Latest Reads

I have been meaning to post this blog entry since mid-last month so as to help all of those who have asked me about summer reads but I am just now getting around to writing the mini-reviews on them. {see previous post for why I started posting these reviews!} 

Here you go, in case anyone is still looking for some summer reading!

Everything Bitter Is Sweet by Sara Hagerty

Sara Hagerty pens an honest account of her deepest longings that seemingly are going unfulfilled. She shares stories from her life, specifically about their infertility and road toward adoption, where time and time again she has had to choose to see the goodness of God in the midst of pain and suffering.  Hagerty is a remarkable story teller. Her writing is poetic and beautiful.






The Pastor's Kid by Barnabas Piper
Barnabas Piper talks candidly about what it is like to grow up as a Pastor's Kid.  He tells stories of his struggle to find his own faith and identity as people in the congregation seemed to place upon him expectations that were unrealistic. Because of his father's teaching has a large reach these expectations followed him into college as well as his adult life.  Piper gives fantastic insight and advice for pastors and their wives on how to help shape & protect their kids. I think this book would be beneficial for youth leaders, close friends of pastor's families, as well as many congregants.

Nobody's Cuter Than You by Melanie Shankle 

This book had me laughing and crying and then calling all my best friends and telling them all the stories!  Melanie Shankle memoirs her life by letting you meet her best friends in all the different seasons of her life. As she tells the stories of how various friendships shaped her life, I found myself reflecting on my own life and the kind of friend I hope to be. This was a wonderful book, a page-turner. (and if you are into audio books, she actually reads her own book so you get to hear alot of her personality through it!)

Scary Close by Donald Miller
In Scary Close, Donald Miller recounts his realization of destructive relational patterns in his life and how he went about working through them. His openness about such personal things draws you in and in a sense offers healing to you, the reader, as well.  He tells the story of how he got help, what therapists, mentors and friends helped him through along the way. Through his telling, I found myself reflective on my own patterns, milling through the advice he received, and finding clarity on some aspects of my own life.  Miller is a renown story teller and this book is no different.  He tells a story so well that some how you can find yourself right in it.

From Tablet To Table by Leonard Sweet
This is a book about a subject that I love: the sacredness of the table. I could go on and on listing quotes and ideas he gives, but you should just pick it up and give it a read instead.  While this is not my favorite book on this topic, Sweet covers A LOT in a small, easy to read book.  I said a few times while I read this book, "He could write an entire book off of each chapter." So needless to say he just skims the surface of why the table is sacred.  This will wet your appetite to read other books on the subject for sure!

Everything Else by Brett Laxton
Laxton had me laughing so hard I snorted, on a plane, next to strangers...yep, that funny. I tried to keep reading this book the rest of the flight but I had all the poor people around me worried about my emotional health because next thing they knew I was bawling.  Everything Else is full of true, honest, heart warming & hilarious stories from Brett's life. A fantastic story teller, Laxton circles each chapter around in such a way that you can relate to your own life.  He shares about his families ups and their downs.  Laxton self published this book as it is his debut in writing.  I HIGHLY recommend you grab a copy and support this longtime friend. You won't regret it.

Not Sure How To Start This Thing Over So I'll Start With Books!!

I realize that I've not blogged in years.

I also realize that unintentionally my blog became a homeschool blog.

While I hope that the Letter's Of The Week posts are helpful and continue to encourage young homeschoolers, I do hope to move this blog forward. I have high hopes to update my profile and the photos and add tabs to separate categories with ease, but for now, if I don't just start, I never will. 

I get asked on the regular for book suggestions and I love that question! I have been posting the books I read onto Instagram for a the last few years and always have emails and text following the posts asking for more details on this book or that. As I prepped to post my latest reads onto Insto, I decided to write a mini-review for each book to help as people decided which books to read next. The more I wrote I realized that, in my social media opinion, this broke all the Insta-rules. SO MANY WORDS. SO MANY WORDS. INSTO IS FOR PICTURES. Just kidding...kinda. 

