This is a book filled with bright words. Bright words are those clusters of ideas that speak to you, that you need to hear.

We all know what our bright words are, and they change all the time as we change. That's why I'd keep this book handy. At different points on different days, there will be different chapters that hit you just right and help put cracks in the walls around your heart.

With chapter titles like "Illiterate," "Darkness," "Naked," "Voice," "So?," "Mystery," "Love," "Labeled," "Rhythms," and "Friend," this book can evoke a lot of emotion and thought as you read.

Let me say this upfront. When I think about Time Spent With God, I tend to think of peaceful time.

I don't tend to think of oceans roaring apart into walls of water and then closing again and crushing armies, I don't think of the sky going black around a bloody hill while everyone trembles, and I don't think of thrashing. Thrashing makes me uncomfortable. I don't want to thrash myself, and I don't want to see anyone I care about having to thrash about with God. I want everything to be easy for them, I want faith to be simple, and I want the results in their life to be nearly picture perfect.

Except you know what? If I had my way, I would be condemning people to deadness. The fact that a person has thrashed about with God means that they are alive, they have lost and found and felt their own strength, and that most of all they have encountered the truth that God is Alive and will thrash back with them.

Thrashing isn't pretty. It can't be whitewashed. It has to just be what it is. And that's how Mandy Steward's book unfolds: Raw, Honest, Personal, Genuine.

As much as she warns us that this is her own journey, and that no one else will duplicate it, I think she's speaking to a lot of us here.

There are her thoughts on Divine Romance, on our expectations and the punishing judgements of others, on hearing our own frequently-smothered voices and the difficulty we have in accepting ourselves, on art and the need to create, and many other things. These aren't just lofty musings either.

They're deeply personal, learned by her own experience, and she gladly states that she's still discovering more, dancing to the song of God's Love and being shaped by His touch in every moment.

If you read this book, there will probably be many times when one concept or another meets you where you are. For me, in this reading, it was the way Mandy found out that God loves to woo us in ways that will appeal to us personally. These gifts, blessings, and messages are not even likely to come in expected packaging or conventional places. There were times she felt compelled to do something- watch a certain movie, for example, and she experienced God there where you'd never think to find Him.

Reading her story made me feel free to accept these touches of love. I may be receiving comfort from Bob Seger's music and Rich Mullins' music on the same day, and that is perfectly fine. God can speak through the haunting words of "Mainstreet" and "The Color Green." One praises Him directly, one is a ballad about the lostness and longings common to us humans.

Maybe we all need to live our lives with both eyes open and both hands out, comfortable in our own skin.

I'm really glad I read this book.

Thank you David C. Cook for my review copy.

1/28/2014 Posted

THRASHING ABOUT WITH GOD

By:

Mandy Steward

Her first chapter talks about why she wrote the book. She wrote it for you and me!!! She wanted us on a narrow path of our own. She also so says "If you have accepted Grace you have it always".

Her book really wants us to rely on God. The way the book is written is really a different and neat way of describing us-- well at least me, maybe not you per say, you'd have to decided that for yourself.

Like if you feel you have to help a friend but after you talk to him and he doesn't get it, then you feel that you failed him. No you didn't!!!!!! He has to listen and decide on his own what to do and trust in God and follow what or where God leads him, NOT YOU!!! After we talk to our friends we walk away let God handle it after all he's actually better then we are if you care to check it out, ok?

She Tells us that if we fear of our friends not needing our friendship--- Have you felt that way? I have my friends were always smarter then I was.

This book talks about for example here are a few:

< Running


< So

< Labeled

Yep those are some of the titles to the chapters, short sweet and to the point.

She really gives you something to think of about yourself, your life and how to try to handle things.

Don't you wonder how Jesus keeps up with all our dilemmas?

Can you answer the question ---- Why do you believe in Jesus? that was one of her questions-- it took me back a bit then I did some serious thinking---- why I believe in Jesus: Is it because no one else could make a beautiful skies like we have with fluffy clouds, trees leaves that turn beautiful colors in the fall, the ocean so deep you can't see the bottom and the fish in it, the Mountains so tall that they have snow on them while the valley is green with flowers blooming or when I pray and want a pray for something and don't get the answer I want later to say I'm glad I didn't get that and then when I need comforting I feel Jesus arms softly hold me. That enough to show me why I believe in Jesus.

It's really a nice read. Get the beautiful written book and see what message you get from it.

Happy Reading

5 Stars

ISBN 978-0-7814-0825-7

I received this book free from David C. Cook for an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review just an honest one. The opinions I have expressed are entirely my own and no one else's.