Beauty on the Backroads

Stories of grace for life's unexpected turns

Lisa

First Friday Five {January edition}

It’s a new year, so I have some new favorites, and most of them are Christmas-related because for all of December, I was immersed in Christmas!

  1. Christmas movies. In addition to the once-a-year tradition of watching White Christmas, this year I also watched a ton of sappy Hallmark/Lifetime Christmas movies on Netflix and Amazon. Some were good, others were okay, and others were a waste of time. But I needed a little (or a lot) of Christmas in December and movies were one way to do that.
  2. Christmas music. Especially new and different Christmas music. We finally bought the Christmas album of our favorite artist, Jason Gray, and we listened to that in the car on repeat. I also heard for the first time a carol called Bring A Torch, Jeanette, Isabella and I loved it instantly. Other non-traditional favorites included Sufjan Stevens, JJ Heller, Josh Garrels and the tiny bit of the Behold the Lamb of God tour by Andrew Peterson that we got to watch online.
  3. Smoothies. We had some fresh spinach left over from a recipe, so I began experimenting with smoothie recipes. Then I bought some almond milk. I’ve tried half a dozen different combinations, probably, and there are a few I’ve really liked. Others I’ve tolerated. (If you’ve got a surefire smoothie recipe, send it along! Also, how do you get kale and spinach to blend smoothly?)
  4. Go Noodle. I don’t know how I ever lived without this app/video series before. Think inside exercise/recess activities. The songs aren’t overly annoying and the kids love them. When I need to get them moving this winter, this is my first stop.
  5. Family time. With Christmas and New Year’s Day falling on Sundays this year, our foursome got a lot of special together time in recent weeks. We played board games, cooked together, did craft projects. On Fridays between Thanksgiving and Christmas, my husband worked late so the kids and I watched movies and ate popcorn (on the weeks when we didn’t have family in town, which was two in a row). I’m not always eager for the togetherness because it can quickly turn to fighting and impatience and exasperation, but sometimes that’s just my attitude. I love the time our family has gotten to spend together.

What have you loved about life in the past month?

 

 

A ‘forgotten’ genocide and faith that withstands: Review of Intended for Evil by Less Sillars

What I know about Cambodia probably wouldn’t even fill a single page of a notebook. But some of my favorite things are made there by women earning a fair wage and people I care about care about Cambodia and its people and travel there to make the world a little better.

So, this book caught my attention because of its focus on the tragic period of Cambodia’s history when millions of people were killed in a genocide that doesn’t seem to get a lot of attention. Intended For Evil is the story of one man’s survival of these events and how his faith in God sustained him through it. (Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the book from the publisher, which in no way affects my opinion.)

That’s oversimplifying it, though. Radha Manickam has as much doubt as faith as he watches family members die and the life he knew is destroyed. He wonders how God can permit such evil, why he’s allowed to survive in the midst of so much death, and what hope he could possibly have for the future. This is no sappy God-is-in-control cliche but a realistic account of what it means to follow God wherever you find yourself.

Besides Radha’s personal experiences, the book is full of historical and political background, which at times felt a bit difficult to wade through. But for someone with zero knowledge of this time period, it’s helpful background and context.

The events in this book may have happened decades ago, but it’s relevant to world events today. What happened in Cambodia in the 1970s is happening in other parts of the world today, and someday we’ll read survivors’ stories of those atrocities.

If we’re not going to forget history, we need books like this one.