Thoughts of an introverted bookworm and avid jigsaw puzzler
Christmas Camper is a 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Stephanie Peterson Jones. This was an adorable, quick puzzle that I have been saving for the Christmas season. I knew it would be pretty easy, so I did it without looking at the image to make the puzzling last a bit longer. I love all of the festive details!
Earlier this year, I purchased a 4 in 1 set from Bits and Pieces called Playful Gnomes. It includes images of three gnomes in each of the four seasons. It is available in several different piece counts, and I chose the 500 piece set.
The fall puzzle, Fall Gnomes in the Woods, was harder than I thought it would be, probably because of the random piece count. It is an adorable image though!
The winter puzzle, Three Gnomes, was an absolute bear to complete. Not only do you have the random cut pieces, but the background is basically just shades of white. I seriously considered giving up, but I sorted by shape as best as I could and just pushed through and finally finished it.
I’m not sure when I will try the other two. They look like they will be kind of hard too. Maybe by the time spring comes around I will be ready to tackle them!
Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions
In this 2010 book by the late Rachel Held Evans, we are taken on a journey of faith. Evans describes her upbringing in a conservative Christian environment and how she learned to defend the faith she had been taught. I resonated with a lot of her experiences, including going to a conservative, evangelical church and then college.
Along the way, she began to question some of the things she had been taught and some of the things she read in the Bible. Her questions were not well received by those around her, but she continued pursuing answers. Eventually she determines that she does not need to leave her faith in God to find answers but just the limited beliefs about what it means to be a Christian and follow God that she had been taught.
This was such a good book. It really affirmed what I have been experiencing in my faith journey the last few years. Evans compares the process of questioning your beliefs to evolution, as the town she lived in was the location for the Snopes trial in the early 1900s, which was about teaching evolution in schools. My favorite line in the book is, “Faith must adapt in order to survive.”
Colorful Harvest is a 300-piece puzzle from Ceaco, and the artist is Tracy Flickinger. I have done several of her puzzles and really enjoy her style. The quality of this one was good, which was nice because Ceaco can be hit or miss.
I took this puzzle with me to Thanksgiving at Renee’s house. I thought the image was appropriate to the holiday and also though the smaller piece count would be good for the time we had available. Renee and I were about 75% done when our friend Mike showed up, and he joined us to finish the puzzle.
I liked this puzzle a lot and will definitely redo it sometime by myself to enjoy it even more.
Valladolid is a 1000-piece puzzle from Ravensburger, and the artist is Marie Boiseau. This puzzle was designed especially for the 2024 World Jigsaw Puzzle Championship in Valladolid, Spain, and I was very happy to be able to get a copy of it for myself.
This puzzle was harder than I thought it would be, and now that I have finished it, I am even more impressed by how fast the puzzlers at the competition were able to complete it. I have noticed when puzzle with friends that I am faster than they are due to the amount of time I have spent puzzling, but I am nowhere near a speed puzzler!
Swedish Fishing Village is a 1000-piece puzzle from eeBoo, and the artist is Monika Forsberg. I have had this one on my shelf for a while and finally got around to doing it. It was a lot of fun. I find eeBoo puzzles to be very consistent. The quality is always good and the challenge level is just right – not too hard and not too easy.
What I’m Reading Now
The Year of Pleasures by Elizabeth Berg – I am almost done with this book, and it is really good!
UnClobber by Colby Martin – This book addresses the “clobber passages” from the Bible that are often used to condemn homosexuality and also tells Martin’s own story of how his views on the subject changed and how it has affected his life. It is very easy to read and I am enjoying it.
What I Recently Finished
The Silver Bullets of Annie Oakley by Mercedes Lackey – This is #16 in the Elemental Masters series and was very enjoyable, as all of them have been.
Holiday Hideaway by Mary Kay Andrews – This was a Christmas-themed short story and was a cute romance.
Gryphon in Light by Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon – This is #1 in Kelvren’s Saga and who knows what book in the entire Valdemar series. It took me a little while to get into the story, but I ended up liking it by the end.
The Christmas Inn by Pamela M. Kelley – This is a heartwarming holiday romance. I couldn’t put it down – very sweet!
Nantucket Summer House by Pamela M. Kelley – This is #9 in the Nantucket Beach Plum Cove series. It wasn’t my favorite in the series but I did still enjoy it.
Faith Unraveled: How a Girl Who Knew All the Answers Learned to Ask Questions by Rachel Held Evans – I loved this book. I will share a more detailed review in a few days.
The Cookbook Club: A Novel of Food and Friendship by Beth Harbison – This was a fun book about three women who start a book club based on cookbooks. It was charming and I really enjoyed it.
Close Knit by Jenny Colgan – I have read a lot of Colgan’s books and I still like them, although not as much as I used to like her older books.
What I Added to my TBR
TBR Stats
If you’re on Goodreads, feel free to add me as a friend. I’m always looking for new recommendations!
If you are looking for a feel-good holiday story as Christmas gets closer, then The Christmas Inn by Pamela M. Kelley is the book for you. I started reading Kelley’s books in 2021 with The Restaurant and have since read a number of her books. Most of her books are set in the Cape Cod area of the United States, which provides a charming setting no matter the time of year.
In The Christmas Inn, we meet Riley Sanders, who has just lost her job and comes home to the Cape to help her mother with her inn while she looks for another job. During her stay, we meet several other characters, including a possible love interest, and also get to experience what it’s like to be on the Cape during the holidays.
I read this in one day so I would definitely say that it’s an easy read and also very inviting.
