The Warren & the World Vol 5, Issue 31

The Warren & the World is Story Warren’s weekly newsletter, providing a round-up of our favorite things from around the web as well as a review of what was on our site over the past week. We’re glad you’re here!

Around the Web

Your Deadliest Weapon Against the Devil

John Piper gives eight reasons for the importance of memorizing Scripture.

Memorizing Scripture makes meditation possible at times when you can’t be reading the Bible, and meditation is the pathway to deeper understanding. If you’re going to meditate on the law of the Lord day and night, you need to have some of it in your head.

If You Like This Classic Children’s Book You’ll Love This Diverse Book

Over at What Do We Do All Day, Erica has some great suggestions of books that celebrate diversity which remind her of various classics.

Sadly, there is not a huge treasure trove of classic children’s books with diverse characters. But fortunately, with the We Need Diverse Books movement, the number of quality chapter books featuring diverse protagonists from all walks of life is increasing. While there is still much progress to be made, it is becoming easier to find wonderful children’s books featuring people of color and children with diverse abilities. With this list I’ve tried to match a contemporary book with a classic book. So if you’ve read and loved a particular classic children’s book, I think you’ll love the corresponding choices I’ve picked out for you.

Is Satan Stealing Our Families?

Brie Gowen explores how time together as a family can fight the enemy.

This past year I read a book with my daughter called Little House in the Big Woods. You may be familiar with it. It’s the first book written by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and it began the popular Little House on the Prairie series. I don’t recall reading it before, and as I read it to my five year old, I think I enjoyed it even more than she did. Something about the way the family lived, it intrigued me. I love my internet tremendously, but the simplicity and closeness this family shared sounded really wonderful to me. The idea of working together for each other drew me into their little world. Many times as I read the pages aloud I yearned for such a time as the ones described.

The Most Powerful Thing You Can Say to Another Mom

Denise Stirk writes about motherhood’s strongest bond.

A few weeks ago, one of my dearest friends lost her 21-month-old daughter forever when the sweet baby girl died unexpectedly and suddenly. My friend and I live on opposite sides of the country, so I took a trip to visit her for this past weekend. Admittedly, I was a nervous wreck about what I was going to say to her and her husband. How was I going to find the words to comfort them? How would I avoid saying the wrong things? I wanted to find perfect words, and, as I am a writer, words happen to be one of the few ways I truly know how to express myself….I walked into her home and could never in a million years have foreseen the life-altering and powerful words that would be spoken between us during our time together. Except the words came from her, to me.

Around the Warren

Home is a Mercy

Glenn McCarty writes about cultivating a home.

With our boys spending a week at a summer day camp, my wife and I recently dove into a substantial (for us) home project – installing a new laminate wood floor in our kitchen. Like the true DIY go-getters we are, we did every bit ourselves. And, like the absent-minded handyman that I am, the project proceeded in fits and starts over the better part of four days as I measured, cut, laid the planks, re-measured, re-cut, tossed ill-fitting boards out, and rubbed my sore knees and my wife’s sore back, all in the hope of a fresh, clean kitchen for our family to enjoy.

Review: Bud, Not Buddy

Liz Cottrill has a book review of Christopher Curtis’ excellent Bud, Not Buddy.

An incalculably valuable benefit of reading for young children is when they become acquainted with people and places they are not exposed to in their own small world. I believe this was one of the intrigues of stories to me as a child — meeting a little girl who lived on a mountain in a hut and slept on a straw bed in the loft, then a little girl whose family headed across the plains in a wagon and lived in a log cabin, then a family who was shipwrecked and made their home in a tree. These are endlessly imagination-expanding experiences. My world got bigger with every book.

Something to Do with Your Kids

As you start up the school year and space in your home begins to fill with papers, papers, papers, here are some tips on making and leaving space for your kids to create art.