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2 Books I Finished Recently

In 2023, I set a goal to finish one book per week. I’m aiming to listen to 30 minutes of an audiobook per day (while cooking, cleaning, and/or driving) and read 10 minutes of a book. By doing this, I hope to fairly easily be able to finish one book per week.

You can follow along on GoodReads to see what I’m reading, what books I finish, and the star rating I give each of them.

Here are the two books I finished recently:

If motherhood hasn’t been at all like you envisioned, I think Katie’s story and the hope she has in the midst of it will be a great encouragement to you. She shares how they got the diagnosis of one of their children receiving the diagnosis of having a genetic condition and what it was like to process that. Later, after genetic testing, two of their other children were also diagnosed with the same condition.

This is her journey to learning to hope and trust in God while walking through a really difficult season with her children’s health. She also experienced a miscarriage and that was heartbreaking in the midst of all of this.

I would have loved for her to share a little bit more storyline from the diagnosis and weave more of what it’s been like to walk through that in the book. She shares about it, but it felt like it was more in really short snippets instead of being fleshed out deeply. I totally understand if she didn’t share more because it was her kids’ stories, but I’m just the kind of person who really finds in-depth stories engaging and found myself wanting more of their story in the book.

I so appreciated what she shared on my podcast episode with her and if you’re interested in hearing more of their journey and story, listen in here.

Verdict: 3 stars

Book #11: Every Woman a Theologian

I feel like I’m one of the last people to discover Phylicia Masonheimer! I had read a book she co-authored and loved it, but didn’t know that she has a blog, online store, podcast, and other books and is really active on Instagram.

It wasn’t until last fall when I asked my audience to suggest people for me to have on my Time-Saving Strategies IG live show, and person after person after person suggested her that I went and checked out her Instagram account. And I’ve since become a big fan and been so inspired by her.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s a great overview of theology and would be fantastic to go through with a teen. In most cases, she doesn’t present things as “this is the right viewpoint”, but more, “these are the various viewpoints and why”. It made me think, examine what I believe, and taught me a number of new things I didn’t know — and I’ve been a Christian for years and years.

If you are looking for a starting place for learning more theology and what you believe and why you believe it, Every Woman a Theologian will make you think and challenge you to really prioritize theology… because what we believe directly impacts how we live every single day of our lives!

Stay tuned for a podcast episode coming with Phylicia soon! We recorded it a few weeks ago!

Verdict 4 stars