The Scribe's Portion

"Called to Forgive: The Charleston Church Shooting,  A Victim's Husband and the Path to Healing and Peace" by Anthony B. Thompson Pastor Anthony Thompson writes from a deeper place about forgiveness. Losing his wife, Myra in the Charleston Church shooting in 2015, Pastor Anthony had two choices: wallow in bitterness and hatred or forgive, he chose the latter. How many of us can say that we have struggled in the past to forgive over smaller, insignificant wrongs done toward us? Forgiving the killer of your loved one has got to be one of the hardest things to do.   In Called to Forgive, Pastor Anthony spends a little over 200 pages helping the reader understand the freedom and necessity of forgiveness through his own difficult experience. With grace and love, Pastor Anthony retells his healing process and eventual decision to forgive Dylan Roof and move forward. The last 100 pages help you dig deeper with self-analyzing questions and guide.  Thi...

"The Soul of an American President: The Untold Story of Dwight D. Eisenhower's Faith" by Alan Sears & Craig Osten I never read presidential biographies but I wanted to expand my reading and decided to give this one a try. I find political biographies extremely boring which is why I always avoid them but this one was very interesting. I didn't know more about Eisenhower than what I learned in school and I  was unaware that he was Christian.  I appreciate the extensive historical research that went into this biography and all the cited sources. The authors did a great job of compiling all the information about Eisenhower's family and the deep roots of his faith.  This book delves into the life of the 34th president and how his familial's religious devotion made an impact in his life and in turn, an impact in the way that he governed. His presidency is marked by his moral convictions. The US was influenced by his right judgments and his...

"All Manner of Things" By Susie Finkbeiner This is the first book I read from Susie Finkbeiner. Set in the late 60s during the Vietnam War, it is a lovely story about the wartime American family, living through hardship and tragedy.  The characters are so realistic, at times I forgot it was a novel and not a biography. It is a novel, I'm sure, that resonates with many American families who have loved ones in the Army or have lost someone in the war.  Annie Jacobson, the narrator of the novel, is your typical teen struggling to cope with life: a brother off fighting a war, patching a broken relationship with her estranged father who suffers from PTSD, while dealing with day to day ups and downs in her Michigan hometown. Through letters and a close glimpse into her mind, the reader comes to befriend Annie and sympathize with her hardships and celebrate her happy moments.  It's a lovely, warm story overall. It has little to no Christian content...