Reading

Heaven Is Probably More (and Better) Than You Think

February 9, 2026February 8, 2026 Rebekah MattLeave a comment

How much do you know about Heaven? And how much do you think about Heaven in your everyday life?

I’ve been a Christian for about 30 years, and I’ve been aware of how little I really knew about Heaven for most of that time … but I believed that no one knew much about Heaven with any degree of real certainty, so that was okay. “Heaven,” even for Bible-reading Christians, is one of those words that gets mentioned enough in a sort of vague way that you feel pretty comfortable with its fuzziness and uncertainty after a while.

As for how often I thought about Heaven, well … when someone close to me passed away, I thought about it. Other than that, unless I was specifically studying a section of the Bible or listening to a sermon that was about Heaven (both of which are more infrequent than you’d think), I didn’t think about it much in my daily life.

Reading

Two Elderly Gentlemen, Two Novels of Generosity and Grace

November 24, 2025November 23, 2025 Rebekah MattLeave a comment

I’m a reader, a former bookseller, a former English teacher, and a writer—and I’m also a Christian. So when I come across an excellent novel that is clearly written by a Christian author, I rejoice. Sadly, this doesn’t happen nearly as often as I’d like.

Of course, Wendell Berry and Marilynne Robinson fall into that category. As does Kristin Lavransdatter, my favorite novel of all time (read why here). And I just finished two books back-to-back that have me thinking there must have been divine intervention in my selections. One of them is a national bestseller, a rags-to-riches publishing story that has taken readers—especially Christian readers—by storm. The other is an exquisite novel from a masterful author whom I just started reading within the past year.

Reading

Five Favorite Epistolary Books

September 2, 2025September 1, 2025 Rebekah MattLeave a comment

What is it about books written in epistolary format (a series of letters) that I love so much? Not all epistolary novels are good, of course, but when they are, they seem to find their place more quickly onto my list of favorite books.

Here’s what I love about them:

They give you all of the advantages of a first-person narrator (personal insights and viewpoints in usually a more conversational or revealing tone)—but they are once-removed and multi-faceted. The narrator isn’t talking to you, the reader, but to someone else. The letters are sometimes to or from more than one person, as well.

They require you to pay attention to details like dates, locations, means of correspondence, and who the letter is to/from in order to follow what’s going on, both in the plot of the book and sometimes from your knowledge of the real world at the time.

They assume you can fill in the blanks. Depending on the author’s skill (and all of these books below have very skillful authors), you, the reader, will need to make inferences based on what is said, or not said, in the letters in order to connect the dots.

Reading

“Screwtape for Women” — Times Two

June 16, 2025June 14, 2025 Rebekah MattLeave a comment

I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone got the idea that women ought to have their own version of The Screwtape Letters. It turns out that two people got this idea, seemingly at the same time.

Have you already read C. S. Lewis’s 1942 classic satire, The Screwtape Letters? If not, you should go do that. The letters are written from the point of view of a senior demon talking to a younger, inexperienced demon. The topic is a certain young man that they are trying to wrest away from “the Enemy” (God) and win to the side of “Our Father Below” (Satan). If this idea intrigues you, or if you loved this book as millions of Christians have, and especially if you are a woman, then read on.

Reading

Two Elisabeth Elliot Bios: One Authorized, One Definitive

March 31, 2025March 30, 2025 Rebekah MattLeave a comment

Soon after I became a Christian, almost 30 years ago, I found an author/speaker that I liked very much—a no-nonsense, straight-talking woman who would help shape many aspects of my early Christian walk. I owe a tremendous debt to Elisabeth Elliot, her books, and her radio program, Gateway to Joy, and I’m grateful to God for placing her in my life at just the right time. Her influence has made me a better person, and a better Christian.

