Undone (A Book Review)

I nodded my head in agreement again and again reading this book.  It ranks among my favorite books read in quite some time.  It was real, raw, relatable.  When praising this work to a friend, I said it was "like she wrote my story with her details". 

Please read this book.  If your life story includes twists and turns, hurts and stretches, read this book.  It's a gift. 

In Undone, a heartfelt memoir by Michele Cushatt, the author tells the story of her undoing.  Of how God used hard circumstances in her life to draw her to Himself.  Of how she walked through a messy season, including a cancer battle and becoming a foster mom, when her life unraveled.  Her neat, ordered and planned life was replaced with questions, unknowns and soul wrenching struggle. 

"Once again I found my planned and scheduled self in the middle of a messy unknown.  No explanation or reassurances.  No dates, calendar of events, or three step plan.....
We seemed to be bouncing from one crisis to another, without reprieve.  I would have done anything for boring or ordinaryy.  But sometimes messy is the necessary beginning to the makings of extraordinary. "

This book is a call to dig in when life gets hard, purge your perfection habit and lean into God's presence.  To dig deeper to the faith we claim.  This is where the best stories are written. 

"Where is my faith?  In myself, more often than not.  Which is why an unexpected squall-every last one of them over the span of two years-unraveled me.  A boat anchored to itself is not anchored at all."

My copy of Undone is highlighted and starred.  The margins carry my exclamation marks and notes. This book with be recommended and read again.  This one touched my heart, made me laugh and spurred me on. 

**I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.**







"My addiction to comfort and control-for both myself and my circumstances-had become both idol and crutch.  It's what I pursued and reached for, with both hands and endless effort.  But all that striving came with a cost.  In my attempts to manage my life, I missed out on the vibrancy of it." 

"I never wanted nor promised a tidy life.  I want you.  And I promised me." 

Picture Books About Hospitals (Medical Momma Toolkit, Post One)

When a surgery or hospital stay for your child looms, it is easy to get caught up in all of our adult preparations.  It's even easier to totally forget about preparing your little -soon to be- patient and her siblings.  Our little people have sensitive spirits and catch on quickly when mommy and daddy are heavy on emotion.  Over the past year plus of 12 hospital encounters with three kids, we've learned some things about preparing ourselves and our kids.  

One of the biggies?  Knowledge.  They say it is power, and that's truth.

Little minds tend to wonder and wander onto all the possible scary things that might happen at a hospital.  Adults are weary of unknowns and so are kids.  Parents can research and ask lots of questions, but kids need some prep too.  Picture books are the perfect way to inform them about what they might see and experience. 

From hospital bracelets to vitals, IVs, scrubs and masks, the more they see in advance, the less scary the experience will feel.   Whether your child has grown up experiencing hospital stays, or faces one big scheduled surgery, I recommend children's books for before, during and after.  They give a voice and vocabulary to the hospital experience.  Siblings will benefit too as they process through their own emotions and fears about what their brother or sister will experience (or has experienced). 

Here are some recommendations:

Curious George Goes to the Hospital

by Margret & H.A. Rey

 

"It's going to hurt, George," she said, "but only for a moment." 

  Franklin Goes to the Hospital

          by Paulette Bourgeois      

             

"Everybody thinks I am brave, but I'm just pretending.  X-rays will show that inside I'm scared."

Dr. Bear replied, "Just because you're afraid doesn't mean you aren't being brave.  Being brave means doing what you have to do, no matter how scared you feel."

Harry Goes to the Hospital

by Howard Bennett

 

Harry's mom cuddled Harry and explained that Dr. Meadows wouldn't give him an IV if he didn't need it.  Dr. Meadows told him the needle part would feel like a sharp pinch, but it would only be in his arm for a few seconds.  The part that stayed in his arm would be a soft plastic tube that let the water go into his body, and it wouldn't hurt at all.

Out and About at the Hospital

by Nancy G. Attebury

 

This is the operating room.  We call it the OR for short.  You can see that it's very clean and bright.  Doctors and nurses who work in the OR wear caps, masks, plastic gloves, special tops and pants, and shoe covers.  Everything is sterile.  We want the OR to be free from germs. 

