Happy Birthday Christy

This year, for our Christy Miller birthday party, we gathered in the park for a picnic and fun.

Celebrating Christy's birthday with a giant cake!

Playing games like Splat and Pterodactyl. 

Ultimate Frisbee time!

Forever With You

Forever With You, Robin Jones Gunn's newest book and the first in the Christy and Todd Married Years series,  released this week. Reading it was like meeting up with old friends. It was wonderful to reconnect with so many familiar forever friends characters. For those who haven't read the older books in awhile, Robin artfully melded in flashback scenes to remind you of familiar stories. And for those of us who recently read and reread and reread again all the Forever Friends books while we anxiously waited for news about what is going on in their lives, we are not disappointed.

In this book, we follow Christy and Todd through a difficult and dark cloud of an unknown future while trusting that God has them in his hand and is forever with them. Through it all they remain faithful witnesses of God's promises, while still struggling as all humans do while faced with uncertainties and scary times. I enjoyed seeing Todd's familiar weaving of analogies and wonderful insights from his time digging in the Word. As I often am, when reading Robin's books, I was reminded of the beautiful word pictures of Rich Mullins.

Christy is so easy to relate to as she rides the  rollercoaster of dips and turns that life brings us. She remains a steadfast supporter and partner in marriage while navigating happiness, faith and trust, fear, anger, and forgiveness. There is definitely signs of growth and maturity in both Todd and Christy as they are learning to navigate marriage, family and life.

To be sure, though they are dealing with some hard stuff, it is not a downer of a book. It was fun and a joy to read. When your faith and trust is in the God who holds it all in His hands, you learn to find the joy and the sun shining through the darkness and find that God uses all things to work together for his good and that is definitely the case in this book. Todd and Christy definitely are examples of riding the waves with their heads up and making the most of the life that God has graciously given them.

I noted comments from readers and Robin on what brought joyful tears to their eyes. For me, it was the moment that Aunt Marti took marker in hand. And you will have to read the book to find out what that means. ;-)

I laughed, I smiled, I cried, I anticipated and now I anxiously await the next installment!

Click HERE for a sneak peak of chapter 1.

Order the book at Robin's Shop or your favorite book distributor. It is also available on many ereader formats. I have to admit, that I didn't have the patience for my hard copy to show up and ordered it on my ereader!

Exciting news from Robin!

Robin posted this video this week with exciting news about the new series. 

April Meeting

April Meeting:

Friday, April 25, 2014

7:00-9:00PM

First Baptist Church of St. Charles

Discussion:

A Promise is Forever

Video from the live release party for Spoken For.

Meeting reminder

Just a reminder that we will be meeting next Monday, April 21, to discuss the last book in the Christy Miller series, A Promise is Forever. Next month, before we start in on the Sierra Jensen series, we will read and discuss Robin's newest book Spoken For, which she co-authored with Alyssa Joy Bethke. I will have copies of the book available for each family at the April meeting. Let me know if you need one.

See you soon!

ETA: Looks like we will need to reschedule the April meeting. Too many scheduling conflicts that day. Will update when new date is settled upon.

Spoken For: Embracing Who You Are and Whose You Are

Spoken For: Embracing Who You Are and Whose You Are is the newest book by Robin Jones Gunn, author of the wonderful Christy Miller series, as well as Sisterchicks and many more. She co-authored the book with  the lovely Alyssa Joy Bethke. The story of how these two came to collaborate on the book is itself inspiring as we see how God orchestrated the timing and circumstances to get these important words on paper.

Robin and Alyssa both share from their hearts and experiences as they impart important truths about who we are in God's eyes and our worth to him. Both of these authors write not only to their audience, but to themselves, as they remind us that even in the broken times, even when it seems all is lost and we feel alone, that we are children of God. We are the Bride of Christ. We are Spoken For. In each chapter, they take turns sharing their stories. Stories of pain, and stories of hope and love. They share the words that God spoke to us in his precious Word to break down the lies of the enemy that are often so easy to believe and replace them with the truths that God wants us to know about ourselves.

As the chapter headings show us, they remind us that each of us is wanted, pursued, loved, have been called, are of great value, are peculiar treasures, are set free, are covered, promised and spoken for. Whether we are single, married, found Mr Right or are still waiting, no matter what our circumstances, these words hold true for all of us.

If you need reminding of how precious you are, how loved you are, how much our Lord and Saviour is pursuing you has His very own, this is the book for you. And who doesn't need to be washed continually in these beautiful truths? This book is a great encouragement. 

Listen here as Alyssa Joy Bethke shares her heart about this message:

Check out their blogs as they shares about the book: HERE and  HERE 

This book releases today! Please check it out because you are so precious and you are SPOKEN FOR!