reading list for 2011

In January of 2011 I made this post, which gave some short reviews of the best books I had read over the year of 2010.  I wanted to do that for 2011 too.

Throughout 2011 I read through 70 books, not including those for school.  I decided to also go through those and find out which ones were of "eternal significance", both for 2010 and for 2011.  In 2010 I read 25 out of 91 books that I think were of eternal value.  In 2011 I read 21 books less, but this time I read 39 books that I think were actually really good for me.  So, we're getting better! :) You can go to my reading link to see when I read which ones.  The following list are some short reviews of the ones I most enjoyed from this year.

1. Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard.  I've already done a sort of review on this book here, so I won't do another one.  It's a great book, though!

2. The Guy I'm Not Dating by Trish Perry.  This book is just plain funny.  I really like it.  It's a Christian fiction romance-ish book.  Hilarious.

3. The Shelter of God's Promises by Sheila Walsh.  I got this book from BookSneeze in February or March, and I really enjoyed it.  It went through 10 different aspects of God, including love, confidence, grace, and home.  I honestly didn't expect to like it as much as I did!

4. The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis.  This trilogy includes "Out of the Silent Planet", "Perelandra", and "That Hideous Strength", all by C. S. Lewis.  Lewis is a great fiction writer, as everyone already knows from The Chronicles of Narnia.  The first two books were my favorite; the third was much longer and harder to get through.  Great series!

5. The Mark of a Man by Elisabeth Elliot.  I know this is a book Elliot wrote for men, but I've also heard it suggested that women read it so that they can see more of what God wants a man to be.  The book was written to Elliot's nephew, Peter(?).  I love Elliot's style of writing in that she is so straightforward and to the point.  This book was no exception.

6. If You Love the Lord by Keith Green.  I didn't know much about Keith Green when I first got this book, but throughout this book I came to be really excited to meet this man in Heaven!  He was so very passionate and in love with the Lord, and he wasn't afraid to be brash and rude and make things awkward if he could tell them about Jesus through that.  He had tremendous courage in Christ and is a great encouragement for believers.

7. Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot.  For years I had heard about this book, heard it praised time and time again, and I finally got it at the end of January, 2011. Elisabeth Elliot is definitely one of my favorite authors, if not my absolute favorite. She's just so straightforward and blunt, and her clear-cut view of just about everything is something I really enjoy. Let Me Be a Woman is written to Elliot's daughter, who was about to get married. So there's not really a lot directed to single women, but there is a lot about submission. At the time I was preparing for my first Twelve Extraordinary Women Bible study that I'm leading, and the topic for that month was Eve. In Twelve Extraordinary Women one of the focuses of Eve was on submission, and Let Me Be a Woman really helped me understand that more and, hopefully, present and explain the topic of submission more clearly to my Bible study girls. The book also helped me understand more about who I am in Christ, and how I can live as He has called me to by making me who I am. I would definitely recommend it to any woman!

8. Twelve Ordinary Men by John MacArthur. This book is very similar to Twelve Extraordinary Women by MacArthur, and was actually written first.  Apparently Twelve Ordinary Men had such an overwhelmingly positive response that MacArthur agreed to write one for the women.  Anyway, I so enjoyed Twelve Ordinary Men.  Each chapter studies one of Jesus' disciples.  My favorite chapters were those about John, Andrew, Phillip, and Nathanael.

9. A Tale of Two Sons by John MacArthur.  You can go here to see my review on this book.

10. Surprised by Joy: The Shaping of My Early Life by C. S. Lewis.  This book is Lewis' autobiography.  I really enjoyed it because it showed how his life was just so radically transformed with his salvation and new love for the Lord.

11. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.  Go here to read my review on this great book.

12. Radical by David Platt.  Incredible book.  Read it.

13. Candles in the Dark by Amy Carmichael.  I started this book back in 2010, I think, but then I lost it and couldn't find it anywhere.  Anyway, I finally found it under my bed about six months later, and finished it.  This is such a great book.  I love all of Amy Carmichael's writing; she's very much like Elisabeth Elliot in her straight-out love for the Lord and bluntness.

14. If I Perish by Esther Ahn Kim.  Such an incredible book about one who was tortured and punished for Christ and stood firm.

15. Every Young Woman's Battle: Guarding Your Heart, Mind, and Body in a Sex-Saturated World by Shannon Ethridge and Stephen Arterburn.  Every Young Woman's Battle has so many great tips and encouraging words for young women who are struggling in this world today to stay pure for God.  I so enjoyed this book.

