faith

Want a good summer read? Grab a copy of Under A Desert Sky.

“God woos us in the desert.” – Lynne Hartke

We have a natural tendency to avoid pain. No one wants to hurt, or struggle, or suffer. But when you look back on those hard times in your life sometimes they are the richest, most powerful times in your life. Those hard times are when God’s promises are the only rope to hang on to. The sweet things in life taste even sweeter. After all, how can we know what it is to have our thirst quenched, if we have never been thirsty?

When the road ahead is long and dusty. When your lifewater has run dry, I would recommend you pick up Lynne Hartke’s book, Under A Desert Sky. The book follows the struggle of a family dealing with cancer, but you don’t need to be going through a cancer diagnosis to glean beautiful meaning from this book. More than cancer, the book shows the struggle of life. The struggle of any suffering and sorrow that comes your way, and the dark times when God feels distant and silent and mysterious.

Written in Lynne’s skilled hand for metaphors and her keen eye for beauty in things often overlooked, Under A Desert Sky, will bring you back to God’s promises, his faithfulness even in a land where there is no water. The richness of faith that comes when God leads us through the darkness, through the struggle, and through the pain.

“Love is in the details. Love is found in the bending over. The stooping low. The care shown for the small things.” – Lynne Hartke

Under A Desert Sky won’t leave you sad and hopeless, it will bring you back to joy. The true joy that is not dependent on happiness or good circumstances. When I finished the book, I was reminded of how much I have to be thankful for. How much God used the dark times in my life to richly bless me, and how beautiful this fragile life we live for such a short time on Earth is.

Lynne gave me a new appreciation for the desert. Road trip anyone? I have the sudden urge to go hiking.

“I will live until I die, and then my real life will begin.” – Under A Desert Sky