"The Christmas Candle" shines bright

We all desire a glimpse of hope especially during the Christmas season.  Max Lucado shares a story of hope in "The Christmas Candle" that warms the heart and soul.  The legend of a candle that is touched by an angel every twenty five years is received with skepticism by the new minister, David Richmond, as he takes on his new congregation in the village of Gladstone. He meets a series of very interesting people in this village who are not very happy with his response to this important legend in the life of their village.

One of my favorite questions asked of Reverend Richmond by a parishioner is "The mystery of God unsettles us all, Reverend. But isn’t mystery where God works? If he does only what we understand, is he God?”  As the story unfolds, the new minister is confronted with his own crisis of faith in believing that God can do the miraculous as events of his past life intersect with events happening in the village of Gladstone. 

The Christmas Candle is a comforting read for anyone during the Christmas season. It encourages the person of faith to HAVE faith and never doubt or become callous to mystery of God in our lives. 

This book was reviewed as a part of Booksneeze with Thomas Nelson Publishing.

For Chesterton fans everywhere

I was introduced to this author, G.K. Chesterton, while living in NYC a few years ago and fell in love with his ability to say the profound in a few, well chosen words.  For me, this book is a great collection of some of his most famous sayings and pearls of wisdom.  

The Quotable Chesterton: The Wit and Wisdom of G.K. Chesterton is organized by subject and alphabetically. I liked this because as someone who is a part of a sermon writing team, this makes research of his quotes much easier to find.  Chesterton  blended his faith into all areas of his life. He did not segment his faith from all other areas.  This book helps you, the reader, to see that and if you are a person of faith, you find challenge and a little bit of "ouch" from so much of what he says. One of my favorite quotes is "It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it."

If you are not a fan of Chesterton and are not familiar with his work, this book may be a little hard to just pick and read through his quotes and sayings. However, if you are familiar with him as an author and find thought-provoking sayings very intriguing, this is a MUST for your library. Because as G. K. Chesterton says, " A room without books is like a body without a soul."  Add this to your library!

I enjoy being a part of the BookSneeze program and this was a great choice to read and share a review.