My Review of "You are Not Alone"

Dena Yohe's You Are Not Alone: Hope for Hurting Parents of Troubled Kids covers everything from dealing with emotions like shock, fear and worry to forgiveness, letting go and even finding a new healthier place for your own life -- regardless of the choices your child makes.  Each chapter discusses one basic topic giving both tips and sharing real life experiences and insights.  I loved that the daughter from time to time writes what she was thinking and feeling as her parents did or said certain things.  I wish there had been more of her sections, because I found some of them particularly insightful.

This is a great book, not only for parents of troubled kids, but also for those who minister to them.

I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

My Review of "Possible"

Stephen Bauman's Possible:  A Blueprint for Changing How We Change the World describes ordinary people that yearn for change and justice in a world filled with suffering and claims that it is possible to change the world.  Possible is filled with extensive first-hand experience working in countries crushed by poverty, those vivid stories that tell the realities, struggles, joys, and beliefs of people suffering all over the world.  These stories make Possible interesting, convicting, and creditable.

And Bauman's stories are littered with Scripture, theologians, and cultural references -- all of which make his vision for changing how we change the world that much more engaging.

This is the book Christians need to challenge that long-standing lie that ordinary people cannot bring change, that only "important" and "powerful" people can bring change.

And in the end he offers a convincing and compelling case for a social justice that is at the heart of God's love for the world.

I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.

My Review of "The Very Good Gospel"

Lisa Sharon Harper's The Very Good Gospel:  How Everything Wrong Can Be Made Right blends deep theological reflection -- on such important topics as faith, church, and redemption -- with real life moral reflection.  What she gives us, in the process, is an important book for the Church that seeks to embody the Gospel of Jesus Christ:  Lessons on structural and political (in)justice, peacemaking , and living faithfully.

The vision Harper shares here is a vision of the Shalom of God -- wholeness for a broken world.

Shalom, Harper rightly insists, is the Gospel because it is the message from the earliest words of Genesis.  God has always desired and declared a Kingdom in which "enough" and "healing" and "dignity" are the words spoken over humanity and all creation.  Shalom is the word spoken by Jesus, and is the word spoken by Christians who follow Jesus.  What Harper gives us here is a way of taking up that message -- that wholeness -- and speaking it in and to a broken world.

This is not a book to be missed!

I received a free copy of this book as part of the Blogging for Books program in exchange for my honest review here.