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I don’t usually read books about marriage, unless I know at least a of my couple closer married friends who can tell me all about them before I do.  Almost every one that I’ve cracked open has almost immediately been disappointing. This and the fact that after I requested a copy of Love & War,  I realized it was by the same authors of a book that I’d read several not so favorable reviews by people I know and trust, I wasn’t really sure it would even be worth my time to read it.

I do believe in making my own judgments about books and authors, and since I already had it, I figured I’d give it a try.

Well, I finished it yesterday and have mixed feelings about it. I found some encouraging bits, and even some convicting portions of ways that I fall short of being the wife and help-meet I really want to be. It made some good points about what God created marriage to be and how hard Satan is going to work to use petty distractions and turn them into “big deals” so that our union is broken. It had some beautiful sentences about God’s faithfulness and the healing of forgiveness in our lives.

But, in other ways I was a little disappointed. Personally, the style just wasn’t something I enjoy in this kind of a book. It felt fairly light (not necessarily a bad thing),  but sometimes the funny lines felt a little forced and occasionally out of place in the context of this being a book about war on marriage.

Many of the illustrations used were taken from movie after movie. While I do believe there are some well-played movies that do have helpful quotes and thoughts in them, somehow I am not entirely comfortable with taking illustrations from something that is usually entirely make believe and trying to apply them to real situations.  Real life, real marriages, real love stories play out how they do in some of these movies.

That said, I do feel like the intent and meaning behind the book was good.  In an era where marriage is often so damaged, we need all the help we can get. I probably will be passing my copy of Love & War on to paperbackswap, but if only for those convicting moments, I don’t consider my time spent reading this book entirely wasted.

NOTE: This book is one I’d definitely categorize as for  “Married Only” readers. It is probably most helpful to someone who has been married for a year or so, and I wouldn’t recommend it to young, unmarried readers because of that.

this book was a complimentary copy provided by Blogging for Books for review purposes only. the thoughts and opinions expressed are mine only.

God’s Promises for the American Patriot caught my eye right away. I have always loved history, and I love getting to have looks into some of the lesser known heroes of our country.

I really enjoyed this little book.

Each one of the 195 pages includes words taken from the speeches and writings of men like Abraham Lincoln, Alexander Hamilton, Longfellow and Thomas Jefferson. The focus is on the things that they lived or spoke that show their own commitment or observations of the place that God and His word have in the foundation and preservation of freedom and happiness as individuals and as a Nation.

While this book is aimed toward an “American Patriot”, the words inside aren’t just applicable to American citizens. I think that these excepts that talk about the place that God and the bible should hold in our lives applies to everyone, whether or not you live under the Stars and Stripes.

I enjoyed being reminded of where we have come from as a Nation, and of the promises from God’s word that God is faithful and true, even when we forget how He has led us in the past, and begin to forget how much freedom has cost us all.

This book would be a great homeschooling supplement as well, which just is one reason why I’m keeping this one on my shelf. I hope that one day, I can pass along not only a love for the facts of History, but for the principles of freedom in my own children, so that when they read books like these, they too will feel inspired by the men of the past to cherish liberty for the future.

this book was sent to me by booksneeze for review. the opinions and thoughts presented here are mine.

UnPlanned. She thought that she was protecting and helping women who were facing the crisis of unplanned, unwanted pregnancies. And she really believed in what she was doing. She thought her choice to be a director of a Planned Parenthood Clinic in Texas that offered abortion services to its clients was the right one. What happened in that same clinic that would changed the course of her life wasn’t planned.

When she was called from her office to assist during an abortion procedure, Abby Johnson finally came face to face with the reality of what she had been promoting.  She saw the lies she had believed—and told countless other women about abortion and their unborn children. And that is when she chose to walk away from the career she had poured herself into for eight years and become a part of a Pro Life Organization.

Walking away from her career at Planned Parenthood wasn’t without challenges, and eventually her story became a headline on the National news and brought Abby unexpectedly to the front as an advocate and public figure in the right for life movement of today.

unPlanned is a documentary that tells Abby’s story—of where she came from, and how God worked in her life for eight years to bring her to where she is today. I cried as I watched her story. As a strong believer in pro-life, and as a girl who also has a tender place in my heart for women in crisis, I could relate to Abby’s desire to help women and her journey is touching and sincere.

Told from her perspective and the perspective of her family as well as the people who stood on the other side of the fence and prayed for her, unPlanned is an heart griping documentary companion to Abby’s book of the same title.

The book has been on my wishlist for a while, so I was interested when I was contacted and asked to review the DVD documentary by Focus on The Family and Tyndale Publishing, and the 60 minute film is well worth watching! The trailer can be found on youtube.

I am also happy to have been given an extra copy of unPlanned to share with one of my readers.