sacred underpinnings of family holidays. Biblical stories of Jesus’s birth, death, and resurrection hardly stand a chance against the lure of gifts and candy. But what if the light-hearted side of Easter could be harnessed in the service of cementing the story of real, live truth?

Meadow Rue Merrill invites families to Lantern Hill Farm where Aunt Jenny hosts a backward Easter egg hunt with rhymed clues that send kids scrambling and competing for the goal. When she brings them all back together again, it’s for an unveiling of God’s Big Story that’s been there in the hunt all along. The Backward Easter Egg Hunt Hardcover Picture Book (Ages 4-7) is fun for reading aloud or for Easter gift basketing, and it is also a heads up for parents who want to plan ahead for meaningful celebration of Resurrection Sunday and of the God who makes possible a new sparkly life in Christ!

Daily Prayer and Devotional Reading

Vernet Clemons Nettles has distilled thoughts from her own prayer life, insights from her reading of Scripture, and ponderings that have arisen from her very mindful application of truth to life here on the ground. The delightful outcome is Why Should I Be Bound?, a gift to readers who take seriously the biblical truth from II Corinthians 5:17:

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

Weaving her own original poems with devotional thoughts and the transcribed words from referenced biblical passages, Vernet reminds readers that “our thorns are given to us as a connector to the creator.” (43) She links prayer to hope with the exhortation that “asking is not the end of the request. It is the beginning because we are then instructed to seek.” (34) You can join Vernet for a daily prayer here.

An Easter Gift for Your Teen Girl

Live in Light: 5-Minute Devotions for Teen Girls is the glowing product of Melanie Redd’s twenty-five year investment in teaching and mentoring women and teen girls. In an era of unprecedented opportunity–and sobering challenges–young women need a voice of wisdom and a caring arm around their shoulders to steer them toward hope in Christ. Whether it’s setting healthy boundaries, managing emotions, or establishing habits of holiness, mums, grandmothers, and girls after God’s heart will find spiritual motivation and conversation starters in the pages of this dynamic collection of daily devotions.

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Happy Spring Reading!

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