Don't Stop Praying: The God Who Hears Is Just a Breath Away (A 40 Day Prayer Journey) by Matthew West Book Review

In Don’t Stop Praying, Matthew West has written a 40 day devotional type book centering on the topic of prayer. Matthew West is a popular Christian artist with hits such as Don’t Stop Praying, Hello My Name Is, Truth Be Told, The Motions, My Own Little World, Forgiveness, just to name a few. He is also known as reaching out to fans and getting their own stories and making them into a song. He begins the book by sharing a personal story about taking his daughter Lulu on a father-daughter trip. At the camp, they made them to an experiment and she would be blindfolded. Before that happened, Matthew was told to tell her that he would never leave her, she can ask him anything, and that she should only listen to his voice. At first, he was allowed to touch her shoulder and guide her walking around the camp. Next, he had to remove his hand and wasn’t allow to touch her. Next, they rose the challenge by not allowing him to speak unless she asked him a question. She was confused and she didn’t remember why he wasn’t talking. Later on a camp counselor told her that she had been separated from her dad and to follow him. She eventually followed the new leader and off she went. She had completely forgotten the three rules. This idea let him to writing this book on prayer. God will never leave us, we can ask him anything, and we should only listen to his voice. This lead him to seeking more a stronger prayer life and his hope is for readers to join him on this journey. 

One of my favorite lessons in the book was about praying for your enemies. This chapter is a difficult one to read and do! Matthew shared how even he struggles with praying for his enemies. He explained how Jesus instructs us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Jesus forgive his enemies while he was bleeding out. Matthew made a point about how we aren’t called to roll our eyes at them, to gossip, or unfollow them. He revealed also how it is nearly impossible to stay upset or bitter towards someone else when we are truly praying for them. We can seek God’s strength and help in praying for our enemies even when it’s difficult to do so. We have all been there and struggled with this in some degree. 

Another shocking story was about praying for your kingdom come and how your God’s will be done in our lives. Years ago, Matthew West started seeing a door open for a country music career. The publishing company was offering him a job to become a country music songwriter. He has written a few hit songs for some country artists before become a Christian artist and songwriter. He did sign a contract and one the way home he felt God telling him this wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing. They surprising wasn’t angry with him and they didn’t try to sue him for breaking his contract. Two weeks after turning them down God opened up a spot for him to write songs with Casting Crowns and this changed his entire career. 

I would recommend this awesome book to anyone who is seeking a new book about prayer and connecting more with your Creator. I have always enjoyed Matthew West and his songwriting style and this book is no different. He is very knowledgeable on the topic and wants to help readers to pray more effectively and more often. I think his song ideas he gets behind hearing fans stories is inspiring and some of those are included throughout this book. This book will assist readers into don’t stop praying. 

Check it out below:

https://www.amazon.com/Dont-Stop-Praying-Hears-Breath-ebook/dp/B0FFSHTN58 

Come Here and Cook: Stories and Recipes from a Life at the Table by Jordan Howlett Book Review

In Come Here and Cook, Jordan Howlett has written a cookbook mixed with personal stories before each recipe. He is a social media influencer with his TikTok videos gaining many views and he is the president of the Fast Food Secrets Club. He opened the book by sharing how in college he wanted to become a professional baseball player. He was also secretly battling a food insecurity battle. He would workout multiple times a day and he had a terrible feeling from where his next meal would even come from. He came up with this idea to host events that centered around mental health and there was funding to provide for this service. He was hoping to host events that everyone could eat and feel safe and fed. His funding turned out to be denied. He reached out to his aunt and extended family with ideas on how to make the cheapest meals for the event. They made spaghetti, got bread, and made an upside down pineapple cake. He also included the upside down cake recipe in the book. This taught him about reaching out to people and making them feel appreciated and loved. He explained how he went from living in his car to where he is now. 

In the book, he enclosed 40 recipes with high quality pictures that readers can hungry and want to try to make on their own. One of my favorite which appears super simple was the cookies and cream banana milkshake. Some of the other recipes included bacon pancakes, chipotle burrito bowl, cheese Hawaiian rolls, homemade pop-tarts, buttermilk crepes, red velvet cheesecake brownies, Crunchwrap supreme, chicken and broccoli fettuccine Alfredo, grilled onion bacon cheeseburger, and much more. All to them looked amazing and it made my mouth water. 

I would recommend this excellent cookbook to anyone who is looking for new recipes to try. Readers also get to read more about the social media star and they will be able to related to his stories. He isn’t a declared chef but he does enjoy cooking recipes and trying new things. If readers will make some of these recipes they can bring people together at your own table. 

