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Well that was a wild ride…

It all started one night when I walked into our room and my wife asked me a question that led to the first You Make the Call post.  After watching my wife voraciously devour the first few of these 14 books and having the discussions that these books inspired, I had to try them for myself.  I was not disappointed.  These were great books.

Disclaimer: these books are chick books so guys, there is not a whole lot of action in them.

The books start with Redemption a book about Kari Baxter and the troubles she is having (this is the situation that I discussed in the You Make the Call post).  In this book you meet the Baxter family and through the course of the next 13 books, you learn all about them.

To try and review each individual book would give away too much information (I am surprised however how much information about the series is given away by the covers), but the 14 books are broken up into 3 different series:

• Redemption Series – Karen Kingsbury & Gary Smalley
  • Redemption
  • Remember
  • Return
  • Rejoice
  • Reunion
• Firstborn Series – Karen Kingsbury
  • Fame
  • Forgiven
  • Found
  • Family
  • Forever
• Sunrise Series – Karen Kingsbury
  • Sunrise
  • Summer
  • Someday
  • Sunset

The thing I liked most about this series is that it made you deal with issues of faith and morality that you may not normally deal with because you can imagine the Baxters living down the street from you.  Karen Kingsbury does a really good job of setting the scenes in a way that you can believe they are really happening.  For instance, book 3 deals with the Baxters (and friends) dealing with the events of September 11, 2001.  There are a couple topics that Kingsbury talked about that hit almost too close to home.  I can’t spoil the books, but Mandy and I read Summer right around the time we attended a friend’s memorial service a situation that if you know where Mandy and I have been with a couple very close friends of ours and you know what happens in Summer you can understand why Mandy was bawling at the end of the book and I was brought to tears as well.  Parts of Summer are some of the most powerful chapters I may have ever read.  Reading Summer brought healing for both Mandy and I.

Mandy asked me a question when I had about 3 books left in the series was whether or not I liked the Baxter Family Drama series more or books by Dee Henderson (O’Malley Series & Uncommon Heroes Series).  It was a tough call for me.  I like the Dee Henderson books because for chick books there is a lot of action in them…mainly because of who the characters are.  But the Baxter Family Drama really hit home on issues and make you deal with them.  I told her that I think I liked the Dee Henderson books better, but after finishing the Baxter Family Drama I think it may be a tie.  Either way, I hope you give both authors a chance to entertain you.

Overall rating for the Baxter Family Drama Series: 5 out of 5

I just read an articles from Brad Ruggles (head on over and read it, I’ll be here when you get back) about a new iPhone app that allows you to insert the names of your family members and it will generate specific prayers for you to pray…

Our 3 year old prays for dinner and it is basically the same prayer every day because it is the prayer I pray for my food and he loves to pray so before we eat, we all grab hands and Caleb prays “God, thank you for this food, please bless it to our bodies, Amen.”  Pretty simple, pretty boring, but I love the fact that my son is already developing a prayer habit.  His prayers are simple and straight forward but they  work.

There are two sides to the coin with this app.  One, it will probably help people have a better prayer life, but two, how would my wife feel if I had a friend write a script for me to take home and read to my wife when I got home from a day full of meetings?

OK, it’s your turn, what do you think?  Please let me know your thoughts in the comments.

I hope to do more “You make the call!” posts in the future as I want to have more interaction involved on my site with the loyal readers that I have.  But, they don’t work if you don’t interact so please make a comment.

My wife is reading a book (by an undisclosed author) that she received for Christmas.  It is a fiction book, but the reason that Mandy likes it so much is that it deals with real life issues.  She has not finished yet, but tonight was talking to me about the book.  The reason she talked to me about it is because she wanted to hear what I think the characters should do in their given situation.  Here’s where you come in…I am going to lay out the scenario, but I will change the names of the characters (and some of the irrelevant details) and I want to know what you think should happen.

Scenario:

Katherine is the main character in the book, she is married to Tom.  Katherine is a very busy business woman, Tom is a college professor who is also a journalist.  For the last year, Tom has felt like Katherine doesn’t have time for him and when young Tina, one of his students, shows interest he begins pursuing her, to the point that he falls in love with her, tells Katherine that he wants a divorce and proceeds to move in with Tina and has lived with her for the last 3 months.  In an effort to get Tina out of his mind before he leaves Katherine Tom makes love to Katherine and now Katherine is 3 months pregnant with their first child.  About a month after Tom leaves Katherine runs into Jeremy, the man who she has known since they were 12 (they are now 28).  They were childhood sweethearts and had dated for several years until when Jeremy was injured during a professional game (he is a professional athlete) and Katherine went to the hospital to visit him the nurse told her that Jeremy was in with his girlfriend.  When Katherine heard this, she never entered the hospital room. Now, during the current situation, the mixup is uncovered and they realize that Jeremy never was unfaithful to her, he was in with the team trainer and had told the nurse he couldn’t wait to see his girlfriend (Katherine).  Katherine starts to let herself fall for Jeremy when Tom finds out that she is pregnant with their child and asks their pastor for a meeting between the pastor, Katherine, and himself because he has realized all that he is leaving behind.

We don’t know yet whether or not Tom wants to come back, but here is the question for you to answer, let’s assume Tom does want to come back and he leaves Tina, what should Katherine do?

A couple of Bible passages come to mind as I think about this:

• The book of Hosea
• Malachi 2:16
• Matthew 5:32
• Matthew 19:1-12

Remember, don’t just be a spectator, let me know what you think…