Jotham's Journey

This book is like none other you will read. I was searching last month for some good books to be reading to the girls during the Christmas season. Specifically, I was looking for books to prepare our hearts for the advent seseason. I pray that I can teach my girls so much more about what this season truly means, and discipline myself a little further into this advent time as well.

This book, Jotham's Journey, along with the follow up, Bartholomew's Passage kept coming up in my searches as the books we needed.   The book is set up to begin reading the fourth Sunday before Christmas.  We started reading it almost a week after we were supposed to, so we had some catching up to do.  The problem was.. the girls were begging to hear more.
 Day after day, they begged, "keep reading mom!! keep reading!! You can't stop there!!!".  We seriously could not put this book down.   Maybe next year, we can follow each day's reading a little better.

But most importantly, our hearts are being prepared for the coming of Christmas day.   What a treasure this book has been for our family, for my girls' hearts.  We finished up the book this morning, and now we are excited to begin the follow up book, Bartholomew's Passage.

You all know how I love "living books" - books that make a certain time period come alive - reading a story and feeling as if you are actually there - experiencing everything they are.  Well, this book goes above and beyond that.  You truly feel like you are there, experiencing the days leading up to the coming of the Messiah. You join with Elizabeth in her home holding her newborn son John and telling of his purpose in life to prepare the way for the coming Messiah. You can smell the camel's fur as you fall asleep on the journey, you follow that bright star in the sky with the caravan, you can see the night sky lit up with the glow of the holy angels singing "Glory to God in the Highest!!", you can sense the holy presence of the newborn babe lying in the manger.  This - all mixed in with a very exciting journey of a 10-year-old boy that takes him across Israel in search of his family.  

For two days now - my Boo has been walking around with my I-phone playing this song over, and over, and OVER again.  She thinks it is the most beautiful song ever written.  I think she may be right - it is so powerful.   Boo said "This is exactly what heaven sounds like."



Many people today spend an entire Christmas season without ever realizing how close they are to its true wonder.  How can you prevent Christmas from being just another holiday?