When Molly Was in the Hospital: A Book for Brothers and Sisters of Hospitalized Children

by Debbie Duncan

 

After a while, Mom and Molly spent more time at the doctor's office than they did at home.  Dad said Molly needed lots of tests.  "Are they like spelling tests?" I asked. 

"No," Dad said, smiling a little.  "They are x-rays, blood tests and things like that."

Little Critter: My Trip to the Hospital

by Mercer Mayer

 

Follow brave Little Critter as he rides in an ambulance, meets the doctor, and gets his first X-ray and his first cast.

 

Usborne First Experiences Going to the Hospital 

by Michelle Bates

 

Ben Bell is not feeling very well. His ear aches as it often does. Mrs Bell takes him to see Doctor Small who checks his ear using an otoscope. He tells Ben that he needs to have an operation at the hospital to make his ear better. On arrival at the hospital Ben's mum helps him to change his clothes and unpack. He is not allowed to eat anything for six hours.
 

The Going to the Hospital Sticker Book

illustrated by Stephen Cartwright gets my highest recommendation. 

 

I LOVE this book and will be buying it for my kids and friends' kids as they approach hospital stays. The illustrations are simple and informative with spaces for stickers of the equipment and other things they might encounter in the hospital.  So fun! 

 

We have had all of these books in our home this week, and all of our kids have been reading them and pointing out things they've seen and experienced.  For us, they've been a great way to retell our hospital experiences.

 

If you have other recommended books, I'd love the suggestions. 

 

Courage, dear hearts.

 

This post is pot one in the Medical Momma Toolkit: A Tips, Tricks and Encouragement Series

 

 

Every Bitter Thing is Sweet

 

A satisfied soul loathes the honeycomb,
But to a hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.
-Proverbs 27:7

"God was our story-the whole story, the only story."  In her book, Every Bitter Thing is Sweet, Sara Hagarty spilled her story, her faith, her deferred hope, and her heart so beautifully that I found myself whispering, "yes", again and again.  I nodded at the words on the page, I underlined, I highlighted, I starred and drew exclamation marks. 

The bitter parts of author Sara Hagerty's story, the unmet expectations, the loss, the struggle, the ways we wound each other, speak into the bitter parts of my own.    With true transparency, she shares her family's grief of infertility, the pain of growing together in marriage, and the labor pains that come with adoption. 

The battles in her life were relentless, but her God was too.  Though He allowed her family to walk through fire, His pursuit was relentless as well.   He spoke and He showed mercy, tenderly touching her chin and lifting her eyes up and onto Him.  He allowed her to become a hungry, interrupted soul, so that she might experience the kinds of sweetness that come only with the hardest kinds of growth.  Her story of faith reminds us that, "there is a dance to be danced in the valleys".   

I need to remember that God’s answer is not to lift me out of “the crisis of the moment” but to speak His word into it, and over it. I was made to find joy in relating to Him across the whole span of my day.

 

I loved this book.  She had me at Proverbs 27:7.  I closed the back cover touched and in awe of how God teaches the same lessons to different people through similar, yet beautifully unique circumstances.  Hagerty inspired me and challenged my pursuit of the One who redeems the hard stuff and turns it into sweetness. 

 

This is a hard story that you'll relate to even if you've never experienced infertility or adoption.  You'll be moved to take a second look at life's burdens.  You might even become more willing to accept the tougher gifts God might be offering you. 

And if you are an adoptive family?  By all means, read this book.  God has something to say to you, I promise.  Let these quotes regarding her adoption of four children from Uganda convince you...

It wasn't my effort and His.  It was His effort and my weak yes.  It was partnership done His way. 

.........................................................................................

God would use adoption to Father me. 

.........................................................................................

But this wasn't just about God healing them.  I would be the recipient of His work as well. The pain and hurdles of my most stunning quest-adoption-were also parts of my heart knowing hunger.  If hunger won out, I just might receive new perspective.  I just might grow. 

.........................................................................................

