Thanks to a hack on our WordPress site, I have been unable to blog for the past couple weeks, which is sad because I have good things I want to share with you all! Forgive my back-to-back posts of favorite things, but I want you to hear about these before Christmas!

First up is an advent resource I used last year to help prepare my heart for the Christmas season. With the hustle and stress of a busy month, I wanted to slow my heart down and engage with the story of Christmas in a meaningful way. I had heard good things about The Advent of the Lamb of God (published previously as Behold the Lamb of God), and I must say, the book did not disappoint.

Russ Ramsey takes a wealth of biblical and cultural knowledge and uses it to tell the story of the coming of Christ in a way that informs our western mindset. He does not take liberties with the story, but rather tells the biblical account in a compelling way, adding only what is necessary to aid in a better understanding of its context. As he says in the preface, “This book is not a substitute for the Bible itself,” but rather, it is “meant to be a servant to the Bible.” And indeed, it is. Even with a four-year Bible degree and a lifetime of exposure to the stories, I still encountered things I didn’t know.

More than that, though, I found my imagination being newly gripped by the old stories–the same stories (telling one bigger Story) that I had heard so many times growing up. Ramsey’s retelling helped my emotions catch up to the truth I was reading so that by the time Christmas came, my heart was ready to rejoice and worship anew.

This book is beautifully crafted. It’s divided into twenty-five chapters, so it can readily be used as a daily devotional for the month of December (as I did), but it also reads through like any good story, suitable for binge-reading on a long, cold weekend. We may be halfway through Advent now, but it’s not too late to get this book and make good use of it in time for Christmas.

We highly recommend it.

*Our Favorite Things are simply that. We receive nothing in return for sharing them with you except the satisfaction of knowing that we’ve connected other parents with something we’ve found encouraging.