Favorite books of 2016: Non-fiction

In no particular order, here are three of my favorite (non-fiction) books I read this year:


Mere Motherhood | Cindy Rollins

If you're a homeschooling mother, this will be your new favorite book.  I think I read this book in one day, and I LOVED it.  Cindy Rollins chronicles her homeschooling adventures in a warm, personal, authentic and sometimes hilarious style.  Though this is not a homeschooling how-to book, it is packed with wisdom and practical ideas, and you will find refreshment and encouragement within these pages.

 Just Mercy | Bryan Stevenson

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.  Bryan Stevenson is a lawyer whose passion and life's work is to defend the poor and the most desperate in our society.  Stevenson gives the reader not only an analysis of court rulings, cases, and injustices within our court system, but he invites us to come along with him as he meets with the men and women whom he's defending.  He doggedly and compassionately reveals the person behind each case detailed in this book.  

These men and women's stories stayed with me long after I put this book down.  It was at times difficult to read.  It was infuriating, shocking, and often heart-wrenching, but it was hopeful, too.  Stevenson is truly a modern-day hero, and this book is a powerful book and important book.  

George Müller of Bristol: His Life of Prayer and Faith | A.T. Pierson

This isn't the first biography I've read on George Müller, and it likely won't be the last.  George Müller is one of my heroes.  His faith and dependence upon God and his life of prayer have inspired me from the first time I heard of him.

For anyone unfamiliar with George Müller, he cared for thousands of orphans in England in the mid-1800's.  Perhaps the most stunning part of his ministry is that he never ONCE asked for financial assistance from anyone but God.

Müller's position before God was this (in his own words): "By the help of God, this shall be my argument before Him, respecting the orphans, in the hour of need.  He is their Father, and therefore has pledged Himself, as it were, to provide for them; and I have only to remind Him of the need of these poor children in order to have it supplied."

When people would wonder how one man could possibly carry the needs of so many orphans (thousands upon thousands, over the course of his life) he would say, "By the grace of God, this is no cause of anxiety to me.  These children I have years ago cast upon the Lord.  The whole work is His, and it becomes me to be without carefulness.  In whatever points I am lacking, in this point I am able by the grace of God to roll the burden upon my heavenly Father."

What an incredible testimony of God's loving faithfulness and provision, that He met every single need that was spoken only in His presence.  The (unsolicited) funds poured in or trickled in, but God faithfully provided for His own, and strengthened the faith of Müller and so many more as they saw Him daily providing for the needs that only He knew of.