16. Fireproof by Eric Wilson and Alex and Stephen Kendrick.  This is (I think) the book that the movie Fireproof was based off of.  I really loved the movie, and when my sister got the book I just had to read it.  I thought it really showed, better than the movie, how hard it is to fight for your marriage when it just seems like it's gone.  This was a beautiful book.

17. The Last Sin Eater by Francine Rivers.  The Last Sin Eater is one of the best books I have ever read.  I first saw the movie, which is also amazing.  This book is such a beautiful one telling of a young girl, Cadi, who is just completely weighed down with despair over this huge sin she feels she has committed, and she will do anything to get rid of the guilt.  The sin eater is also a man plagued with despair and fear and shame.  Through the courageous heart of Cadi the whole town is changed and set free through the word of God being brought to them.

18. A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael by Elisabeth Elliot.  Over the years I've heard over and over again that I should read this book.  I was finally able to borrow it from a woman at my church, and I so enjoyed it.  Amy Carmichael is one of the missionaries who is most encouraging to me.  Her life epitomizes exactly what I want to do with mine--go to India and work at, and eventually start, an orphanage.  She gave up everything for the Lord, and is such an encouragement to me.

19. The Journals of Jim Elliot.  I think I've mentioned this book a few times over the past month or so and how it was impacting me.  I really, really love reading journals.  There's something so great about peering into the minds and hearts of great people and being able to see an aspect to them that would never be seen otherwise.  I already admired Jim Elliot because of his great sacrifice when he was martyred by the Auca people in 1956, but being able to see through his journals how truly enraptured with God he was just made me that much more excited to meet this man in Heaven!  I also enjoyed reading how much he just adored his wife, Elisabeth, and how much he longed to marry her for so many years before God allowed that to take place.  Such a great book.

Regeneration 2011, Day #4

On the morning of our fourth day at Regeneration I wasn't feeling very well, so I skipped breakfast, got some pop tarts from the vending machine, and slept for an extra hour and a half.  It was really nice, and I felt a lot better afterwards.  I didn't go to the prayer garden that day, but had a good time doing my devotions indoors.

Our first session for that day was with John MacArthur and the topic was the conscience.  I'm not sure why, but I didn't really like that sermon.  It seemed too focused on man, and not on God.  Maybe I wasn't listening well enough, though, because everyone else loved it. :)

After lunch we went to our team game time.  Our first game was sort of like ultimate frisbee.  We had to throw a football to our teammates, and the person who caught it couldn't take more than three steps before throwing it to someone else.  Each team had a goal, and the opposite team would try to knock down a ball that was placed on top of a pole in order to score a point.  Sandman won that game too. :) We failed miserably at our second game, however.  This game was called Kajavikankan (who knows why).  Each team would have eight girls from their team link up with eight girls from the opposite team.  Your teammates would be every other girl, with the opposite team interspersed between, and each person was connected to the two on their sides by holding a piece of rope.  The object was to work together with one's team and try to drag a person from the opposite team into a trash can.  If they touched it at all, they were out.  Sandman was crushed during this game, which wasn't all that fun, but it was still fun to watch.  Just not fun to play. :)

I slept a lot for our free time during that day because I was exhausted, and then headed to our night session.  This one was with John MacArthur too.  He based his sermon on 2 Timothy 2:1-8.  This was probably my favorite sermon of the week because it was so applicable to one's life.  MacArthur's message was basically that we as believers are to be teachers, soldiers, athletes, and farmers (figuratively speaking) and thus glorify God.  We teach, we fight, we run, and we sow all for God's glory.  This sermon was excellent!

After our night session we had another night game, X-Treme Steal the Bacon.  This game is the most well-known game at Regeneration because it is definitely the most intense.  It is the only time when all the teams are against each other all at once.  The teams all come together and make a circle around about seven kiddie pools filled with water and objects that are the "bacon".  A few people are chosen from each team (for instance, they would call out "All senior girls," and all the girls who were seniors from each team would play in that round) and everyone has about two or three minutes in which to get as many items as they can from their pools and across their team line.  The bigger the object, the more points you get.  Six kiddie pools were set in a circle, and in the center, on top of several hay bales to elevate it, was the seventh kiddle pool where the items with the biggest point value were kept.  This game was awesome!  Glorieta was actually able to get two fire trucks to come and douse us all with the fire hoses (very cold!).  Apparently there were many, many injuries as a result of this game last year, and so it was made safer by surrounding all the pools with a circle of hay bales that we had to leap over.  This definitely helped slow us down, but it could still be pretty dangerous.  It was fun though!  You can catch a glimpse of it here.  You can see a bunch of the games from seconds 35-1:15, but zero in on 1:00-1:15 to watch our night game!