This led to me remembering that I do, in fact, have a blog AND that blogs are the social medium in which it is appropriate to write "long-mini-reviews." *wink*

So with out further ado... 

What I've Been Reading and My Thoughts For Those Who Care::

Tables In The Wilderness- by Preston Yancey - I read this book at the end of last year and I can not believe I never posted about it. Yancey's writing is honest and beautiful. I was raised with Liturgy, the Church Calendar & Creeds as the basis of my faith and in college landed in a church that had none of these practices so I found Yancey's story intriguing as it is the EXACT opposite of mine. This memoir is full of thought provoking insights and I highly recommend it!!

The Best Yes- by Lysa Terkeurst - This was my 1st read of 2015 and I am so glad it was. Lysa gives practical advice on how to approach decisions where both options seem great.  She shares stories about how to decide if you have enough time to say yes to obligations and gives some fantastic tools for the reader to take away. She coaches you and reminds you that "no" is not a bad word but in fact is a very healthy one. This is an easy, practical read.

The Pearl- by John Steinbeck - I feel like anytime you write a review for Steinbeck all you need to say is, "Steinbeck." As with most all Steinbeck works, this is a thoughtful parable that you can find yourself in most all the characters. This is a short book, clocking in under 100 pages, but is full of mystery, love & terror with little resolve. I mean, it definitely resolves, but not in your heart...for a long time at least.

Yes Please!- by Amy Poehler - This book is by Amy Poehler so it goes with out saying that well over 40% of the book is COMPLETELY inappropriate in every way (so much so that I am sorta embarrassed to be posting about it). BUT the other 60% is HILARIOUS and doubly insightful. I laughed so much. I love learning from and listening to friends with a totally different worldview than my own and that is how I felt as I read "Yes Please!". While I'd be very sheepish to recommended this book because of it's content, I did really enjoyed her balance of candor and privacy. If you choose to read this book and it is at all possible (and children are not in ear shot!! ) I recommend the audio of this book on Audible.com. Amy is actually the reader along with Seth Myers and they add A LOT to it as they banter back and forth. They are hilarious. 

Jesus Feminist- by Sarah Bessey - I didn't know what I would think about this book before I read it, so I tried to go in with an open mind. I was afraid, as the book had been accused of, that it would be another hate book toward patriarchal leadership. What I found was quite the opposite. Bessey, kindly shares her story of being raised in an egalitarian, Jesus loving home in Canada, her move to southern United States and the cultural differences that ensued. She makes a strong and equally humble case for the Bible's teaching on women, both in the home and in the church setting.  I never once sensed a harshness or manipulating tone, just her story and Biblical evidence on which she had landed. I was thrilled as I entered the back portion of her book. She lays out the upside down nature of Jesus's teaching on the Kingdom and her final chapters are filled with encouragement to all readers, egalitarian and complementarian alike.  

Girl At The End Of The World - by Elizabeth Esther -  Y'all. I am obsessed. I mean, not really but I am having a hard time not thinking about this book.  I found myself googling facts and being more disturbed by the seemingly true nature of it.  I read this book in 2 days. I was pretty much useless to my family due to lack of sleep but I just couldn't put it down. This is a memoir about a girl who was raised in a fundamentalist cult and her life's pursuit to get out of it. The author, who is telling her own story, lets you in on the mindset of a child who endures abuse in the name of God, love and sacrifice. I'm really going to need some of my friends to read this in the next day or two so we can talk about...okay? okay. Thanks!

Hope these reviews are helpful!!

Happy Reading!

