Kristin Saatzer

Purposeful Encouragement

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My Best-Loved Books of 2019!

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Can we talk about books – 2019 edition?


T’was a rich, deep, and fun year of reading. I read 44 books and enjoyed most of them, so it was tough to scale my list down to 13 for this one.

This is year number 5 of doing the books blog. I always appreciate the feedback and it is a joy to write. Enjoy!

*Please note that I rate my books in part on their clean-read value.

So here we go:

EducatedHard to put down. An unfathomable life and extraordinary success story. Brilliant writer. Brilliant woman! 4 and a half stars because of violence and language.

The Masterpiece Loss, abandonment, and God’s healing redemption. A beautiful narrative of God’s power in our lives. God can make a life His masterpiece. Four and a half stars. Fabulous writer and storyteller. I’ve loved her books for many years. Clean-read with inferences and adult subjectsEverybody, Always: Becoming Love in a World Full of Setbacks and Difficult People - By: Bob Goff

I love Bob Goff! His books are inspiration and motivation to just go out and love! I had the pleasure of hearing him speak in September and he is beyond wonderful. My favorite section is the end (witch doctors, oh my!).

Forgotten God By Francis Chan I’ve read quite a few books about the Holy Spirit and this one is my favorite. 5 stars! Francis Chan is intense and oh so sold out for God. Powerful personal stories.

 

It's Okay Not to Be Okay: Moving Forward One Day at a Time - By: Sheila Walsh Loved. Loved. Loved. For such a time as this. This book spoke to me right where I was, just when I needed it. Sheila Walsh is authentic and so stinking funny. She blankets this book with grace. My favorite story is at the end. Five stars.

A Woman Is No ManA book club book. Impossible to put down. The ending… wow! I give this a four-plus instead of 5 because of sex and violence. It is powerful! Beautifully written by a daughter of Palestinian immigrants. Etaf Rum takes the reader to a world of women who are second class (or last class) in their culture. We read a second book along this same vein for book club called Inside the Kingdom by Carmen Bin Ladin.Continue Reading

20 for 20!

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Can we talk about 2020?

Because it thrills me to have a blank slate with endless possibilities before me, I jotted down 20 ideas for 2020. Take as many as you’d like and leave the rest.

20 for 2020

  1.  read 20 books of the Bible
  2.  plan 20 fun adventures
  3.  pick 20 people to pray for – bonus points if they have hurt you or get on your nerves
  4.  try 20 new foods or recipes
  5.  save $20 a month towards your dream trip – gotta start somewhere
  6.  pick 20 books to read and set aside 20 extra minutes a day to read them
  7.  exercise 20 days in a row for 20 minutes – start a workout streak
  8.  watch 20 sunsets
  9.  take 20 minutes to think about what you know about yourself and God that you didn’t know a year ago
  10.  give $20 more a month than you already do
  11.  get together with or call an old friend that you’ve known for 20 years or more
  12.  spend 20 minutes each morning in 2020 in a quiet space with God and His word
  13.  take a 20 day fast from social media (gulp!)
  14.  send notes to 20 people who have positively impacted your life and thank them for doing so
  15. donate 20 clothing or household items ( in good shape) to charity
  16. print out 20 of your most joy-filled photos from the past decade and put them in an album
  17. set a timer for 20 minutes and deep-clean a dreaded messy area in your home or office
  18.  spend 20 minutes a day in 2020 in the fresh, screen-less air
  19.  say NO to sugar and white flour for 20 days
  20.  write down (at least) 20 things you are grateful for

#LIVEONPURPOSE!

How’s Your Bounce?

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The end of the month.
The end of the year.
The end of the decade.

As I glance back and think about the three “ends”, I find a running refrain in the story of my life – resiliency. I bounce back. I rebound. I get up again. And again. And again… I share not to brag but with awe because this is not who I think I am- the one who bounces back.

Adulting looked glitzy from the stands. Oh, the independence and fun that awaited. But once I took the field, the curveballs came – relationship rejection, job and college struggles, depression, intense physical pain and health trials, and the divorce of my parents. Although my twenties held so much joy (wedding and baby at the top of the list!) the curve balls bruised and sometimes derailed me.

Those years are distant in my rearview mirror. However, each year, each decade, threw in its own array of curveballs to gaze back upon.

“I get knocked down and I get up again…”

You too, huh?

They tried to bury us but they didn’t know we were seeds
~Mexican Proverb

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What is your Mountain?

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  What is your Mountain?

“…For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” 

Jesus speaking in Matthew 17:20 BSB

FIGHT. 

I am not a fighter. I am a peacemaker. I want the people I love to live in peace with the people they love. I was born this way to a certain extent, but buried motives lurk behind my craving for harmony. Life has scratched me up and along the way, I became a girl who works laboriously to keep her environment calm and non-combative. And as the mother of four rowdy, competitive boys, it is a never-ending battle and an impossible endeavor.

So, it might seem odd that my word for 2019 is FIGHT. Yet at the end of last year, I knew this word was my word, my need, and my purpose for the New Year. And when January 1 came to call, my fight began in a bigger way than I could have conceived. On that first night of the year, as terror sought to destroy me, I pulled my word out by the power of God Almighty – and the battle began.

FEAR.

As life moved forward, tearing at me and hitting me strong, fear took root and spread its ugly tentacles and became something I could keep covered if I dialed down the loud. The hard. The fight. I developed a craving to control, to keep the fear from controlling me. Yet this tightrope of juggling fear and control made me oh so tired. You might know something about this weary walk yourself.
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