Lisa > Recent Status Updates

I love this so much but am still struggling to be consistent in my reading. Never had so much difficulty concentrating. I’m afraid I’m probably putting this aside for now until a better time.

Grateful to be returning again to George Muller’s incredible life of faith.

I am still struggling to read more densely written fiction after my mom’s recent passing, but this is beyond beautiful so far. I am savoring one chapter a day at this point. I’m not yet certain, but George Eliot continues to contend for my favorite Victorian author slot - with Dickens and Gaskell as the other two contenders. Maybe it will be a 3 way tie? I don’t know. I think Dickens has been usurped.

I am also rereading this wonderful devotional that my mentor gave me many years ago (2002). This is either my third or fourth time reading through it. There is truly nothing else like it, and I especially love this edition with the journaling space for each day.

I can’t remember how I learned of this devotional, but so far it is one of the best I’ve read. Joni Eareckson Tada reflects on Brother Lawrence’s statements about practicing the presence of God. Wonderful

Our next classics book club read. This one is wild so far 😳

Rereading this with my classics book club for our January read

Fabulous!!

After the successful second defense of Constantinople from Muslims, Emperor Leo III wrote a letter in 718 to Caliph Omar II that was basically an apologetic defense of the Christian faith and a refutation of the Islamic faith. Incredibly, it seems that this letter might have brought about Omar’s conversion who ruled much differently afterwards and as a result was assassinated by his fellow Muslims two years later.

While this is slow reading for me, this is extremely well written. I am learning so much and wondering why the history of Islam isn’t taught to all Christians. This seems to me to be a huge failing.

Finally getting to read this second book in Hoyle’s fairytale collection 💙

This is slow going but excellently written history. Yarmuk, the first major battle in 636, and the resulting fall of Christendom to Islam throughout the region, shows how all of these areas were strongly Christian-including Egypt. Historians of the time describe the Muslims as “godless savages come to destroy all this is sacred” and state, “It is impossible to describe the horrors the Muslims committed.”