Check it out below:

https://www.amazon.com/Come-Here-Cook-Stories-Recipes-ebook/dp/B0GMTB53CT/ 

Praying for Mr. Right A Story of Love, Surrender, and God's Unwavering Faithfulness by Hannah Cook Book Review

 

In Praying for Mr. Right, Hannah Cook takes readers on a journey of how she met her husband. She has enclosed letters she wrote her husband before she even knew him. She would pray and write prayers over his life. She shared how her own parents didn’t have a good marriage and they argued a lot. They did wind up divorcing. This led her to chase the fairytale love. In the book, she shared how at a young age she was bullied for her red hair and was told she has no soul cause of her hair color. She longed to fit in and didn’t understand why God made her different. She went on to explain some of her past relationships and how they taught her what she didn’t want. She shared what her list of a husband she was looking for and it was quite detailed and specific. She also reveal journal entries from a time period about how she felt her future husband, Justin was in danger spiritually. She was interceding for her husband and he didn’t even know until later on. We switched to his point of view and readers got to witness how he was going through a spiritual war after ending a relationship. He also moved from Dallas to back home to Minnesota. If he wouldn’t have move back, they wouldn’t have ever met each other. In the book, they both recounted how they became Facebook friends and how it led to them meeting later on at a concert. It revealed how they ended up dating and eventually getting married. 

I would recommend this excellent book on prayer and praying for your future spouse to anyone who is single and is looking for encouragement. There is always hope that you will end up meeting someone someday that will change your life. You could also start journaling prayers for your future spouse. You could also do this for your spouse if you are already married. Readers will connect to this awesome story. It was very interesting to me to read about how they met and how they fell in love. The journal entries and prayers were inspiring and very detailed. You can see how much they both love each other and how God wrote their love story. I appreciate how the book went from both perspectives and it really gave readers insights on what the other was feeling and thinking. Readers will also get to read from lyrics he ended up writing about his future wife and this song is very touching. The song is called, “I’d Love You Over Again” and it’s by his band Regal Noise.  

Check out the video below:

Check out the book:

https://www.amazon.com/Praying-Mr-Right-Unwavering-Faithfulness-ebook/dp/B0GZ8G9KZM/ 

Not My Circus: Living with Courage, Conviction, and Compassion in a World of Chaos by Mark Batterson Book Review

In Not My Circus, Mark Batterson teaches readers how to live their lives with courage instead of fear and choosing to live above the typical status quo. He explained how we need to answer the call for nonconformity by choosing to live out our faith boldly and not in fear. He looked at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and how he took a stance against segregation and he didn’t care what people would think of him. He explained how the fear of man is false authority and he compared it to people bowing down to idols. Paul also warned us about conforming to the patterns of the world. The only true way to overcome what people think and the fear of what man could do is to have a fear of God. He has written this book to introduce readers to an important response to the fear of man and this is his rule of life. This saying is, “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” We need to realize that we can’t control other people actions of reactions or their attitudes or opinions. We need to look focus more on our Father’s business and less on anything else which would be considered monkey business. This book is divided into three sections: holy courage, spiritual discernment, and amazing grace. 

One of my favorite chapters discussed do it scared. This chapter begin with a story about how in 1957, a Harvard researcher, Dr. Curt Richer conducted experiments on rats and to see how good of swimmers they were. He placed a dozen of rats into a 30 inch glass cylinder filled with water. They were made to swim until they gave up. They lasted 15 minutes until they all gave up hope. The next experiment he saved them right before they were going to drown. He let them out and let their heart rates go back down to normal. Then he replaced them back in the water and they lasted 60 hours. He explained how in this story how a little big of hope can dramatically change things. He used this story to encourage readers to keep on fighting the good fight. He explained the power in facing our fears and how failing at something can still provide us lessons that change our lives. He shared how he at first failed at planting a church but he choose not to give up. 

I would recommend this awesome book to anyone who is ready to give up the power of people pleasing and fearing what man thinks of you. I loved the principles presented in this book and how we can live with the mindset of not my circus in dealing with letting things we can’t control go.  