The truth is nothing about adoption is safe.  We sign papers and write checks and make timelines as if any part of this process is secure, and then we're shocked when the battle waged in the heavens over these children's lives encompasses the natural.  The fields of the fatherless are war stained. 

.........................................................................................

As with any calling, we dip our toes in the water of yes and hope to God that this is the biggest yes we'll have to utter, the biggest move our hearts will have to make with such trust, only to find ourselves submerged years later. 

 Yes, Sara Hagerty, yes.  Well done, I'll be following your work. 



**I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. 

Filling Up (13 of 31)

So, you didn't think I was planning to actually write for 31 days in a row, did you? 

Oh good. 

 

Because although that sounds perfectly dreamy, it is just not possible in this life season we're in.  I've still been tending though. 

I've been filling back up on books.  Turning off social media, granting myself permission, and turning some pages. 

 

My margin for reading is so very small in this current season, that I really want to read only well written books.  The writer in me loves to read words woven well together.  The reader in me likes nothing more than to get lost in a story. 

And when those words form chapters rich with creativity, heart and beauty, I find myself longing to craft sentences of my own. 

 

This is post 13 of a 31 day series, "Tending to the Writer in Me".



Let's All Be Brave (A Book Review)

Sometimes I'd rather not.  I'd rather hang out with my status quo and keep things nice and cozy, comfortable.  But other times, I long deeply for bravery.   The soul within me that takes the long view beyond the here and now knows God is calling us to live big and boldly for Him alone.  To set aside the temporary and the trivial, laying down the good for the best.  All of which requires a gut full of courage. 

For me that has meant everyday bravery like making a phone call, getting out of bed when I felt like snuggling in, saying no when I longed for the yes, or making a choice that made my friends scratch their heads.  Other times, being brave has meant leaving my kids and husband to serve in Zimbabwe, or saying brave yeses along our adoption journey, often times when I was certain my feet would fail. 

In Let's All Be Brave, author and blogger, Annie Downs, gets vulnerable, sharing her stories of courage, from the mini steps to the giant leaps.  She makes me giggle, but also spurs something on within me to take a second look at where I'm holding back.  I'm turning pages, and it feels like we most certainly already know each other.  As she shares about her mission trips, moves and mishaps, my own memory list marches through my mind of times when the Lord lead, and I followed, trembling in my knees.    

I've lived enough to know now that God never seems to be finished with the stretching process.   There's always something new around the corner that I need to say a brave yes, or a brave no, to, and I need nudge's like Annie's to  keep my feet moving forward.

**I received a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. **

Hope Rising: A Review

Walking with Jesus doesn't diminish the soul's hunger, it increases it a thousand-fold.  As you are drawn into His desires, you find profound joy and purpose, but you also encounter an unbearable, compulsive force.  Jesus feels what the poor feel.  He has solidarity with their suffering.  If we dare to abide in Him, then the intensity of His love for the poor will infuse our own souls. 
And it will cost us. 

 

 

 

I've served the poor in Haiti, Mexico, Guatemala, and Zimbabwe and it has cost me. 

 

Fresh off the plane from a college mission trip to Juarez, Mexico, tears rolled down my checks as we drove through our middle class suburban neighborhood.  My eyes had seen new things, my heart stretched out, and I was newly uncomfortable in my former world.  I'd spent the week helping build a tiny home about the size of my back porch.  As we presented the new shelter, located amongst hundreds of shacks, the family shed tears of gratitude, thanking not me, but the Lord for His provision.  I didn't feel pride in serving.  I felt embarrassed and disgusted with myself for living in a comfy, oblivious bubble for the first 19 years of my life.   I'd met street kids with no shoes and witnessed families living in shacks made from rolls of cardboard.  I've been wrestling with that same discomfort since that week that changed my worldview all those years ago. 

 

Now, I have many more mission trips under my belt and I've seen poverty from Haiti to China.  And it costs me.  God has opened my eyes to the lost and hurting and I can no longer live my life unaffected.  I wrestle with purchases, ache for the orphaned and often feel a "WAKE UP" scream rising in me if I spend much time with people who's conversations never go beyond ourselves.