So I was thrilled to see, a few years ago, that new biographies about her were in the works. First came Ellen Vaughn’s Becoming Elisabeth Elliot, part one of a two-volume set published in the fall of 2020 by B&H Books. Then came Lucy S. R. Austen’s Elisabeth Elliot: A Life, published in June 2023 by Crossway. This was followed very quickly by Vaughn’s highly anticipated second volume, Being Elisabeth Elliot, published in the fall of 2023. (I think these dates are important, as you’ll see.)

The two biographies (counting Vaughn’s two volumes as one bio) have similar titles, similar covers, and were published right around the same time. Vaughn’s is officially the authorized biography, but in my mind, Austen’s is the definitive one; of the two, it’s the most complete, must-read biography of Elliot’s entire life.

Reading

At the Intersection of Art and Faith

February 17, 2025February 17, 2025 Rebekah MattLeave a comment

A few years ago, I went to a museum exhibit and did something I’ve never done before or since in an art museum: I stood in front of a painting and cried.

The exhibit featured the paintings of 19th-century French artist Jean-François Millet, but it also included paintings by artists who were influenced by Millet—the most famous being Vincent van Gogh. I saw dozens of beautiful and amazing paintings that day, but the one that brought me to tears was this one:

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Encouraging Stories and Reflections for Every Mom

December 26, 2024January 13, 2025 Rebekah MattLeave a comment

Sometimes the title says it all, and sometimes it falls a little short. Here’s a book that’s much more than you might suspect from its title.

Devoted: Great Men and Their Godly Moms, by Tim Challies, is a mere 124 pages long but is packed with encouragement, wisdom, exhortation, and downright fascinating stories about eleven famous Christian men and their mothers. I’ve read books similar to this before (such as Lamplighter’s Mothers of Famous Men), and they’ve been about what I’ve expected: fairly interesting stories about strong and virtuous women who’ve raised children on to greatness, in a wise and godly manner. This one is so much more.

What makes Devoted different?

Reading

Phone-Free and Play-Full

November 25, 2024January 13, 2025 Rebekah MattLeave a comment

Phone-free and play-full. That’s what childhood used to be, and if you’re over a certain age (born before 1995, about), this probably describes your own childhood.

These two phrases—phone-free and play-full—are my big takeaways from Jonathan Haidt’s bestselling book The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. The copy I read is pictured above, with my many sticky notes still attached.

You might know Haidt as the co-author of the 2018 bestseller about college students, The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure, among other books. He’s an NYU professor and social psychologist who says in The Anxious Generation what has been obvious to many people just from observation and personal experience, and he’s got the data to back it up.

Reading

Favorite Books about Pioneer Women

July 15, 2024January 13, 2025 Rebekah MattLeave a comment

“Hey, God, you should have made me born 100 years earlier!” —me, age 8

The first time I can ever remember telling God what he ought to have done in my life was while I was reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books. I was given the complete boxed set for my birthday, and I devoured them one after the other, immersing myself in the world of late-19th century U.S. pioneer life. I felt deep in my heart that I ought to have been a child of the 1870s rather than the 1970s.

I trust God’s judgment and plan for my life more now than I did as a child, so I’m no longer upset about not being born into the 19th-century American west (which in the 1800s would have been anything west of the Appalachian mountains). But I still love reading about this time period, and more specifically, about women during this time period, especially pioneer women who traveled west and often stayed there to create a home.

So here’s a list of my personal favorite books in this area for those who, like me, are pioneers at heart—or who just like to read about them.

Reading

Henry VIII, in His “Own” Words

April 22, 2024January 13, 2025 Rebekah MattLeave a comment

What comes to mind when you hear the name Henry VIII?

When author Margaret George asked people this question, here’s a summary of the answer she got: “Henry VIII was a huge, fat, oversexed man with gross table manners who had eight wives, killed them all, and then died of syphilis.” She found out during the course of extensive research that not one of these things about Henry was true, or at least, not entirely true.

So she wrote a 900-page novel about him, making the daring decision to tell his story in first person: The Autobiography of Henry VIII. It’s fiction, but it’s based on solid research, and it provides a fascinating look at the entire character of this complex and important historical figure.