Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
What sheep taught me, October 22, 2008
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Wow, I never expected to love this book as much as I did. The day it came in I couldn't put it down. The writer is warm, funny, down-to-earth and most of all a great "teacher" of the Word through out her book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to better understand why there are so many scriptures in the bible about sheep & the Lord being our Shepard.
The book is inviting and concise. You will hear enough to feel drawn into the story without being lost in too much detail of her accounts. Basically the book is about a Suburban mom of 6 who moves to the country and purchases some sheep. The book takes you through their ups & downs on the farm pertaining to their novice sheep raising skills.
I am not an animal lover, and yet I was almost in tears when their first lamb was born and shared in their sorrows when a lamb was abandoned by it's mom.
You will be amazed all the parallels and similarities between lambs and yourself. The writer inserts wonderful scriptures to go along with her stories and you will feel like one of the family as you follow their adventurous journey.
|
|
|
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Learn something new from sheep?, November 5, 2008
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
This book is an interesting look at one woman's life as she takes on the job of shepherding a flock of her own sheep and in the process realizing what a tough job our own Shepherd has had watching over us mere humans.
By providing the analogy of the sheep's stubborness, misdirection and not knowing how much greener the pasture could be on the other side if they just followed the right path, she reflects these thoughts to the reader and our relationship with OUR Shepherd. Those sheep who look to her for guidance and love get not only that, but more...and those sheep who simply ignore her will never know what they have missed. Learning to appreciate our own Shepherd is a terrific lesson.
This is a nice, quick read that feels as if you have been chatting with a new friend who has an unusual life story and who makes you think as you part ways.
My only complaint is that it was not left as sweet and simple as it could have been. It has scripture dispersed throughout and some little sidebars with wisdom that sometimes seem to be stretching beyond the story, almost trying to make it have more depth when it really was not necessary. Those bits can come off as if you are reading a self-help book when the simple story itself and the author's revelations would have been just fine on their own.
Still, it's always refreshing to get new and unusual reminders to look at life with a fresh twist and this book will certainly give you that.
|
|
|
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A lighthearted yet spiritually enlightening look at why sheep and shepherd are used by Jesus in the Bible, February 3, 2009
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
Heaven Has Blue Carpet: A Sheep Story by a Suburban Housewife is a story of a family who left the suburbs to realize their dream of living in the country, specifically the New England countryside. The dream did not include raising sheep, but as the author says in the introduction, she ordered sheep to "match the Waverly blue-plaid wallpaper, matching curtains, and blue carpet in the house". Then began 16 years of shepherding and finding out for real the true depth and meaning of Jesus as the shepherd of humanity.
A spiritually young Christian ("babe in Christ") will like this book because it tells you a lot of stuff that only shepherds and sheep herders know about sheep so that once you have read it, you will finally understand with full clarity John 10:1-19. Shepherds who read the Bible probably already know all the stuff in this book and more, but to a person like me who would like the nuances of stories in the Bible like John 10:1-19 clarified, this book reveals them to you. For example, Jesus said in John 10:14, "I know my own and my own know me." Earlier in v. 4, he mentions that sheep follow their shepherd because they know his voice. Niedzinski writes that the sheep who anticipate her arrival to the pasture at a certain time each day are orphaned lambs, lambs who have been rejected by their ewes (mother sheep) so that they had to be separated from the rest of the flock, brought into the household to be bottle-fed, nurtured, and taken cared of until they are strong enough to be in the presence of the rest of the flock without the others killing them (which is basically what happens when a ewe rejects a lamb because it will keep butting the lamb and kicking it until it is almost dead, just to get the message across that she doesn't want that kid anymore). Because of the special nurturing Niedzinski and her family put into these lambs, when they are out in the pasture, they eagerly look for her when she comes out to feed them and eagerly follow her around as she does her duties and also when she walks them to a different pasture. (A Christian could draw the similarity in real life to their initial call to repentance and subsequent following of Jesus.) Contrast this to the attitude of the other sheep who don't even know Niedzinski's voice--nor anyone else's for that matter--and don't care to know her anyway, so that in an effort to make her sheep get to know her, Niedzinski had to wake up so early for several months and "bond" with the other sheep so that they will get to know her. One could once more draw the similarity to Jesus' words saying that no one can come to him except if God draws them to him (John 6:44).
Sheep herders keep detailed records of each sheep they have that includes the breed, sire and dame, birth, a few events of the birth, some notable markings on the sheep to distinguish it from the rest of hte flock. Niedzinski did the same thing, but one could draw the similarity with John 10 once more and realize that that is exactly what Jesus meant when he said he knew his sheep, because as written in the Old Testament, the number of the hair on our head are counted and known by God, we are known from our mother's womb--just as an honest-to-goodness shepherd knows practically everything about each of his sheep even before it is born and then more afterwards.
These and other simple biblical/spiritual truths could be learned from this book so that if you are a mature Christian, this book may not be for you. It is written simply with little nuggets of advice ("Good Grain"), thoughts to mull over ("Chew on This"), and simple prayers ("The Shearing Shed") all gleaned from learned experiences as a shepherd/sheep herder that makes biblical references to sheep understandable. It is light and easy reading, designed to be finished in one sitting or on a lazy weekend, but whose lessons are to be treasured and added to one's spiritual knowledge so that one may "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." (2 Peter 3:18)
(All Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, the New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1993 and 1989.)
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
by William P. Young
by Sarah Young
by Ron Hall