 

I've struggled with being judgmental of those who have not seen. I find myself driven to do more and more, trying to learn to balance God's call to serve with my own plans.  I have struggled over selling my life to move to the mission field and being content with my messy beautiful here and now.   

 

As much as I am passionate about serving, I have also learned to be careful about how it is done.  I've witnessed many well intentioned servants hurting those they so desire to help.  I myself have been on mission trips when I've wondered if I was a poverty tourist hungry for the good feeling service offers or a humble help believing in the integrity and ability of those whose foreign ground I walked on.  I've seen Americans start ministries with their American mindsets, helping some, but deeply harming many more.   Ministering to the poor is hard, long-term work.  Feeling jaded, I've been wrestling with my role, knowing what I know, having seen what I've seen.   

 

Then, along came Scott Todd's Hope Rising with its hopeful look at "How Christians Can End Extreme Poverty in This Generation".   This book challenges me to believe again.  To believe that ending poverty IS possible and that I as stay-at-home mom have a role to play in it.  To believe that though there is much to be done, that so much positive change has already occurred in eliminating the causes and effects of poverty, such as eradicating disease and ensuring clean water in remote areas of the world.  This book re-ignites my desire to serve, and challenges me to do it well. 

 

Scott Todd works with Compassion International, an aid and child sponsorship non profit serving the world's poor.  This book is his vision on how to eliminate poverty by 2035.  He explores the role of government, businesses, churches and individuals.  Pointing out our low expectations for what can be done to end poverty, he provides statistics on positive changes over the past 20-50 years as technology and medicines have improved and organizations have learned how best to meet needs.

 

Dissecting scripture on poverty, Todd charges us with believing that we can do what the Lord has clearly called us to do. It is an idealistic, but practical vision for eliminating poverty in the next generation.  This book is a short, yet challenging read.  Somehow both heavy and light, it must be read again.  With the end in mind, and my hope renewed, it is one I'll reread and pray over as I try to discern how my family might play a role in serving the world's poor. 

 

Prepare your minds with action. 

1 Peter 1:13

 

* I was provided with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.*

Notes From a Blue Bike

"It doesn’t always feel like it, but we do have the freedom to creatively change the everyday little things in our lives so that our path better aligns with our values and passions."

 

Mark and I want to live as intentionally as possible.  We want to be purposeful in all the areas of our lives.  The small decisions we make each day about our money, schooling, food and entertainment add up to a bigger decision and a lifestyle.   Life in our world is fast, chaotic and much of it is outside of how we choose to live.  Our family needs to know what we believe and have a plan as to how to live that out. 

 

I have followed Tsh Oxenreider over at The Art of Simple for years.  So, her latest book, Notes from a Blue Bike was a must read.  This a memoir first, filled with stories about how her family got serious about living the life they wanted.  I can relate so much to the passions, lessons learned and changes of mind she relates as they moved from Turkey to Texas to Oregon. 

 

Tsh teaches through storytelling of experiences that have solidified her feelings on feeding her family, travel and schooling.  This is a read that feels more like a conversation with a friend.  Not a how to book, it simply is encouraging to me as someone on a similar trek to live simply.  Simplifying doesn't necessarily mean making life easy, rather is more of about focusing in and letting the rest go. 

 

Having learned much during her family's time abroad about eating and celebrating well, and focusing more on relationships than productivity, she struggles with incorporating these same principles into life when back in the US.  Her kids go to private school one year, then homeschool, then public school, and now plans to homeschool while travelling around the world.  I GET that.  We as families go through seasons, learning as we go.  The goal is to build our family life with intention, adjusting as we go.  

 

Tsh takes us on a bike ride, giving us time focus on our own families and what we value.  It challenges me to have a plan for how my family might live out lives. 



 

 

 

I am a BookLook Blogger and received a free copy of this book in exchange for my review. 

Books, Glorious Books

Sometimes a celebration is in order. 
Our girl recently reached a goal we had set,
so off to the bookstore we went
(with a little stopover to try on hats).

Books and a couple hot chocolates
make for the perfect afternoon.

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.
~Anna Quindlen