Coffee Break Reading List - February 2023

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On my original blog, Homeschool Coffee Break, I started doing a round-up of some of the stuff around the internet that I'd found interesting and worth passing along. At first I did it every couple of weeks, and then maybe once a month. Since it was a blog mostly about homeschooling, I tried to make sure I was including articles of particular interest to home educators and I also liked to feature other homeschool bloggers. Not surprisingly, when I was no longer homeschooling my own kids, it started getting a little harder to keep ahead of homeschool topics, and eventually the Coffee Break Reading List was retired. I thought maybe I'd bring it back in this space, but not with the homeschooling focus. Just some interesting and fun things. We'll see how it goes!

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Some of the things around the web that I've been reading or exploring during recent coffee breaks: 

What Churches Could Learn From the Pub Choir Phenomenon at Mike Frost's blog - First of all, I didn't know about the Pub Choir phenomenon until I ran across this article, but I like the points made, and think it's worth pondering for those of us who may be involved in leading or planning worship music in our churches. And second, I would love to be in a pub choir, and went down a little rabbit hole looking for a group that meets near me. (Spoiler alert: I never found one close by.)

Ironically, this older article is also written by Mike Frost, but I had found it on a different website, Church Leaders. The Lonely Crowd: Churches Dying Due to Friendlessness was written just over a year ago, but it is still relevant today, and perhaps more now to me personally. Frost explains that churches are often very friendly and welcoming, but people had been dropping out of attendance because they didn't have friends at church. To be fair, Frost says, many of the "being a friend" skills that church people seem to lack are also lacking by people in general. Still, with relationship and community being so essential to the church's mission, we ought to be better than average at friendship.

And the following was posted by author Tessa Afshar on her Facebook page, and I loved it:

Sometimes there is no way around the doing of something. Something hard. Something you may dread.

We all have tasks like that. Days like that. situations like that. A part of your soul wants to run away and hide.

I love David's words to Solomon in the midst of such a circumstance. David knows his son. He knows Solomon feels overwhelmed by the task ahead. And simply, he tells his son, "Be strong and do it."

What is empowering about this statement is that it implies this monumental charge before Solomon is doable. David would not ask it of his son if it weren't. More importantly, God would not ask it of Solomon if it were not possible. "Do it" means it is doable.

Let your soul stare your hard situation square in the eyes. Now tell your soul this truth: The Father has made this task doable for you.

Let that hope sink in. Now remember that the way ahead is to actively take the first step.

That's all the strength you need. To take that first step. Don't look too far ahead. Don't tie yourself up with what if's. You need one step in the right direction.

But even that first step needs strength.

So look to Jesus for the strength. You won't wake up one morning and suddenly feel strong and ready to do the whole task, or face the whole situation. But you will have the strength to take the first step.

I know this works because I have written 12 books using this process.

Ask Jesus to give you the strength. Now, take the first step.

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Quotable (I enjoy hunting up little quotes to add to my Five Minute Friday posts, and have started to amass a collection that are begging to be shared somewhere):

If you cannot read all your books, at any rate . . . -peer into them, let them fall open where they will, read from the first sentence that arrests the eye, set them back on the shelves with your own hands, arrange them on your own plan so that you at least know where they are. Let them be your friends; let them be your acquaintances. ~Winston Churchill

I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! ~Jane Austen

If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. ~African Proverb

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Some fun things I've found during coffee breaks:

Anyone having Réchauffé for dinner at least twice a week? My husband gets to take Réchauffé for lunch at work almost every day, and I'm not sure he appreciates just how lucky he is.

I thought this was appropriate after the speech-ifying earlier this week. 

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Something I watched during coffee break:

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What I've been reading during longer coffee breaks:

What I Would Tell You by Liz Tolsma - a dual timeline story about the Sephardic Jews in Greece during WWII and a young American woman in search of her true lineage.

In Spotlight and Shadow by Rachel Scott McDaniel - This is also a dual timeline story. It's set in Pittsburgh and centering around a stage prop piece of jewelry and a young actress in the 1920s who was suspected of being a jewel thief.

The Letter From Briarton Park by Sarah E. Ladd - I really thought I could read this before starting on the next book in the series, which I will be reviewing for Barbour House. I'm not so confident that I can make it by the deadline, considering the above two book and one more I'm about to start are also for reviews. I'm only a couple chapters in so I might wind up setting it aside until after I've reviewed Hollythorne House. I don't mind reading them out of order, especially as they are suitable as standalones.

On my reading pile for upcoming coffee breaks:

In The Shelter Of Hollythorne House by Sarah E. Ladd - the sequel to Briarton Park

The Cairo Curse by Pepper Basham - also the second in a series, but I already know I won't have time to read the first . . . first.

     

Shirley, I Jest: A Storied Life by Cindy Williams - I was prompted to put this on my to-read list following the actress's death recently.

If You Ask Me (And Of Course You Won't) by Betty White ) - I've had this on my to-read list for years, and happened to see it at the library, so I grabbed it before I forgot about it again.

    

Find out more at my book blog Just A Second.

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Found anything interesting on the web lately? Read any good books? Leave a comment and let me know!

Although I didn't use the prompt for the day, this post is part of the Write 28 Days Blogging Challenge hosted by Anita Ojeda because I did indeed "Write Something Somewhere". Find all my posts for the 2023 challenge here: Write Something Somewhere

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