Edenbrooke, Julianne Donaldson
“There’s something solid and constant about trees.” I said quietly. “They may change through the seasons, but they’re always there. They’re dependable. And the orchard is not so vast as the woods. It’s just big enough to hold me when I…” I stopped, unsure of how to complete the thought. “When you what?” “When I need to be held, I suppose.” I laughed self-consciously, embarrassed a little by what I had admitted.
All The Pretty People, Barbara Freethy
A mystery that hooked me from the first chapter onward.
The Brave Learner, Julia Bogart
“Because people are innately social and in search of meaning, our relationships and emotions—not rote memory or the right textbooks—are key to learning. In other words, when your child feels connected and happy, your child is learning the most.”
“A happy house for homeschool is one where every inch is used for learning, messes are welcomed, people are more precious than furnishings, and household maintenance is a varying standard with fluctuating amounts of help, and we’re all okay with it most of the time.”
“Enchanted education and living are all about small surprises of happy—scattered, littered, peppered throughout garden-variety days.”
Apples Never Fall, Liane Moriarty
A little mystery, a good bit of enjoyment, but very very longgggg.
A Curious Faith, Lore Wilbert
“To ask a question is to hope that what we currently know isn’t the whole story. It’s a gamble that we deep down want to win. If we don’t make space for curiosity in the Christian life, we will become content with a one-dimensional god, a god made more in our own image than the God who made us in his image. If we don’t make space for self-reflection, we will become content with a picture of ourselves instead of the core of who we are in him. If we don’t make space for deep and vulnerable times of asking questions or being asked them by friends who love us, we will find our relationships flat and lifeless.”
Gift From The Sea, Ann Morrow Lindbergh
Re-reading this one and it’s still good.
“How one hates to think of oneself as alone. How one avoids it. It seems to imply rejection or unpopularity. An early wallflower panic still clings to the word. One will be left, one fears, sitting in a straight-backed chair alone, while the popular girls are already chosen and spinning around the dance floor with their hot-palmed partners. We seem so frightened today of being alone that we never let it happen. Even if family, friends and movies should fail, there is still the radio or television to fill up the void. Women, who used to complain of loneliness, need never be alone any more. We can do our housework with soap-opera heroes at our side. Even daydreaming was more creative than this; it demanded something of oneself and it fed the inner life. Now, instead of planting our solitude with our own dream blossoms, we choke the space with continuous music, chatter and companionship to which we do not even listen. It is simply there to fill the vacuum. When the noise stops there is no inner music to take its place. We must re-learn to be alone.”
The Wish, Nicolas Sparks
“And in the end, isn’t that the most important thing in life? To be truly known and loved by someone you’ve chosen?”
When Strivings Cease, Ruth Chou Simmons
“We might not say we believe a Jesus-plus-our-efforts idea of the gospel, but when we place our performances on the pedestal of personal progress, we’re not relying on the grace of God. We’re worshiping the gospel of self-reliance. Self-reliance is something we can control, manipulate, and measure according to our efforts. Grace, on the other hand, is countercultural with its rejection of self-sufficiency and its relinquishing of power. Whether we recognize it or not, our culture is sadly intoxicated with the lure of all that’s measurable and based on self-reliance, even for those who claim to represent the gospel of Christ. We say we trust that Jesus is enough, but we spend our lives trying to prove that we are, instead.“
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