Book Review: “Love Letters from God: Bible Stories for a Girl’s Heart” by Glenys Nellist

I was recently offered an advance copy of “Love Letters from God: Bible Stories for a Girl’s Heart” by Glenys Nellis to review for this blog. This review is a guest post by Rebecca Hitt, since she has experience having a girl’s heart.

I have a confession to make. I am guilty of a pretty big sin.

And have been since I was a little girl. For a long time, I allowed myself to stew in this sin. Are you ready to know what it is? Alright, here goes… I, Rebecca Elizabeth Hitt (formerly Freeman), I am guilty of envy. Of whom, you might ask? People in the Bible.

I admit it. I used to read Bible stories where God spoke directly and out loud to people and I felt envy. How come God used to speak to people, but not anymore? I wanted to hear the voice of God! I wanted to be so dear and loved to God that he spoke to me! Why was I not special enough? Was I not good enough? Why not me, God, why not me?

Over the years, I have learned just how often I *do* head the voice of God. But sometimes it’s helpful to get a gentle hint. “Love Letters from God: Bible Stories for a Girl’s Heart” wonderfully illustrates the way God speaks to us now and works on our behalf. It beautifully ties stories from the Bible to life today and shows how the two are related. After each story comes a “love letter” from God that draw a correlation between the story and our lives. Each story is labeled without identifying the Biblical figure it’s about. Just “The _____ girl.” The Hopeful Girl. The Busy Girl. Who among us hasn’t been hopeful? Who hasn’t been busy? Whenever we place our hope in God, we are Hannah. Whenever we are busy, we are Martha. Not only does God speak to us, He speaks to us through the people in these stories.

I really enjoyed this book. I hope that anyone who reads it — girl or boy, child or adult — walks away with a renewed sense of God’s presence in their life.

On the Streets of DC

Any conversation with a man that walked on the moon is cool, but it was two random conversations on the walk home that were the highlight of the day.

The second day of the Humans To Mars summit was wonderful; it’s each year to step back to really appreciate how much progress is being made toward landing astronauts on the Red Planet. At the end of today’s summit, I got to have a brief conversation with Buzz Aldrin about Venus flyby missions of fiction and future.

I’d had zero chance to actually see any “DC stuff” on this trip except for glimpses of the Washington Monument from a balcony and down an alleyway, so I decided to walk back, from the Watergate on the river to far side of the senate office buildings.

As I snapped a selfie at the Capitol, a woman asked if I wanted her to take the picture. I was satisfied with what I had, so I offered to take one of her and her husband instead. We chatted for a bit. She was there on a work trip; she teaches at Clemson and had made the drive up that day. For both of them it was their first time in the city. It was one of those moments that just hit reset on what I was doing — for a moment, I got to share their perspective, experiencing our nation’s capital for the first time. “We’ve seen pictures of it, but now…” “You’re here. It’s right there.” A good reminder to never forget where you are, no matter where that is.

Walking a bit farther, I came across Lockheed Martin’s Mars Experience bus parked on the side of the road by one of the Senate office buildings. No one was around, except the driver, so I spoke. “Do you travel with the bus?” “Yeah.” “So you were in Huntsville a few weeks ago?” “Yeah.” “And Houston a few weeks before that?” “Yeah.” I’d gone through the bus back in January at the Super Bowl Live event in downtown Houston, and again with Rebecca a month or so ago when it came to Huntsville for FIRST Robotics; he’d been there both times.

He and I chatted for a while also. He wasn’t affiliated with Orion and didn’t work for Lockheed, he was just staff for the exhibit bus. He’d spend weeks on the road with it; he was going home to South Carolina that night for a two or three week break before heading out again. He said he loved seeing the kids experience it; you can tell, he said, the ones that really get into it. He asked what they were saying at the summit, how things were going. “I’ve been traveling with this thing so long now, I really want to see this happen,” he said. I thanked him for his part in making that happen – his role in sharing with people what the future could look like is as important as any.

It’s weird watching D.C. in the news when you’re in the city. It’s easy to believe sometimes from the TV and Twitter and headlines that this place is tearing itself apart.

But you walk the streets of D.C. long enough, and you realize that maybe there’s hope for us yet.