Check it out below:

https://www.amazon.com/Not-My-Circus-Conviction-Compassion-ebook/dp/B0GSJ4CZCK/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3FU0JIOPGSYWV 

I Think My Therapist Hates Me: A Memoir by Chris Olsen Book Review

I Think My Therapist Hates Me is a personal memoir from Chris Olsen. He is a social media star most famously on TikTok. He cohosted the red carpet at the Oscars. In the book, he wrote it like he was talking with his therapist, Lizzie. He shared about his childhood and how he learned first learned he might be gay. When he was growing up he would sit with all girls and hang out with them daily. He chose to play with Barbies, dresses, and he enjoyed the color pink. He opened up about in fourth grade he tried to become more manly and hang out with boys his age. He discovered that he had some athletic. He tried to get into rap listening to Drake and Lil Wayne like all the guys were doing. His room was decorated with gay posters like Hannah Montana and High School Musical. When guys were coming over he would careful roll them up and storage them where they wouldn’t be wrinkled. He recalled one time that she sister stole his High School Musical shirt and walked right in when he had a friend over. He was able to convince him that it wasn’t his shirt. He never invited that friend ever over again. He shared other events that led to him slowly letting people know that he was in fact gay. He shared about his first crush and later on his relationships ups and downs. 

His mother was an alcoholic and this led to wounds he at first didn’t realize they were there. He didn’t understand how come she couldn’t just stop drinking to beat the addiction. She went to rehab and attended AA meetings. He admitted to how he preferred the before rehab version of her.  He later went into detail about his own struggle with drugs and drinking and how they planned a intervention to try and reach him. They were all worried about could happen if he didn’t get the help that he desperately needed. 

This book is for readers who enjoy watching his videos and want to see more from the man behind the curtain. Before reading this book, I didn’t know much about him and his life besides seeing a few of his videos online. I liked how he wrote some of the book like he was speaking to his therapist and revealing the truths of his life the parts people didn’t see. A big part of the book is his journey to coming out and his experiences with what he faced. 

Check it out below:

https://www.amazon.com/Think-My-Therapist-Hates-Me-ebook/dp/B0GPJ4LDGP  

Even If: Trusting God Through the Fire (The Official Book for I Can Only Imagine 2) by Bart Millard, Shannon Millard, and Robert Noland Book Review

Even If is an incredible book about the story behind the hit song that in turn also got turned into another movie. This song appears on MercyMe’s ninth studio album. It charted faster than the hit song, “I Can Only Imagine”. Even if is a personal story about everyone longs for the greener pastures and quiet waters. We all tend to have to face at some point a walking through the difficult valley of the shadows of death. He compared it to Job and how he experienced trials and at least ten translations use the exact phrase even if. See Job 13:15, “Even If God kills me, I’’ll still put my hope in him”. 

The book begins with sharing about the Shannon and her brother, Chris and what he was dealing with. Bart had just returned home from touring and Sam their first son was upstairs sleeping. Chris came over experiencing a heartbreak at age 20 seeking his sister advice. Chris was also begging her for evidence that God was in fact real. They discussed and talked about God and faith into the night. She went to wake up Bart at 1:30 a.m. and Chris took it as Bart’s delayed response as he didn’t care about him. At around 3 a.m. Bart stated how someone needed to knock some sense into you. Before he got upset and left he told them to tell Sam that he loved him. Later on it was discovered that Chris has been involved in a car crash that took his life and he was thrown from the truck. Chris died right before Sam’s birthday and Bart admits to asking God why. He faced guilty over his comments and actions. This was also left out in the movie. They wanted to movie to focus more on a father and son’s theme. 

Another big part of the book was Sam and how he struggled with being a diabetic. It was discovered right after MercyMe won Favorite Contemporary Inspirational Artist at the American Music Awards. Sam started sweating profusely, acted aggressively, and a insatiable thirst. Sam’s blood levels was at 847 a normal two to three year old is about 80 to 100. They had to give him insulin to get his sugar to come back down. He had type one diabetes and they had to teach them how to use a needle and how to check his blood levels. He admitted how he wanted to declare war against satan and how he wouldn’t harm his family. In the book readers will get a glimpse from Sam’s perceptive and what he went through with dealing with diabetes. It also shows how Sam also went into music and part of this was in the actual movie as well. This story is a part of the inspiration behind, “even if”. 

I loved reading more about the new hit movie that was recently released. I enjoyed the first one and even read his first book. I liked how this book shared thoughts from the entire family and all his children. It was interesting to learn about Chris and what happened and how this affect their lives. Before reading this book, I didn’t ever know this part of the story. I first learned of Sam’s story in watching the film but this book takes the story into a great depth. Bart Millard story is very inspiring and readers will get to see the message and ideas behind the hit songs. Which comes from living life. 

Check it out below:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0830791914