With Fresh Eyes - Too often we take for granted what we see everyday. We long for the extraordinary when we set aside time with God in a quiet room. But we don’t think to look for his hand in a traffic jam or while walking the dog. For Karen Wingate, sight itself is something extraordinary--and what our eyes can reveal is even more astounding. Karen lived most of her life with severely limited sight due to a genetic defect. But through the chance outcome of a surgery in her mid-fifties, she doubled her visual acuity. As she eagerly explored a more detailed world for the first time, she also began to see God in every new discovery--from the glory of sunsets to the prosaic numbers of a bathroom scale. You, too, can awaken to the wonder of what you observe--great and small--and how God is working in everyday moments. In each of her sixty meditations, Karen’s humor and whimsy draw a connection between physical sight and spiritual understanding that will leave you with a renewed delight in what is good and beautiful.
Every Knee Shall Bow - For the first time in history, the Roman emperor supports the church. But the fledgling faith’s future still hangs in the balance. Flavia, a Roman senator’s daughter, is sent from her convent by Bishop Sylvester to seek Emperor Constantine’s permission to determine the canon of scripture and build great churches where pagan temples once stood. But God’s enemies are on the move, and the path to the bishop’s goals is fraught with peril. Flavia’s beloved protector, Germanic barbarian Brandulf Rex, has fought his way out of exile. He and Flavia will cross the empire by land and sea on this epic quest to free the Roman people from the tyranny of the ancient gods. Will the early Christians receive the Word of God? Will beautiful churches rise in Rome where pagan temples once stood? Or will the world's greatest empire keep refusing to bow the knee to its true and rightful Lord?
Rest Girl - Are you bone-tired, girl? Does your soul feel fatigued? Jami Amerine gets it. She was there. Overcommitted, under-slept, stretched thin, continually trying yet constantly falling short as a woman, a mother, and a Christian. But there’s more to life than this:
More Rest
More to taste and see
More tenderness, mercy, and guidance
More abundance, peace, and joy
More everything
In a climate steeped in stress and worries, this book offers a priceless opportunity to experience the refreshing freedom of true rest so you never slip into limiting belief or doubt again. Author Jami Amerine (Well, Girl) will guide you on a moving, humorous, engaging, and life-altering journey to experience the unconditional love of the Father as the girl He adores (that’s you!) and an opportunity to change your world!
One of my most favorite Disney songs is “A Whole New World” from Aladdin. When I was reading these books this week, the subjects that the authors went over reminded me of that song. In, With Fresh Eyes, it was literally a “Whole New World” for Karen Wingate, because she had never been able to “see” it before. Just like how it is for new believers in Christ. Before you decide to trust in Jesus, you are blind to how beautiful the world truly is when God is known by you. Every Knee Shall Bow contains a whole other world entirely, bringing us into the Roman Empire during the rise of the Christian church. That is exactly what I love about historical fiction books. How an author can show us a perspective of a story that thousands of people have heard hundreds of times. The last book that I looked at was Rest Girl by Jami Amerine. Life is crazy, unpredictable, exhausting, and according to Jami just a little bit of rest is exactly what you need to say good-bye to the craziness of life and hello to a more focused relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. So come on down to the Cross Reference Library and discover a whole new world in what you believe.
“A whole new world, a new fantastic point of view”
- A Whole New World from Aladdin