Christmas at Carnton - Recently widowed, Aletta Prescott struggles to hold life together for herself and her six-year-old son. With the bank threatening to evict them, she discovers an advertisement for the Women’s Relief Society auction and applies for a position—only to discover it’s been filled. Then a chance meeting with a wounded soldier offers another opportunity—and friendship. But can Aletta trust this man? Captain Jake Winston, a revered Confederate sharpshooter, suffered a head wound at the Battle of Chickamauga. When doctors deliver their diagnosis, Jake fears losing not only his greatest skill but his very identity. As he heals, Jake is ordered to assist with a local Women’s Relief Society auction. He respectfully objects. Kowtowing to a bunch of “crinolines” isn’t his idea of soldiering. But orders are orders, and he soon discovers this group of ladies—one, in particular—is far more than he bargained for. Set against the backdrop and history of the Carnton Plantation in Franklin, Tennessee, Christmas at Carnton is a story of hope renewed and faith restored at Christmas.
Live not by Lies - Over the past few years, America has seen the rise of a chilling “soft totalitarianism—something more Brave New World than Nineteen Eighty-Four. Identity politics are beginning to encroach on every aspect of life. Progressives attempt to marginalize conservatives, traditional Christians, and other dissenters, sneering at the idea of civil liberties protecting their beliefs. Corporations now censor opinions with which they disagree. Technology is inching us toward a surveillance state, and consumerism has dulled our spirits and made us willing to accept a secularism imposed not by gulags but by “softer” means. Despite these warning signs, many American Christians fail to recognize the dangers, and even fewer know what they can do to resist. Meanwhile, the men and women who survived communist oppression have been sounding the alarm that their souls and their liberties are already at stake. In Live not by Lies, Dreher amplifies the alarm and explains why it is so hard for us to recognize the threat of totalitarianism in our own time. He lays out the steps for resistance and shares stories of modern-day dissidents who preserved their faith and their integrity during a time of tyranny, revealing:
How to keep your sons and daughters in the faith, like the Benda family, whose six children remained devoted in the face of persecution
How to stand firm, like Father Jerzy Popietuszko, who gave up his life to speak out against the the communist regime
How to let go of bitterness, like physician Silvester Krcmery, who prayed for his captors every day of his thirteen-year prison sentence
How to live not by lies, like Russia’s Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who refused to affirm anything he knew to be untrue, even at the price of exile
Too many of us are sleeping through the erosion of our freedoms, assuming that totalitarianism can’t happen in America. Live Not by Lies is the wake-up call we need—and will equip us for the long resistance.
Have you ever had that heavy feeling where it felt like life was throwing all it had at you? And all you know is that hope feels more out of reach than ever. Well, the people in these two new selections, whether they be fictional or real, feel that way right before they get their hope back. Within the first chapter of Christmas at Carnton, Aletta Prescott finds herself: without a job, soon to be without a home, missing her husband, and wondering how she is going to raise her son all by herself. The stress level is truly demonstrated to the readers when Aletta is, “wishing the Lord couldn’t see the doubts she courted, even in the midst of struggling to believe.” As the story goes on Aletta meets Captain Jake Winston, who becomes a kindred in life’s roller coaster of struggles. As they became closer, they began to regain hope in their circumstances, and realized that God is bigger than any trial. The other new book that I dove into this week was Live Not By Lies by Rod Dreher. This subtitle explains what Dreher intends to tell his readers, “Survivors of Soviet Totalitarianism have a warning for us: It can happen here!” The definition of totalitarianism is: the political concept that the citizen should be totally subject to an absolute state authority. So, Dreher spends the first four chapters going in-depth into what totalitarianism is and how it affects those that it hits. Once again we are shown, not just two people, but a multitude, who are craving to be free from the oppression that seems to crush their spirits more and more. But then Dreher uses the rest of his book to show how priests and families helped generate hope for their people. Another book that talks about enduring life’s roller coaster is the book of Job. In chapter one we read that Job has many things to be grateful for: a wife, sons and daughters, land, animals, and an undying faith in the Lord. Job had everything that a man of that time period could ask for, that is, until the test began. The livestock and the land perished, his wife and children suffered terribly, and up to the end of it all his faith in God almost died too. But the devil couldn’t win that easily. In chapters 39-42 the Lord speaks with Job saying, “Hey, I know you just went through a lot of horrible stuff and you are beginning to lose hope, but I want you to remember something. I haven’t left you through all of this and will never leave you from this day forward. Don’t you know that I brought the world into being, from the smallest to the biggest detail that you can see. So don’t lose hope, Job, and never forget that I am in control.” Have you ever had that heavy feeling where it felt like life was throwing all it had at you? And all you know is that hope feels more out of reach than ever. So, do you want to know how to survive life’s roller coaster? Don’t ever forget that God is in control, and that his plan for you is becoming more and more clear every day. So come on down to the Cross Reference Library and check out these great page turners!
“I was always complaining about the ruts in the road until I realized that the ruts are the road.”
—Unknown