Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Book List

For now I am reading two books (besides the Bible :) ) which I will hopefully finish one in the next few days and the other I am doing with a friend for one on one time together so that one will take a few weeks as we are studying a chapter a week. But to give you a foreshadowing of reviews to come the 2 books are:


Treasuring God in our Traditions by Noel Piper
and
A Call to Spiritual Reformation by D.A. Carson

If I add any more to the mix I'll let you know. Also, I'm anxiously awaiting my next book from Waterbrook Multnomah! I'll let you know when it arrives. It's a fiction book, I believe, that will be VERY different from my previous book from there! Happy reading, to you, until we meet again! (anyone know what tune that last line is mimicking?)

    
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Monday, March 21, 2011

Life Without Limits was a bit....limited.

I was given the book "Life Without Limits" by Nick Vujicic, for free by Waterbrook Multnomah in order to write this review.
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  When I heard about the book "Life Without Limits" I was intrigued by the description of what this book would be about. A man born without arms or legs and yet overcoming this disability to live a rich, abundant and independent life sounded pretty extraordinary to me! Add to the mix that he is a Christian and inspirational speaker and there was no way I could pass this book up. When it finally arrived in the mail I excitedly tore open the box and started devouring the book page after page...for the first few chapters. But as my title hints at...the book was lacking something, it felt limited, stunted, not as deep as I expected it to be. Now I know Nick isn't a professional writer, per se, and that he is simply relaying what he has overcome throughout his life, but I still felt like each chapter was very repetitious, that it took him pages upon pages to say one point and that it all felt a little superficial. I felt like his main point was to encourage people going through tough things to try harder, push further, smile bigger, etc and life's problems would melt away. He used his example of overcoming a life without limbs as proof that if we just try, try, try that we will have a great life. I didn't feel like his focus was on the sovereignty of God and that sometimes life IS hard and things won't turn out right if we just think positively and put a smile on our face. I was disappointed with this book and struggled to even want to finish it. While his story is interesting I don't feel like I would recommend this book to many people because of the "you do your best and God will do the rest" mentality that he actually states in the book. I don't agree with that statement and I wouldn't want to encourage my friends/family to believe that as well. Is it interesting? Sure, some of the stories are. But other than that, a sad disappointment.

**update** while the book wasn't that great for me, Nick's story is simply amazing so I recommend checking him out on Youtube. He learns to surf with Bethany Hamilton and there are other numerous videos about how he gets through daily tasks. That to me is fascinating.

Nick learning to surf. and The Butterfly Circus

To read my review at Waterbrook go here and give it a ranking if you are interested. Thanks! :)