Terribly Interesting

This book drew me in right from the get go. Fresh ingredients showing love at an open table. I'm in. The great part is that we get to follow Lia around to all of the tables she held on her many adventures. Look at that book cover. Don't you want to sit right in the middle of that table and eat? She had me right off the bat describing eating homemade food in Greece. I followed her through her journey to finding love and losing her uterus to wondering what God had in store for her family. I don't want to issue any spoiler alerts so you'll have to read the book to find out what happens. I do want to share this that stuck me. He very much intended me to bear things of beauty and worth. There's more to love, people. One thing is how she spoke about the food industry. Much of her early writing and attending food conferences included people who attempted to make food and elitist thing. Knowing how to do or cook something somehow made these critics feel super...

I originally found interest in this book because all year long I keep hearing and seeing the word "remember" every where I go. Remember. I have been on a mission to remember the things God has done for me and those I love. I did not initially realize that this little is a companion to a book entitled Memory Rescue. The timing of me reading this book hit me pretty hard as I sat in the neurologist's office with my dad for his dementia that is progressing. It is truly one of the hardest things I have dealt with. It's hard loving someone so much and being able to do nothing to help them. If my help involves change for him of any kind, he doesn't want my help at all. It's a deep ache to miss people who are not missing from you physically. As this disease progresses, I feel like I need to read everything I can to help me transition to this next phase of life. It seems like that angst of having your first child. I have no idea what I am stepping into and want ...

I was recently asked to write a story of my journey through miscarriage and infertility for the Trying Collective. I thought I would share it here as well for anyone who might be hurting. I encountered Jesus as a young child in a church pew in the balcony of an old country church. Through a lifetime of trial, I knew he was there. I did not always know or understand what he wanted of me, but I knew I was wanted. We could go through all of the pain and abuse of my life and unpack each tiny detail, but that is not what this is really about. I love what Frederick Buechner said, “Pain is not the biggest thing that has ever happened to you.” That is true. I have beheld far greater glory. As I clung to his word through all of this, I knew he was there. My story about trying begins long before I began trying to have children. I tell you this because almost half of the population has been abused in some way. The attack on my uterus began when I was four-years-old. I spent ...

Y'all know I am forty. I often forget that this age is middle-aged. I picked this book out of the review queue and thought it would be interesting to prepare for the future. As I was reading, I realized that I have or am living all of the things in this book. In many ways it was helpful and encouraging. In many ways I thought it was WEIRD and preached capital T Terrible doctrine. Here's my two cents. Jennifer talks about why teenagers make fun of us, rebel against us, and detach from us. That is always helpful to remember because it helps us to engage the issue instead of reacting to it. She didn't give much help in the engaging area however. She also dealt with how our kids make fun of us as a way to build their independence and prove themselves separate from us.That can be helpful in affirming our children's individualism.  Really this was a strange group of essays that formed a memoir. She went from wearing glasses that her kids said look like Elton John, ...

This was the second book in a set of previously unpublished lectures by Frederick Buechner. The first one I read I loved the whole way through. It spoke to me page after page. This one was good and thought provoking until the middle. Then It lost me. You can read about the other things I loved in this book here:  http://www.stephaniecherry.com/2017/10/off-book-stack-remarkable-ordinary-by.html The first part was all about remembering. That hit me because that's a bit of a buzz word in my prayer life. I think often of the stones of remembrance in Joshua. I often go back through prayer journals to remember what God has done for me and ask him to do it again. He told a story about a dream he had where he was in a hotel. He wanted to find his way back to the room he was in the night before and couldn't. He asked to front desk clerk how to get to that room and the clerk told him that he only needed to know the name to return there. The name of the room was "remember....