Touch this book carefully, readers. It may burn you.

Receive it tenderly. It’s made of mother heart.

Hold it with both hands. It bucks.

Read it with full attention. It’s a radiant witness to the grace and nearness of the living God.

The story is a nightmare. A testimony. A guide.

And author Katherine James weaves you through all three in this harrowing, redemptive memoir: A Prayer for Orion. In raw, limber prose she tells how her third child, Sweetboy, slid into the crevasse of heroin addiction. How she and her husband responded. How they felt. What happened next.

You may be tempted to escape the pain of this heart-rending story with judgment. I know, I know. It’s easier to stomach a terrible tale if you imagine you’d have avoided it all, had it been you. If you believe you could have controlled your child to safety with a new location or better friends or wiser parenting or more insight or deeper faith or a healthier diet . . . or . . . or . . . or . . .

Really?

If you disappear into rational, formula-driven solutions in order to dodge the book’s ugliness and sorrow, you’ll miss the rescue, the holy intervention, the healing. You’ll miss the humbling wonder of lives transformed by the only Rope long enough to pull Sweetboy from darkness and resuscitate him—and his parents.

I suggest you read it with mercy, instead. With a recognition that there, but for God’s grace—or in the midst of it—you and your child could have been. As I could have been with mine.

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And IN AN EGGSHELL, here are SM posts from earlier this week:

When you dot your eyes.

“Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

—Ephesians 5:15-16

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Bullion.

“Fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the LORD tests the heart.”

—Proverbs 17:3 NLT

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Wonders.

“And awe came upon every soul . . .”

—Acts 2:43

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Gambrel.

“Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them.”

—Luke 12:24

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🏵💥 🏵 GIVEAWAY! 💥🏵💥

So many of you, new friends and long-time ones, showed up here and on FB to celebrate the 20th Anniversary / Birthday of THE VIEW FROM GOOSE RIDGE with me. Thank you! I do wish I could mail a copy to each of you who showed up in your party clothes every week. Loved seeing you here.

This week there was one last copy to give away. One final name plucked from the well-worn hat. And the winner is . . . Laurie Clein Ritter! Congratulations, Laurie! Send me your mailing address and I’ll get the book right off to you.

(If you didn’t win, and you’d like a copy anyway, for yourself or for a stocking stuffer, you can find one here.

AlSO . . . FAMILY has arrived and will be with us for the next few weeks, so . . . apart from a once-a-day check-in . . . I’m taking a break from social media. Merry Christmas, friends. May God bless each and every one of you. See you again in early January.

Looking forward to a fresh NEW YEAR with you all.:)

Watching Nature, Seeing Life: Through His Creation, God Speaks