Back from the Beach! + My Christian Book Vacation Read

This post is all about my recent vacation!

I can’t believe it’s been roughly two weeks since I posted on the blog. It honestly feels like an eternity. If you love to blog or to write…you totally understand that anticipation of putting pen to paper or…fingers to keyboard!

Ready for a quick catch-up? Let’s go…

Outerbanks…here we come!!

Last year, my family made an impromptu trip to Kitty Hawk, part of the Outerbanks in North Carolina. It was a great kickstart to the Jewish Sabbatical Year known as “Shmitah.” I documented it in my post, “My Year of Rest.”

So this year, when most of the extended family (roughly 12 of us) thought of a vacation destination, OBX was on top of the list. My extended family stayed in Rodanthe while we (my nuclear family) chose the same Airbnb as last time in Kitty Hawk. The weather this time was perfect for outdoor activities, so we were either at the beach or by the pool for six days straight. So we were back and forth.

The last day was the grand finale when we went to the local waterpark called H2OBX. My youngest loved the endless lazy pool, so we went round and round. My older children and their cousins enjoyed the water slides. I love OBX because it’s not like other destinations that are so crowded and over-commercialized. OBX, at its core, has a small-town feel. I will be documenting more about the nitty-gritty of OBX on my wellness blog as I dive deep into self-care and the importance of vacations.

My Christian Book Vacation Read

I want to close by sharing my vacation read. I read an Indie book written by Hadassah Esther, a Kenyan Apostle who is deeply on fire for God. I read the book one afternoon as the kids were napping after a long dip in the pool. The book was quite a page-flipper.

I loved the author’s honesty as she spoke about how God turned her pain into purpose. I loved her humor and her way with words. I will not give much of the book away, but I’ll say that I always make a point of purchasing books by Christian Indie authors because they tend to be raw and to the point. If one isn’t careful, traditional publishers can really change the direction of a book and its very heart and soul…

That’s not to say that I don’t like mainstream books; I have shelve-loads of timeless Christian traditionally published books that have transformed and renewed my mind. As I write this post, I’m awaiting one exciting release by a traditionally published author that’s on pre-order and will be released in 2 weeks!!! (insert cartwheels!)

Back to the book by Hadassah and her powerful testimony…I believe our brokenness and past lives are not something to be ashamed about, but we can truly overcome the enemy through these testimonies and the blood of the lamb.

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.

Revelation 12:11

My updated testimony video on YouTube

Speaking of testimonies, I ended up re-recording my testimony as I felt the first one I recorded was super, super long and I felt led to split it into two parts. Feel free to watch and share:

And that’s it, folks….

A little catch-up from me to you! I can’t wait to catch up on blogs I follow all of next week. I peeked and saw lots of lovely posts. I can’t wait to dive in as soon as I’m done addressing all the sand I carried back from the beach. Ummm…did someone say laundry? 🥲

Hugs,