My good blog-friend, Brita of Belle Brita republished her late mother’s book of prayers this year. Brita’s mom, Lee Haugen Long, wrote and self published Muddling Through: Prayers and Reflections for a Woman’s Journey back in 2000 and had been collecting more prayers for a second book before cancer took her life in 2015. Brita took the original book along with her mom’s notes and published a second edition for Kindle called Muddling Through Again. She is also currently working on publishing a paperback version. Brita gave me a free Kindle copy in exchange for an honest review. To read more, visit muddlingthroughagain.com.

I have to be honest here, I’m not so sure I like the format of this book of prayers. I appreciate how the prayers are organized into sections (Thanksgiving, confession, children etc), but within those sections, there is not much separating the prayers. Each prayer does not have a greeting or a salutation like I usually have in my prayers. That is absolutely just a personal preference, of course. But for me it made the reading of the prayers a little difficult.

With that being said, I realize I have never read a book of prayers. I usually use devotional books including scripture, a lesson and a prayer at the end. I like that better personally. But I know a book like this has a purpose. And there are certainly pros to having the prayers in each category sort of run together. I can see picking up the book and turning to a certain section of the book and just reading the section completely when I need some guidance in that area of my prayer life. Each section isn’t that long.

Anyway, with all that said, I still really enjoyed the book. I identified with a lot of these prayers,aAnd reading them reminded me that nothing is too small for God. Even when we don’t feel like praying or we don’t have much to say, we should still simply talk to Him. As I read Lee’s prayers, the thought that we should turn everything over to God wa reinforced over and over. Sometimes I think that struggles I have within my own head are things I need to work on by myself, rather than asking God to renew my spirit.

Also, Lee’s confession session was very convicting. She prayed about how she makes excuses rather than using her gifts to work in God’s kingdom. Oh man. Also, she talked a lot about justification. She justifies her sins, just like I do!

Even the Christmas prayers moved me.

So yes I recommend this book of prayers to any Christian woman. It’s a good reminder of the power of prayer and simply living a prayer-filled life even when your prayers feel “generic.” And as I mentioned before, I am certainly glad to have this book on my kindle with access to it from the kindle app on my phone so I can pick it up whenever I’m feeling uninspired in my prayer life!

As I’m sure you know, there is a movie based on this book coming out in November! Therefore, my book club decided to read Murder on the Orient Express this month.

I just want to say first and foremost, I’m not sure how they’ve made a movie out of this book. There is no action and hardly any drama. The entire thing basically happens on a stopped train. And almost the entire book is spent on Hercule Poirot interviewing suspects, making guesses and figuring out the mystery. Which I personally loved! But hollywood likes action and drama so I’m willing to bet the movie will have a lot of extra stuff that wasn’t in the book.

But I digress. The book was fantastic! The twist at the end was pretty great. To be honest, I sort of thought of the answer before the end but there was still a little extra twist that made me say “Holy Cow!!”

And I will say that the wide array of characters will be fun to see on screen.

I recommend this book to anybody who likes mysteries and doesn’t mind a book without action!

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Tayler from The Morrell Tale

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