Thoughts After Reading Jen Hatmaker's

7:: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess

I wish I could think of some extremely clever way to begin this post but the honest truth is that if I don't write this review at this very moment, it will not get written. It is not that I do not want to write anything, in fact, quite the opposite is true. It is just that I have put off posting this for over a month. I have had so many thoughts reeling since I closed page 221 of Jen Hatmaker's 7. Writing this post would mean I would have to face the harsh reality that heart change is not satisfied until outward change shows its face. The Lord did so much in my heart as I loomed over the pages of 7 but speaking about said changes, well, writing them rather, makes it feel that much closer to actual, real, life change. I think the pop phrase for this is accountability :: if I say something out loud, people can hold me to it. Call it what you want, if change just stays in your heart or in your head, I would contend it is not actual change....I digress.

I read Jen's previous book, Interrupted, and quickly placed it in my top 10 books to recommend. I loved it. It was such an honest, raw, beautiful picture of the Lord doing something in a lady's heart and The Lord bring that something to fruition. It was superb. Knowing my love for Interrupted I got wonderfully excited when I heard the news that Jen would soon be releasing a new book. When the idea behind 7 began to circulate, I got even more excited. But friends, my excitement was not because I thought 7 would be a challenge to MY heart but rather, my excitement was for what I envisioned God doing in so many OTHER people's hearts. Ahem.

***if you have a lofty, angelic view of me that you would like to maintain, please excuse yourself here, its about to get ugly as I bare my prideful heart to the world***

You see, I heard that 7 was going to be about a 7 month experiment against excess. Excess of Clothes, Shopping, Waste, Food, Possessions, Media and lastly, Stress. I literally thought to myself, "I wear the same thing everyday (jeans and a v neck), I LOATH shopping, I am the only person I know in my city who recycles, we regularly eat organic/non-processed foods, we don't have enough money to have a lot of extra possessions, we have no TV and I am not easily stressed. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check and Check." I know, sickening, but welcome to my heart. I got excited about 7 knowing that Jen was hilarious and fun loving, yet still willing to tackle the hard issues. I mean, that IS the best type of book to recommend nicely to a friend...ahem (wink). Little did I know that it would be my heart's issue being addressed...not my friend's....ouch.

As I plunged into the pages of 7 I found a beautiful picture of heart change leading to outward, life altering change. Change that moves beyond personality and preference to God honoring worship.

For me, thinking of having only 7 items of clothes to wear for a month is somewhat of a relief. I am a simpleton. I hate clutter. I was raised to reuse and not waste. I sometimes have to remind myself that certain situations should arise a since of stress, because I am often way too laid back even in the times that stress would be appropriate. ALL of these things are just part of me, Amber Burger, my personality, my preference. What I learned from 7 was that, while these things might be considered "good, wholesome and healthy" ways to live, they have cost me nothing. It is normal to me to purge our home of excess clothes and clutter 2 to 3 times a year. Loading up our excess and hauling off to Goodwill is rather therapeutic to me. On the other hand, collecting our excess (and even harder:: things we are currently using), keeping them separated and nice while asking God where He wants them used in His Kingdom to spread His name...that is an entirely different song. The first is personal preference, the second is worship. 7 taught me that my personal leaning toward the simple life is not of great gain in the Kingdom of God with out personal sacrifice that leads to beautiful communion with Christ.

Throughout 7 Jen tells stories of God using the excess they relinquished to further His Kingdom and how she got to come face to face with the people God provided for. There is a big difference between 1) taking a trash bag full of extra house hold items & clothing to Salvation Army because they are annoying me and 2) walking around our house, perusing our closets asking the Lord what to give away and to whom to give it. The heart:: that is the difference. Communion with God:: that is the blessing.

With all of that said, I would like to highly recommend to you (not out of haughty, vein heart but out of an honest, changed heart) Jen Hatmaker's 7:: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess. It is hilarious, honest, straight-forward, practical and full of insight. You will laugh and cry and you will come face to face with honest facts about what our excess is doing globally.

HERE is a link to check it out.

And if you would like to win a copy of 7 :: leave a comment and check back on Saturday to see if you won!