Book Review: Walking With the Women of the New Testament by Heather Farrell

Have you ever been talking with a friend, the really good kind of friend, who has probably known you for a while and she (I'm using feminine pronouns because I am thinking of my girl friends here) just gets you?  Maybe while you are talking you realize just how great your bond is because she understands the struggles you have had, how much you love to do something, or how much you struggle with a weakness. Maybe she has those same struggles, likes, and weaknesses, but maybe she is just really fabulous at relating to you. Maybe she helps you see how you can become better and maybe she helps you become better. She believes in you, and maybe it's because she's been there before or maybe it's because she just has a great ability to help others reach their potential. Maybe you can see a bit of yourself in her or she can see a bit of herself in you. It might be that not everyone has a friend or a sister or a mother like this, but oh how I hope you do.

But let's back up a bit to where I mentioned seeing a bit of yourself in someone else. Sometimes this can happen with people in our lives, or for me it seems it happens most often with my children. But I have had it happen when I read books before and I love how eye-opening it is to be able to relate to someone, whether fictional or historical, because it gives me an opportunity to reflect. Anything that helps me to be able to improve myself in an uplifting way that doesn't make me feel guilty is a great thing.

I have been following Heather Farrell's blog Women in the Scriptures for almost two years now and was really excited about her book. I started reading Walking with the Women of the New Testament a couple weeks ago and I'm still working my way through it. The artwork is pretty eye-catching, kind of like photographs and watercolors in one. Mandy Jane Williams did such a nice job with these pictures. The book goes in chronological order through the New Testament, beginning with Elisabeth, and details the accounts and experiences of dozens of women or groups of women. I feel like a review needs to be balanced so I will say that I found a few spelling and grammatical errors that bugged me at first but one that made me laugh. In the section about Mary, the mother of Jesus, it refers to Gabriel and then later Gabrielle. :)  I promise the author did not really try to add more women to the New Testament in this book, since that was just a spelling error, but in general it was so great to see that there really are more women in the scriptures than most casual readers would realize. We really need to look for them, and Heather's book encourages us to do just that.

Some of these women we know more about, and others are just mentioned in passing in the New Testament. But instead of just aimlessly speculating about them, Heather puts things into a proper historical and time-period appropriate religious perspective and then makes suggestions about what could have been. And she also does a most wonderful job of relating these women to our day, which brings me back to my earlier points and might be the reason this book resonates with me so much.

The last few weeks have been quite emotionally challenging for me. As someone who has dealt with mild depressive episodes in the past, I know my "warning signs" and can recognize when I need to switch gears to work through the darker periods that I can sense are coming. But the hard part is that sometimes the warning signs phase feels like the dark periods and I just don't know when it might end. I am doing fine, just trying to observe the waterfall of my thoughts from behind it instead of underneath, if that makes sense.  So the other day I was having a pretty rough day, just not feeling great about myself and really not wanting to do the dishes or shower or anything really. My younger kids were down for their naps and there was just a little while before it would be time to pick up the older kids at school. I sat down to continue my reading, even though I really just wanted to sleep and zone out for a bit. I pulled out this book and was so comforted by the passage about Mary Magdalene as soon as I read it. Heather writes, "The story of Mary Magdalene gives me great hope. She reminds me that there is no sickness--physical or mental--that Christ cannot heal." That was something I needed to read, right then. It lifted me up and I felt spiritual strength being poured into me that helped me get through the rest of that afternoon.

Reading about the daughter of Jairus also gave me great peace where the author likened physical death to spiritual death and reminded me that the phrase "she is not dead, but sleepeth" can be applied to people who may be wandering in spiritual darkness right now but who will someday return to the light.  There are sections here about barely mentioned-in-passing women in the scriptures like Paul's sister that remind us that righteous people we read about in the scriptures often had righteous examples to follow -- and maybe those examples came from their mothers, grandmothers or sisters.

We can learn from the women whose stories are in this beautiful book and I believe as we study their lives and experiences that we will truly feel like they are dear friends.

Disclaimer: I was given a copy of this book to review from Cedar Fort Publishing in exchange for my honest review. 

October 2014

The month began with General Conference. It was so wonderful - I feel like it always comes at the best time for me. A little while after school starts again and things get scheduley and busy and then comes this great reminder of how important the Gospel is in our lives. Love that feeling of being re-centered and reminded! 

This little friend had her first birthday. She's my favorite one year-old in the whole world. 

On Hannah's birthday, Rebecca was running around in a fireman costume (see her hand there) AND Jeff brought home an adding machine he got at an antique store. The children were quite enthralled with it and are still mourning that the machine took its place in Jeff's office on campus instead of remaining in the garage. Several times I'd be looking for Jacob in the house before mealtime or something and I'd find him in the garage, calculating. Well, really, adding. It is pretty amazing. 

Jacob finished his soccer season. He had fun with his friends from school and their team played pretty well, very well for some of the games. I will confess to being glad to have our Saturday mornings free to do what we want now and no practice Tuesday nights, but it was a fun few weeks. 

Here are five of the six of us at the ward Halloween party for church. We snagged best group costume: fire truck, flame, firefighter, ladder, and dalmatian (minus her ears).  Jacob went as R2-D2 but people thought he was a fire hydrant. 