This was my third month getting a subscription of four puzzles from Completing the Puzzle. I received 4 500-piece puzzles this time. I was hoping to get some 1000-piece puzzles since I have a lot of those on my wishlist. My wishlist only has a couple of 500-piece puzzles on it now, so I should definitely get some 1000-piece ones next month.
I enjoyed all of the puzzles I got with this shipment. A couple of them were pretty well-worn, which makes them feel a bit soft and they don’t click into place. I don’t prefer that, but it’s okay. My friend Renee was over when I did Artsy Cats and helped with it.
Here are the puzzles I got this month:
I’m looking forward to what I get next month. I also have a bunch of winter/Christmas puzzles lined up to start on December 1st.
My Deconstruction Journey
I have come a long way in the last few years with regard to my faith and my understanding of God and the church. Many beliefs that I never felt comfortable with have been discarded, and other ideas that I had accepted as gospel have been dispelled as man-made and untrue. I have listened to a lot of podcasts and learned a lot from various forms of social media, but I have also read several books that have been very helpful. I still have a long way to go and a lot to learn, but I wanted to share the books I have learned from so far here.
An Early Foray into Deconstruction
The first book I can recall reading in the deconstruction area was in July 2020, and the book was Fierce, Free and Full of Fire: The Guide to Being Glorious You by Jen Hatmaker. At the time it made me nervous to even be reading the book because some of her views did not align with the doctrine I had been taught all my life growing up in a pentecostal church and then moving into a charismatic church later on. I ended up skimming the book and not really looking for anything else like it.
A Year of Biblical Womanhood
Fast forward to November of 2023 and I had moved to an inclusive, justice-oriented church and was starting to embrace some new ideas and let go of some old ones. I then read A Year of Biblical Womanhood by Rachel Held Evans, which was a very readable book detailing how she spent a year trying to live out characteristics and actions commonly thought to make a biblical woman. She spent one month focusing on each of twelve different areas. It was fascinating and I felt my spirit opening up to more possibilities of what it could mean to be a Christian.
Fierce, Free and Full of Fire: The Guide to Being Glorious You
After that, in December 2023, I decided to reread Fierce, Free and Full of Fire: The Guide to Being Glorious You by Jen Hatmaker. I appreciated it a lot more the second time around. It is a self-reflective book and very encouraging.
Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again
In January 2024, I read another Rachel Held Evans book called Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. This book focused on exploring the Bible in a variety of ways using different types of literary expression. Interestingly enough, one of my Bible professors in college talked a lot about the Bible as literature. He was considered borderline heretical by some of the students, but he was still pretty conservative in what he shared with us compared to some of what I have read and heard over the last few years.
She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up
The next book I read in March 2024 was She Deserves Better: Raising Girls to Resist Toxic Teachings on Sex, Self, and Speaking Up by Sheila Wray Gregoire, Rebecca Gregoire Lindenbach, and Joanna Sawatsky. This is a book aimed primarily at women who have daughters and want to give them better messages about their bodies and themselves than they would get from purity culture. I really enjoyed this book; even though I don’t have a daughter, it helped me with some of the internalized messages I still had from growing up in a conservative church environment. This book is based on strong research the authors have conducted and contains a lot of charts and graphs highlighting various results they found.
Where We Meet: A Lenten Study of Systems, Stories, and Hope
During the Lent season of 2024, I attended a virtual Bible study hosted by my pastor, and we read and discussed the book Where We Meet: A Lenten Study of Systems, Stories, and Hope by Rachel Gilmore, Candace Lewis, et al. The book contained daily reflections with a different topic for each week: Beginning the Journey, Diversity, Postcolonial, Equity, Contextual, and Innovation. I was introduced to a lot of new concepts that I hope to spend more time studying at some point.
The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth
In May 2024, I read Beth Allison Barr’s book The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth. In this book, Barr traces the history of the belief that God designed women to be submissive wives, virtuous mothers, and joyful homemakers. This was a well-written, easy-to-follow account of the historical events that have shaped this teaching into what it is today in American conservative circles. It really helped solidify my thoughts on this topic.
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation
Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez is another book tracing the history of the conservative American church. I read this in August 2024 and found it thoroughly fascinating and readable. Du Mez takes us through the last 75 years of white evangelicalism in America, showing us how rugged masculinity and Christian Nationalism have taken over and also how these developments have led to the championing of Donald Trump by the religious right.
The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church
In September 2024, I picked up a recently released book called The Exvangelicals: Loving, Living, and Leaving the White Evangelical Church by Sarah McCammon. This was a very well-written book that is part memoir and part informational discourse on the issues that arise for people who don’t fit or who start to question the church. I could relate to a lot of this book and found it very encouraging to the journey I have been on myself.
DNF (Did Not Finish)
I was recently reading Her Gates Will Never Be Shut: Hope, Hell, and the New Jerusalem by Bradley Jersak. This was my second time attempting this book. The writing is more dry and complicated, and I just had too hard a time getting through it. I have always had a lot of fear of hell (and the rapture!), and what I got from what I did read is that there is really no way to know definitively what is going to happen as the Bible can be used to support several different views of the afterlife. A related book I also DNF’d was Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple by Scot McKnight with Cody Matchett. That book was too esoteric for me.
Moving Forward
I have noticed that all but one of the books I have read have been written by women. I think that is interesting. I have listened to a number of male podcasters, so I’m not anti-men by any means, but it seems like I gravitate towards books that are written from a woman’s perspective.
I have a large list of books related to deconstruction on my TBR. Here is what I have at this point:
I am open to suggestions of other books you have found helpful in deconstructing harmful doctrines that are taught in the American church and in finding your way to a more honest and loving faith.
In So Many Words 