The Sacrament of Happy

The Sacrament of Happy: What a Smiling God Brings to a Wounded World by Lisa Harper
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you love Lisa Harper, you'll love this book.
A simple read that will touch your heart, make you smile, tug at your heart & make you see that Happiness is so much bigger than we first think.

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Imagine hearing your physician tell you that chips and queso contain more nutritional benefits than kale and quinoa. 

In her new book, The Sacrament of Happy: What a Smiling God Brings to a Wounded World, Lisa Harper unveils a similarly extravagant, unexpected surprise, declaring that happiness is a gift from God that we can unashamedly enjoy. 

Wearing the twin hats of both seminarian and belly-laughing adoptive mom, Harper builds upon solid theological scaffolding for happiness in a warm, vignette style. She dismantles the old-school idea that joy, not happiness, is the truly spiritual emotion of the Christian family and asserts that Christ-followers are actually called to happiness . . . to such a deep conviction in the unmitigated goodness of our Creator-Redeemer that we are free to feel and express genuine joy, fulfillment and contentment, regardless of personal and global tumult. 

Harper’s personal story includes such happiness killers as sexual abuse, the death of loved ones, and heartbreaking failed adoptions. Yet she writes on themes like: 

“The lost sacrament of laughter” 
“Happiness is not the absence of sadness” 
“Tuning out the Pharisees who try to mute your happiness in the context of spiritual maturity” 


This book goes well beneath most people’s surface understanding of happiness, gently guiding readers closer to the heart of God . . . with naturally a few genuine guffaws to enjoy along the way.

Wasited

Waisted: A Novel by Randy Susan Meyers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Started off really enjoying, but then got bored & then didnt really care as much.
I did of course relate to all the weight issues though & appreciated honesty in the book regarding that.

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In this provocative, wildly entertaining, and compelling novel, seven women enrolled in an extreme weight loss documentary discover self-love and sisterhood as they enact a daring revenge against the exploitative filmmakers.

Alice and Daphne, both successful working mothers, both accomplished and seemingly steady, harbor the same secret: obsession with their weight overshadows concerns about their children, husbands, work—and everything else of importance in their lives. Scales terrify them.

Daphne, plump in a family of model-thin women, learned at her mother’s knee that only slimness earns admiration. Alice, break-up skinny when she met her husband, risks losing her marriage if she keeps gaining weight.

The two women meet at Privation. Located in a remote Vermont mansion, the program promises fast, dramatic weight loss, and Alice, Daphne, and five other women are desperate enough to leave behind their families for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The catch? They must agree to always be on camera; afterward, the world will see Waisted: The Documentary.

The women soon discover that the filmmakers have trapped them in a cruel experiment. With each pound lost, they edge deeper into obsession and instability...until they decide to take matters into their own hands.

A compulsively readable and ultimately poignant examination of body image, family, and friendship, Waisted features Randy Susan Meyers’s signature “engaging and sharp” (Publishers Weekly) prose and is perfect for fans of Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, Dietland by Sarai Walker, The First Wives Club by Olivia Goldsmith, and Hunger by Roxane Gay.