And that was it for day four!

After playing the rope game.

Playing soccer in the rain.

X-Treme Steal the Bacon!!!!!!

That's what it looked like when everyone who had been chosen for that round went running as fast as they could into the center of the circle.  Pretty intense!

Very blurry, but you can kind of see how it was.

The fire hose getting us all wet!

Regeneration 2011, Day #3

 On our third day at Regeneration I went to the prayer garden again, back to my previous spot, and had some more wonderful fellowship with the Lord.

Instead of our morning session that day we had a couple choices for some breakout sessions that we could take.  Out of ten, we were able to choose two to go to.  Our choices were: "Studying Your Bible for Life" by Austin Duncan, "Their Lives Depend On It" by Andrew Gutierrez, "Facebook to Friendships" by Chris Hamilton, "Romeo and Juliet" by Rick Holland, "Directionally Challenged" by Jon Rourke, "Reasons We Believe" by Nathan Busenitz, "Christ and Culture" by Joe Keller, "Live Like You're Dying" by Abner Chow, "Listening for Life" by Ken Ramey, and "Fighting for Joy" by Adam Tyson.  Aren't those hard choices?!  I had such a difficult time in choosing, but I finally decided on "Live Like You're Dying" and "Their Lives Depend On It".

The first one I went to was "Live Like You're Dying" by Abner Chow.  It wasn't what I would have expected it to be, judging from the title, but it was still really good.  Abner basically took the entire Bible and comprised it into a love story, with Jesus being the Hero and the Groom, chasing after His Bride, the Church.  It was really an escatology class; again, not what I would have expected from the title, but I still really enjoyed it.

Second was "Their Lives Depend On It" by Andrew Gutierrez.  Andrew is the high school pastor for Grace Community Church, and I was really looking forward to hearing him speak.  I was not disappointed!  His class was on evangelization and gave us the whys and hows to telling people about Jesus.  The whys were: (1) it's a matter of obedience, (2) it's a matter of their suffering, and (3) God deserves their praise.  The hows were: (1) know what you're talking about, (2) be on fire, (3) live a transformed life, (4) be intentional, (5) start the conversation, (6) listen, (7) use tact, (8) leave with the gospel being clear, (9) stick to the gospel, (10) endure, and (11) understand that when they are saved your job is not done.  His passion for evangelization really inspired me!

After our breakout sessions we had lunch, and then had our team games.  That day we walked about half a mile to a field way far away and first played a sort of dodgeball game that was not fun at all and seemed completely pointless.  Afterwards, however, we got to play a mud game (!!!).  It was very complicated, but basically you tried to get as many of your team's objects into one of four trash cans per round.  Our team, Sandman, completely dominated that game!  The sad thing was that only sixteen guys or girls (this wasn't a co-ed game) per team could play at a time, so I didn't get to actually play the game, but we had a blast sliding in the mud afterwards!  I've always wanted to do a mud game, so this was like a dream come true. :)

That afternoon during free time I went canoeing with one of the girls from my youth group.  It was actually really fun, even though I usually don't like stuff like that that's over bodies of water.  The evening session was the first time we heard John MacArthur preach.  His sermon that evening was from John 15:1-11 and on how to determine whether you are bearing fruit, being pruned, or whatnot, and also how to bear more fruit.  It was very good.

That evening instead of having a night game we had a concert by Jimmy Needham!  I was way too exhausted to stay for it, but Rachel and Ellie did and said it was great.  And that's all for day three!

Paddleboating!

Canoeing!

This is what we all looked like after the mud game.  So much fun!

These were the balls for Sphere of Destruction.  I forgot to post this for day #2.

Jimmy Needham!

I also wanted to post this awesome song that I found yesterday.  I love it!

 

A few book reviews

At the beginning of 2011 I said I wanted to start doing more book reviews.  What I meant were ones not actually connected to Book Sneeze, and after three months I'm finally getting around to it!  I've been able to get a lot of reading done so far this year, and wanted to share with you a few of my favorites, and my thoughts on each one.

