Romans 12:1-2

So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. Romans 12:1-2

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Plain Wisdom - A Book Review


Plain Wisdom is a collection of life insights by Cindy Woodsmall, a novelist, and Miriam Flaud, an Old Order Amish woman. All of the insights are grouped in seven categories: The Rhythm of Life; Timeless Beginnings; Challenges Great and Small; Laughter in Odd Places; Beauty, Ashes, and Things Between; In His Hands; and The Shape of Tomorrow. Each category starts with a glimpse into the Amish way of life that Woodsmall has gleaned by her friendship with Fluad and each chapter includes Scripture. Speaking of friendship, Plain Wisdom made me long to spend time with my best friend who lives in another state.

Both authors do an excellent job with transparency and both come at topics from different perspectives. Still, commonalities we share as women are evident despite cultural differences. Many family recipes from Flaud are shared. Of particular interest to me was “Amish Friendship Bread”. Before we had children, I kept the starters and bread going for several months. I’m looking forward to starting this again and was even given the idea of baking all the bread to give out to friends instead of passing along starters. Although, slowing down and enjoying simple things in life such as baking may be what is needed for many of us!

Honestly, when I selected this book, I thought I had chosen a fiction book because I recognized Woodsmall as a fiction writer whose characters and plots are usually Amish. When the book arrived, I was pleasantly surprised! As a full-time working Mom of two tweens, fiction is difficult for me to read because of time (and sometimes preference). This book can be read in small spurts or all the way through and even has a discussion guide if you’d like to read with a group or a friend.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the Amish, those whose hearts are stirred by friendship, someone wanting a light refreshing read and those who need to be reminded of how much God cares for and works in every area of our lives.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

**Please go to the Blogging for Books site to rank my review: http://www.waterbrookmultnomah.com/bloggingforbooks/reviews/view/5362/bmc:1/bc:21/rank:6/month:all/year:all

1 comment:

  1. Love that you're doing book reviess! Now I want to check this one out.

    ReplyDelete

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