Gideon Strauss is the Executive Director for the Max De Pree Center for Leadership, a Senior Fellow (and former CEO) with The Center for Public Justice, and a Senior Fellow with Cardus. Find out more about Gideon (and link to his blog) through his website, gideonstrauss.com.Gideon generously offered the following reflection and endorsement about The Exact Place:
The recipes that punctuate Margie Haack's recollections remind the reader that these stories are from a life truly lived: as tangible as a bite of Swedish pancake with chokeberry syrup. Wrestling with the insolence of memory, Margie tells the story of her childhood and of the discovery of the kindness of God and the meaning of home. Her discoveries takes places, as such discoveries almost always do, amidst the complications of ordinary life, and she recounts these with both honesty and tenderness: a god-damning grandfather in his love of her images God for her in an enduring way; the loss of her father before her birth and the stern discipline of her stepfather affects her as she reads of the Bible's God portrayed as a father; beloved dogs die as a result of her actions and the actions of her siblings, and these deaths provoke encounters with guilt and forgiveness. As I read the story of young Margie's life, I reflected on my own, and wondered at the goodness in the ordinary -- land well-tended, food well-prepared, children sheltered and fed with sweat and tears -- and at the unfolding of hope in the midst of hardship and heartbreak.
Thank you so much, Gideon!
The Exact Place will be released officially in one week! Take advantage of pre-order pricing while you can — pre-order The Exact Place today.
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