The very first book I read this year was Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard.  Beth had recommended this to me a few months prior, and I ended up loving it!  It was written in a similar style to Pilgrim's Progress, but was a bit easier to get through than that other old book.  It starts out with Much-Afraid being a timid, quiet woman terrified of just about everything and certainly not up to journeying to the Celestial City in her own strength.  But then the Good Shepherd leads her to follow Him, and the rest of the story is based on her traveling with the two guides he gave to her, Sorrow and Suffering, up the high mountains to His heavenly kingdom.  The story of Much Afraid challenged me to keep fighting and pressing on towards Heaven, and encouraged me by reminding me of God's great love and protection for His children.  Hopefully I'll be able to read this again soon!

The next book I wanted to write about was Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot.  For years I had heard about this book, heard it praised time and time again, and I finally got it at the end of January.  I know I've said this before, but Elisabeth Elliot is definitely one of my favorite authors, if not my absolute favorite.  She's just so straightforward and blunt, and her clear-cut view of just about everything is something I really enjoy.  Let Me Be a Woman is written to Elliot's daughter, who was about to get married.  So there's not really a lot directed to single women, but there is a lot about submission.  At the time I was preparing for my first Twelve Extraordinary Women Bible study that I'm leading, and the topic for that month was Eve.  In Twelve Extraordinary Women one of the focuses of Eve was on submission, and Let Me Be a Woman really helped me understand that more and, hopefully, present and explain the topic of submission more clearly to my Bible study girls.  The book also helped me understand more about who I am in Christ, and how I can live as He has called me to by making me who I am.  I would definitely recommend it to any woman!

The next book is A Tale of Two Sons by John MacArthur, which I finished about a week ago.  This was also a book I had heard about a lot in the past, and when I finally got around to reading it I was not disappointed.  The book I basically an in-depth study of Luke 15:11-32--the story of the prodigal son.  John MacArthur did a great job of bringing to light the feelings, personalities, and basic lives of the prodigal son, the merciful father, and the elder brother.  I was challenged to forgive others, to thank God for His tender mercies, and to see myself as the wretched sinner I really am, among other things.  Something else I liked about this book was that, while it was theologically deep, it was so clearly explained and well-written that I never felt like I was just muddling through trying to understand what on earth the man was talking about.  An all-around good book.

The final book I wanted to review is No Graven Image by Elisabeth Elliot.  This is the only novel written by Elliot, and as such I was eager to have it for my own and read it.  I received it about a week ago, and finished it this afternoon.  No Graven Image is the fictional story of Margaret Sparhawk, a twenty-five-year-old missionary to the Quichua Indians of Ecuador.  She arrives in Ecuador with high hopes of translating the Bible into Quichuan, starting a school, perhaps building a hospital, and ultimately winning multitudes to Christ.  But she soon realizes that this work will be much harder than she had anticipated.  Every step is a baby step, and she struggles with finding just how to begin her work and how to reach the people.  I enjoyed the unhurried pace of the story, but most especially the in-depth look into the life of a missionary.  Elliot was a missionary herself, so she knows exactly what she's talking about.  As I am hoping to go to India as soon as possible after I graduate college, I've been looking for a book that can begin to prepare me for the challenges I will face.  I thought this book was very good in doing that, and will definitely be reading it again.

And that's it!  I hope these reviews were enjoyable and that you'll go find these books and read them!

Another thing I wanted to share was that today I was able to pray with a young girl at Bible club, and she accepted Jesus as her Savior.  I'm thrilled!  As it's my last year working at the Bible club, this moment was especially poignant, and will definitely be something I treasure in my heart.  Please pray for this little girl and ask that God would continue to grow her in her faith and make her more like Him.

Everday's Thanksgiving, Part #8

I'm thankful for:

0141. algebra--my favorite school subject!

0142. volunteering opportunities

0143. God's tender love and care

0144. Matthew 11:28-30

0145. soccer

0146. goldfish

0147. the song "The Little Beggarman"

0148. "Twelve Extraordinary Women" by John MacArthur

0149. telescopes

0150. shooting stars

0151. Operation Christmas Child

0152. green ribbon

0153. Thanksgiving--it's coming up!

0154. U. S. history

0155. NaNoWriMo

0156. maple leaves

0157. the medical blessings in America

0158. how the elections went on Tuesday!

0159. aviator sunglasses

0160. fire alarms