The Return

Review: The Little Paris Bookshop Nina George, translated by Simon Pare Crown Publishers 2015 The end of this book was such a sad moment for me.   There’s a relationship that develops between the book and the reader that you just want to go on even though the story has been told and you know it done.   It’s all about love, loss, and healing.   It’s written for those that have learned what those words mean.   Maybe the last few pages revisits those themes within the reader one last time.   Yes, breathing does come easier now.     The bookshop Perdu operates from a barge sits on the Seine and is as unique as his approach to his customers. He can read the needs of his customers and points them to the books that would most help them and refuses to sell them ones he feels can harm them.   It is a case of “physician heal thyself” though, and through a series of events and some well-crafted characters he meets along the way, who in the...

Review: Healing Your Church Hurt Stephen Mansfield Barna 2012 Mansfield wrote this book out of need he saw among those that had experienced a church hurt. The need as the title suggests is healing. He is no stranger to the hurt he writes about here and does not dance the around the deep wounds that he received from a congregation that he had pastored for several years. In fact, he is brutally honest in some instances. What he has to say is not new territory or a magic bullet that will fix everyone and everything. So if that’s what you are hoping for from him, don’t’ say I didn’t warn you up front. What he does have to say is how to actually do the things that will lead to your healing. The ideas are not novel. They are biblical. The same stuff you have read over and over again but tried to find a way around, especially the forgiveness thing. What he does is to help guide you through that process drawing from his own experiences, failures, and finally healing. His sec...