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The Yada Yada Prayer Group By Neta Jackson

(Books One through Four) Reviewed by Charlotte Tyson

Our church library with the assortment of books available to check out made the many hours that we spent on the road in December and early January more enjoyable. I selected The Yada Yada Prayer Group series of novels (currently four books available) to keep me occupied while we covered many miles of roadways. This is only one of several interesting series available in our library.

Neta Jackson, author of the Yada Yada series, who with her husband, has been writing Christian novels for many years. Her home is in the metropolitan area of Chicago and that is the setting of all the books of this series.

Book One of the series brings together the twelve main characters of these books. Except for two members of the group, they had never knowingly met before they gathered at a women’s prayer conference and were placed in a prayer group for the breakout sessions of the weekend event. The diversity of the group in background, race and nationality made it an unlikely group to become good friends. When one member of the group was notified of a family tragedy, it caused them to draw together in prayer for a very special cause and led them to feel that they should maintain contact with each other even after the conference ended. With the help of e-mail they were able to share special needs for prayer and soon decided to meet regularly to pray together. These prayer meetings were scenes of laughter and tears as crises, large and small, arose with members. They gained strength, and learned to pray and praise together or alone.

Book Two brings them face to face with distrust and generations of racial diversity. With prayer and praise they worked with problems created many years before and in so doing resolved, for at least one family member, the long held feelings of hate. Street drugs and all the associated problems walked up to the door and into the lives of the prayer group and caused each to examine their own life and to learn to experience forgiveness.

Book Three reveals how past experiences shaped their lives and how they dealt with their guilt and disappointment, and how it affected the lives of those around them. Sharing hidden hurt and fear with members of the group helped to resolve problems created by the past. As the women grew stronger in their faith, their families began to form similar groups among the children and among the husbands. They also grew in their understanding of the diversity of the nationalities and races of their communities.

Book Four finds the group and their families experiencing the battles of a racially motivated hate group and the results of that encounter.

Throughout the four books, prayer and praise are the outstanding points, with examples of how prayers were answered and how each of the twelve grew in faith as they prayed and worshiped alone, in the group, and with family.

I look forward to reading more of her work.

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Surprised By Joy — By  C.S. Lewis

Reviewed by Rev. Wade Bennett 

    Probably the greatest Christian thinker of the 20th century, C.S. Lewis has been popular­ized of late thanks to the filming of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I was surprised to find a paperback edition of Surprised By Joy in the church library. The book is sub­titled “The Shape of My Early Life” and is called by Lewis “a remarkably frank and beguiling account of a conversion.”

    Lewis with incredible detail takes the reader through his early years growing up in Ireland, his passage through a variety of English boarding schools and tutors, his experience in WW1 as a young officer who captures 60 surrendering German soldiers but is subsequently wounded by shrapnel, and his return to England as an Oxford scholar and professor.

    Central to his story is his description of early experiences of JOY -- “which is here a technical term must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered Only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and Pleasure often is.”

     Pursuit of this ever evasive Joy becomes a focus of Lewis’ life, and he catches only brief glimpses of it in literature and life experiences. Eventually he learns that it is not the Joy he seeks, but Something or Someone behind the Joy. The experience of Joy is a signpost to point him to the outer and other (none other than God Himself).

Like many of us, Lewis tells how close friends play a vital role in his journey to faith. Most notable for us is J.R.R. Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings. I also found his account of dealing with the historicity of the Gospels most compelling; “I was by now too experienced in literary criticism to regard the Gospels as myths. They had not the mythical taste. And yet the very matter which they set down in their artless, historical fashion -- those narrow, un­attractive Jews, too blind to the mythical wealth of the Pagan world around them -- was precisely the matter of the great myths. If ever a myth had become fact, had been incarnated, it would be just like this. And nothing else in all literature was just like this. Myths were like it in one way. Histories were like it in another, But nothing else in all literature was just like this. An no person was like the Person it depicted...”

     It is a fascinating book, although I must warn you, Lewis lived in the world of literature, His constant references and quotations of differ­ent authors and characters and expansive vocabulary were hard for this country boy to follow. You may want to have a dictionary handy. Lewis was one of if not the greatest mind of the 20th century so it’s not exactly light reading. Nonetheless, I didn’t want to stop reading once I got started except for an occasional mental break.

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Racing To Win By Joe Gibbs

Reviewed by Gale Ebron 

    Joe Gibbs is a name that I am sure is familiar to all of you. He is the only man ever to lead teams to championships in two major sports. As coach of the Washington Redskins, he led the team to be Super Bowl champions. His racing team won the NASCAR Winston Cup Championship in 2002 with driver Tony Stewart and in 2000 with Bobby Labonte. 

     In this book, Joe shares his story of triumph and defeat. He tells a little-known story of how he almost had to declare bankruptcy because of bad financial decisions, stories of sports victories that were important milestones in his life, stories of how important family is no matter what the world thinks of a man. Most important of all, Joe Gibbs gives God the glory for all of his victories—and his defeats. He tells how the defeats made him grow stronger in the LORD, and how there can be no formula for success without God. 

    The book addresses “Success in Your Career”, “Financial Success”, “Success in Building Your Team”, “Success in Your Personal Relationships”, “Success and Your Moral Choices”, “Success and Your Health”. Each one of those divisions is followed by Cornerstone Principles for Success. 

    The final chapter is entitled “The Final Lap” and addresses “Your Turn to Win”, “Why I Believe the Bible” and “What the Bible Says About Success”.

    Despite the fact that I am someone who has vague interest in football and no interest in auto racing, I found the book intriguing and inspiring. 

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  03/13/2009 - Page Last Updated.