I am sorry it has taken me so long to get this on here but here are a few books that I have enjoyed and several have been life changing:
Battlefield of The Mind
Worry, doubt, confusion, depression, anger and feelings of condemnation: all these are attacks on the mind. If readers suffer from negative thoughts, they can take heart! Joyce Meyer has helped millions win these all-important battles. In her most popular bestseller ever, the beloved author and minister shows readers how to change their lives by changing their minds.
She teaches how to deal with thousands of thoughts that people think every day and how to focus the mind the way God thinks. And she shares the trials, tragedies, and ultimate victories from her own marriage, family, and ministry that led her to wondrous, life-transforming truth–and reveals her thoughts and feelings every step of the way.
Captivating
This to me is an absolute must read:
Every woman was once a little girl. And every little girl holds in her heart her most precious dreams. She longs to be swept up into a romance, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, to be the Beauty of the story. And yet―how many women do you know who ever find that life?
Most women think they have to settle for a life of efficiency and duty, striving to be the women they “ought” to be but often feeling they have failed. Sadly, too many messages for Christian women add to the pressure. “Do these ten things, and you will be a godly woman.” The effect has not been good on the feminine soul.
The message of Captivating is this: Your heart matters more than anything else in all creation. The desires you had as a little girl and the longings you still feel are telling you of the life God created you to live. He offers to rescue your heart and release you to live as a fully alive and feminine woman. A woman who is truly captivating.
ScreamFree Parenting is not just about lowering your voice. It’s about learning to calm your emotional reactions and learning to focus on your own behavior more than your kids’ behavior . . . for their benefit. Our biggest enemy as parents is not the TV, the Internet, or even drugs. Our biggest enemy is our own emotional reactivity. When we say we “lost it” with our kids, the “it” in that sentence is our ownadulthood. And then we wonder why our kids have so little respect for us, why our kids seem to have all the power in the family.
It’s time to do it differently. And you can. You can start to create and enjoy the types of calm, mutually respectful, and loving relationships with your kids that you’ve always craved. You can begin to revolutionize your family, starting tonight.
Messie No More
Sandra Felton’s foolproof strategies can help even the most frazzled reader become Messie No More. With humor and much-needed affirmation, she sheds light on emotional and physical reasons for messiness and shows why most organizational systems don’t work for Messies. She then shows readers how to break free from messy behavior by changing their mind-set and arresting the stress that plagues them. Originally published in 1989 and with more than 90,000 copies sold, Messie No More is now thoroughly revised and updated with the latest information on attention deficit disorder and two new chapters dealing with fatigue and depression and their relevance to messiness. Each of the twenty chapters in the book ends with a question-and-answer section called “Assess the Mess,” which helps readers take practical steps in applying the book’s principles. Messie No More contains the basis for a permanent change in readers who long for an orderly home but aren’t sure how to have one. It is a practical guide that is sure to be snatched up by frustrated Messies everywhere.
Now for fun:
All of Lynette Eason’s books have been incredible reads:
The Women of Justice Series is a good place to start:
Too Close To Home
Samantha Cash is the FBI’s secret weapon. Her methods are invisible, and she never stops until the case is closed. When missing teens begin turning up dead in a small Southern town, Samantha is assigned to help local chief Connor Wolfe find the killer. And he has two problems with that. There’s her faith–in God and herself. And then there’s the fact that she looks exactly like his late wife.
As they get close to an answer, the case becomes personal. The killer seems to be taking an interest in Connor’s 16-year-old daughter, who thinks her dad is getting way too protective. Can’t a girl just have some fun?
Too Close to Home ratchets up the suspense with each page, and will have readers cheering for the characters they love as justice is served and love grows even in the face of danger. Read this one with the lights on!
Cuts Like A Knife
M.K. Gilroy
Detective Kristen Conner goes undercover to find a serial killer only to find herself as his next favorite target.
When Leslie Reed is found dead in her fashionable townhome, a red flag goes up in Washington, D.C. The FBI knows an elusive “organized killer” on a decade-long crime spree is at work again. The problem is the Feds have only one tenuous lead to assist local police in the manhunt … a most unlikely place the killer likes to find his victims.
Conner is light one her feet and packs a powerful punch – growing up in a cop’s home, intense hand-to-hand combat training, and not being able to shoot a handgun straight – all encourage that. Her life is built on faith and family: she only misses church when she is fighting with her mom and glamorous TV news reporter sister – or relentlessly tracking down a ruthless killer.
Kristen is a good cop but she’s never faced an adversary like the man the alternative press has dubbed the Cutter Shark. From the opening chase scene that leads her to a back alley where a punk with a knife awaits her, to the climactic scene where she goes one-on-one with the hauntingly familiar man who is killing innocent women in her town, Cuts Like a Knife, is loaded with action, humor, a dash of romance, and wry introspection through the voice of its irrepressible lead character.
Unfortunately I really have to make the time to read especially for fun, I love to read and would love to hear about any books you have read that you recommend. I will post more of my favorites soon.
God Bless,
Janet Scott
I really enjoy the Amish fiction books by Beverly Lewis. It is educational (about the lives of the Amish) but also insightful in terms of Christian thinking. Beverly’s mother had been raised Amish, and I suspect her father was/is Mennonite, so we learn also a lot about the differences between the two (which are a lot more than I would ever have imagined!) Especially good reading for women in particular, since all the lead characters are girls and women! I have read about 8-9 of her books and some come in little mini-series style. My favorite was the Abram’s Daughters 5-part series (i.e., five books). Guaranteed to surprise, too! The names of the books are, in order, THE COVENANT, THE BETRAYAL, THE SACRIFICE, THE PRODIGAL and THE REVELATION. (All done in a sort of Amish soap opera style — and sooooo sweet.)
I also highly recommend books by the late Derek Prince (1915-2003). He began his ministry straight out of the British military, and married a woman who cared for 6 or 8 orphans in a war-torn area in or near Palestine. A God-led man right down to God showing him who to marry and very Word-centered, many of his sermons can also be found on YouTube. The first paragraph of the first chapter in his amazing book, THEY SHALL EXPEL DEMONS, begins:
“When a member of my congregation let out a blood-curdling shriek and collapsed just in front of my pulpit, I had to make a split-second decision. I called on some others to help me and, in the name of Jesus, we succeeded in driving out the demon (or evil spirit). That experience in 1963 propelled me into intensive study of the ministry of Jesus. I wanted to be certain my actions were in line with His.”
What is most compelling to me about SHALL EXPEL DEMONS is that he actually got to a point where he could delineate the prerequisites for Christians to basically expel demons from themselves — which seemed most especially effective in group prayer (with hundreds if not thousands in attendance).
Many Christians claim that Christians cannot be oppressed by or “have” demons — but this is not true when Christians have left doors open. Derek Prince takes one on a walk through the Bible showing which doors may be open and how to close them. I feel this is a particularly important topic in today’s world where it is blatantly obvious that there is an epidemic of “new age” worship of so many different idols and spirits by people with NO CLUE what is really going on…!!!
Love your blog, Janet…!!! You are awesome!