Kendall came to visit! My cousin came from Idaho and stayed with us for a few nights while he was looking for work and coming to a school orientation in Findlay, OH. So good to see him again, it had been a long time!

Taking out the pumpkin guts. She was very much wanting to plant the seeds right then but somehow I convinced her it wouldn't work unless we waited until Spring...

Jeff;s handiwork, stellar as usual!  Tinkerbell, Yoda, Butterfly and one we'll call Fun With Different Drill Bits. 

There are better pictures of them all looking but Hannah's face cracks me up in this one. Trick or treating was on the 30th so we got all that fun out of the way before the school parties. 

Trick or treating in effortless style...

Our school does a costume parade every year. So fun to see everyone!  And I thought it would be fun to count Elsas but in the end, keeping track of Sarah getting in and out of the stroller and there being at least 6 in just the kindergarten classes made me rethink that idea. Rebecca went as Fancy Nancy this day, a last minute decision. 

Jacob as R2-D2. His friend from class was "The Banana Lady," as he called it. 

Sometime around Halloween Hannah showed her ability to stack popcorn flavor containers. I think I snapped the picture just as she swiped the top one off the stack very quickly. 

Jacob at his class party on Halloween. They had early dismissal that day (end of the quarter) so it was fun and fun and more fun. Then they came home and we had some more fun!

The Kindergarten party was pretty happenin', too. She told me she wanted to be Fancy for the picture, because Fancy Nancy.

Hannah turns 1!

A month ago on October 11th, Hannah Gale had her first birthday. I think a year ago there were days I was sure I, or someone else, might not really survive us adding another child to the family so soon after Sarah made her appearance in 2012. But survive we did, and Hannah really just fits right in. We love her so!

Jeff was flying back from Utah that day to be back for our little celebration. Rebecca was pretty excited to help with the apple party. I made a banana-based refined-sugar-free cake with not-too-sweet cream cheese frosting for Hannah's cake and cut it in the shape of an apple. Rebecca helped with the sprinkles when I left the cake unattended for a few moments. And the two older kids cried their eyes out when we let her smash the cake, worried there wouldn't be any for them because she wasn't sharing. Silly kids.

We bobbed for apples or got really soggy trying! Rebecca asked me about 57 times if it was time to put the apples in the water after she filled up the bin with the hose. Finally I let her do it; she is a persistent little thing.

We played pin the leaf on the apple and apple tic-tac-toe.

And we had a great time.

Hannah has such a fun disposition. She has cute dimples, bright blue eyes, a hair color that remains mysterious (is it brown? is it red? is it auburn?), she is patient, she notices things really quickly, she already loves books, and she even likes to sing.



I remember before I had children our stake president at church talked about how charity, the pure love of Christ, was something we could be blessed with. He shared that after each of his children was born (and they have 6 children) he wasn't sure how he could possibly love anyone so much, but somehow his heart was able to keep expanding and he was able to love the other children more because he loved the new child now, too. I have really seen this in my own life, too, and will always be grateful for that description. So here is to expanding hearts and this happy little girl who fills our world with so much light!

Book Review: Amazing Hairstyles by Becky Porter

I grew up in a family of three girls. I felt like I knew a lot about girls and then, I had a son. I was a little surprised when Jacob was born - how on earth would I ever learn all about boys?  I am still learning and luckily I have Jeff to help me understand all things boy. But it turns out that having 3 girls myself now doesn't mean I feel like I know what I'm doing with girls, either!  Case in point: cute hairstyles. I love seeing them but somehow lack the fine motor skills to actually do what I want to do. So my 1 year old has pretty auburn-ish hair that never has bows in it because they just get lost. And my 2 year old has a pretty even but also un-accessorized baby mullet she is sporting. Sometimes we do a ponytail, but not very often. And my 5 year old has lovely, wavy reddish hair. And most days I am frantically pulling ponytails or braids back while she eats her oatmeal or eggs. So I was excited to see Becky Porter's new book, Amazing Hairstyles. It came in the mail a little smooshed but we smoothed it out a bit under some heavy books and Rebecca thumbed through it with me, admiring all of the "lovely hairdos," as she called them.

We decided to stick with the easy selections, because see above, and had some fun. I like how the book is divided into sections and it's easy to see how to finish off the look. Plus, Becky gives great tips about good supplies to have on hand and how to make little changes if you want to. Here are a couple pictures we took of Rebecca's hair:

First we did a linked ponytail with a scarf. This was pretty fun. I added the braid on the right side just for fun. We liked how each step of the hairstyle had a picture to go with it. Easy for me to follow, and fun for Rebecca to see how much we had left until we were done!

This hairstyle also worked well for the occasion of pumpkin seed extraction, as you can see above!  

The other hairstyle we've tried successfully, 3 or 4 times now, is a twisted pullback. This was at the end of the day on a Sunday and it still looks pretty cute!  We like how easy this one is, and if we're feeling courageous maybe I will curl the bottom of her hair sometime to soften this up a bit. 

We are excited to try some more new hairdos on Rebecca. We both recommend this book because it is user-friendly and good for the hairstyle-challenged mommas out there like me!

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book to review from Cedar Fort Publishers. All opinions are my own. I have some more reviews coming up in the next few weeks, so stay tuned!