Happy holiday season to you! Hope everyone out there had a good Thanksgiving, but it’s time to move on to CHRISTMAS!  I love this time of year. Christmas carols, snow, giving gifts, Christmas crafts, advent… it’s my very favorite.

My little corner of the internet: 

I finally wrote my October edition of Jordan Reads Things!

Two Five Minute Friday posts: one last week, and one this week!

Words from the internet I liked: 

The Hidden Legacy of Eugene Peterson: I’ve never read Peterson’s books, but his Message translation of the Bible has helped so many people understand and identify with scripture. For me, as someone who’s struggled with understanding scripture, The Message has been a huge blessing. I loved reading this personal essay from a family friend– it let us all see a different side of Peterson that normal folk wouldn’t see. And learning about how he uses his money– pretty sure there’s a lesson for all of us there.

Tracee Ross Ellis is living for Herself: I. love. This. And more so, I love HER. She speaks truth in a blunt and humorful way and is point-blank honest about her decision to not get married or have kids. As someone who doesn’t know if she wants to marry or have kids herself, it’s so nice to have someone else admit that they’re OK with this. That they’re not struggling with singleness like sooo many people/articles say they are (esp in Christian circles). I’m not struggling with singleness! I’m cool with it! Like Tracee said: MY LIFE IS MINE. My sole purpose is not to be married off and have kids. If it happens later, cool. And maybe in a few years my thoughts on singleness will change. Heck, they’ve changed a LOT as a 25-year-old. I go back and forth on wanting the whole marriage+kids deal. But right now, I’m not struggling with singleness. And I’m okay with that.

I look back and think about all the ways we’re told that those two
#goals: being chosen and having kids, are what makes you
worthy. I mean: Nursery Rhymes. Fairytales. Books. Movies. Sixteen
Candles, every love song, and even Black-ish—all reiterating this
narrow story of “husband plus child equals woman”. And the
patriarchy—the patriarchy is not pleased with me right now. I’m
failing at my function.

If you saw my message why didn’t you respond? 

I follow Sarah on Twitter, and she hit the nail on the head here. I could’ve written the same post! (except focusing on text messages vs facebook messages). While I’d much rather have a text conversation vs. face-to-face (or worse, the dreaded phone call… *shudders*), I also freak out if I don’t get a response from someone (if the text deems a response, obviously). I try hard to stay connected to people, and when people don’t respond I start to think that they don’t want to take the time to talk to me, or I said something that hurt them, or if they don’t want to be my friends… anxiety and technology weave a complicated web, people. When people see your messages, or your questions, and just don’t respond? It makes me second guess myself about every conversation I’ve had with people. I know people are busy, but at least take a minute to say something. Don’t leave people hanging when they’re waiting on the other side of a conversation.

How Sweet Eats always has the best Gift Guides. She has a great Cookbook gift guide (i want them alll, especially her new one, Joy the Baker’s brunch cookbook, and Pioneer Woman’s newest!) and a kitchen supplies gift guide (i also want all the things here).

She Reads Truth has a good Gift Guide for their products, including some new ones! (I love the calendar and the SRT/HRT Starter sets!).

Sarah Bessey’s Gift Guide to Empower Women is AWESOME. All products are from small businesses that help women and children around the world. And everything on it is beautiful! And there’s a coupon code for almost every product!

other non-gift guide things from the internet:

I had an opportunity to read and review a new children’s book, The Marvelous Mud House, for Lifeway Bloggers.

The blurb from the book overviews it really well: Ben and his American family live in a hungry ranch house where they are always wanting more. But then they travel far across the world to Kenya and visit the marvelous mud house where George and Mama George live. There, among the mango trees, they discover a marvelous lesson about what it’s like to be full of joy instead.

It is a darling book! I’ll share a more extensive review in my November Jordan Reads Things post, but here’s a quick overview:  Firstly, the illustrations are stunning!! The colors are vibrant and the pictures really illustrate the story so well. The story felt familiar (and part of me can’t help but struggle with the American-family-turns-savior trope, but that’s another story), but it’s simple enough for kids to learn about love, kindness, and God’s provision from. While the Smith family went to Kenya to help,  you can clearly see that it was the Smith family that was helped and learned so much from the people there– if you’ve ever done mission work, you know the feeling.

You see two families with completely opposite lives that both depend on God for provision, but what God is providing each of them is different: for the George family, God provides a way for George to go to school; for the Smith family, God provides a way for the kids to love each other better and give sacrificially to help George go to school.

For families, there’s a great parent discussion handout in the back of the book, with scripture references and questions, and a dictionary of words from Kenya.

My favorite part of the book is the song Mama George sings:

“We’re rich, my son, rich in love, strength, and life!

The Giver of these hears every cry!

Let’s lift up our hands to the God who provides.”

I need that printed on my wall, please.

The subtitle of the book is: a story of finding fullness and joy; I think April Graney does just that– she gives us a story where we find fullness, joy, and provision from God in different ways. It’s a great book!! Buy it here.

Val Marie Paper has $5 flat shipping today for all their products! I’ve been using the undated prayer journal for a month and love it. Hopefully, I’ll be able to invest in a yearly sometime soon!

Day Designer also has free shipping this weekend! This is huge since shipping for their planners is hella expensive. I had one of their BlueSky planners last year and it was the most productive a planner has ever been for me! I want the real thing this year.

Thanks for reading, y’all!

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