The Remarkable Ronald Reagan: Cowboy and Commander in Chief

The Remarkable Ronald Reagan: Cowboy and Commander in Chief by Susan Allen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


A wonderful book about President Ronald Reagan written for preschoolers. The words and illustrations are outstanding. Susan Allen the author is the former Governor of Virginia's wife. Her illustrator is artist, Leslie Harrington. The book is a warm tell about President Reagan. It has a little history about the President and names many of the good things he accomplished while in office. The back has a timeline and a list of quotes which I have included in this review. Even as an adult I really enjoyed reading this book. I trust you will enjoy the quotes below:

“You can be too big for God to use, but you cannot be too small.”

"Within the covers of the Bible are all the answers for all of the problems man face."

Highlights from a Life Well-Lived

• February 6, 1911
Ronald Wilson Reagan is born in Tampico, Illinois, to John (Jack) and Nellie Reagan.

• 1920
After years of moving from town to town, the Reagan family settles in Dixon, Illinois.

• 1924
Reagan enters Dixon’s Northside High School.

• 1926
Reagan spends the first of seven summers working as a lifeguard in Lowell Park on the Rock River.

• Fall 1928 – Spring 1932
Reagan attends Eureka College near Peoria Illinois. Graduating with a dual degree in sociology and economics, he excelled as an actor, student leader, and football player.

• 1932
Within six weeks of graduation, Reagan begins his career as a radio sports announcer at WOC radio in Davenport, Iowa.

• April 29, 1937
He enlists as a private in the Army Enlisted Reserve, and is assigned to serve with the 322nd Calvary Regiment at Des Moines, Iowa.

• 1937
Reagan signs a seven-year acting contract with Warner Brothers.

• June 8, 1937
He accepts an Officer’s Commission and is appointed as a second lieutenant with the 323rd Calvary Regiment in Los Angeles, California.

• January 26, 1940
Reagan marries actress Jane Wyman.

• January for 1941
Their daughter Maureen is born.

• April 19, 1942
Reagan is ordered into active military duty following the Pearl Harbor attacks.

• March 1945
Their son Michael is adopted.

• March 10, 1947
Reagan is elected president of the Screen Actors Guild.

• June 6, 1948
Reagan and Jane Wyman divorce

• March 4, 1952
He marries Nancy Davis.

• October 22, 1952
Their daughter Patricia (Patty) is born.

• May 28, 1958
Their son Ronald Prescott (Ron) is born.

• October 27, 1964
Reagan delivers his “A Time for Choosing” speech on national television in support Barry Goldwater for president and becomes known as a national political figure.

• January 1, 1966
Reagan announces his candidacy for governor of California with promises to reduce the waste in government.

• November 8, 1966
Reagan is elected by almost one million votes more than his opponent, incumbent Democratic Governor Edmund G. (“Pat”) Brown.

• January 3, 1967
Reagan is sworn in as governor of California.

• August 5, 1968
Reagan announces his candidacy for the presidential nomination but loses the primary to Richard Nixon.

• 1970
Reagan wins reelection as governor.

• January 18, 1973
Reagan submits a $9.258 billion budget with a $1.1 billion surplus and gives taxpayers a rebate

• November 13, 1974
Ronald and Nancy Reagan purchase Rancho de Cielo.

• November 20, 1975
Reagan runs for president again. This time he loses the primary race to the then current president Gerald Ford. Ford goes on to lose the election to Democrat Jimmy Carter.

• July 17, 1980
Reagan accepts the Republican nomination for president.

• January 20, 1981
Reagan is sworn in as the 40th president of United States.

• March 30, 1981
Reagan is shot by John Hinckley Junior outside a Washington hotel. The bullet missed his heart by less than an inch, lodging in his long and causing it to collapse.

• August 13, 1981
He signs the Economic Recovery Act at Rancho del Cielo.

• September 1981
Reagan appoints the first female Supreme Court justice, Sandra Day O’Connor.

• January 29, 1984
Reagan formally announces he will seek reelection.

• November 4, 1984
Reagan defeats his Democratic opponent Walter Mondale in a landslide. Reagan carries 49 states -- 525 electoral votes to Mondale’s 10, and 59 percent of the popular vote.

• January 20, 1985
Reagan is sworn in for a second term. At 73 years of age, he is the oldest president ever to take office.

• January 15, 1986
Reagan signs of legislation making the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. a national holiday to be celebrated on the third Monday of January.

• January 28, 1986
The U.S. space shuttle Challenger explodes only seventy-three seconds after so takeoff. All six astronauts and the first civilian to go to space (teacher Christa McAuliffe) perish.

• June 12, 1987
Reagan challenges Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.

• December 8, 1987
Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF treaty)-- a landmark agreement to eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons .

• January 14, 1989
In his farewell address, Reagan states: “They called it the Reagan revolution. Well, I’ll accept that, but for me it’s always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.”

• January 20, 1989
George Bush is inaugurated; Ronald and Nancy Reagan fly to California. Reagan leaves office with the highest approval rating of any president since Franklin Roosevelt.

• November 4, 1991
The Reagan library and museum, located in Simi Valley, California, is dedicated.

• 1993
Reagan is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

• November 5, 1994
Reagan address is a letter to the American people in which he discloses that he is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He no longer appears in public.

• June 5, 2004
Ronald Reagan dies peacefully at his home in California. At age 93, he lived longer than any president in American history.


President Reagan wrote more than ten thousand letters over his lifetime. Many, of course, we're to important world leaders, loving family, and friends. Reagan especially enjoyed corresponding with children – – both to hearing your ideas and to encourage them.
Following are examples of some of the letters he sent and received from children:

President Ronald Reagan had an ongoing correspondence with a seven-year-old boy named Rudolph Lee-Hines. At the time Rudolph attended the Congress Heights Elementary School in Washington, D.C.; he received 175 letters from the president over a period of five years.

April 9, 1984
“You… mentioned reading and that is good. Rudolph, if you get in the habit of reading stories for pleasure you will never be lonely. Sometimes I worry that TV is going to rob young people of the great pleasure there is in a good book."

After President Reagan was shot, a second grader named Peter Sweeney from Riverside School and Rockville Centre sent the following note to the president:

“I hope you get well quick or you might have to make a speech in your pajamas.

P.S. If you have to make a speech in your pajamas, I warned you.”

-----------------------------------------------
Feb. 15

Dear Sandy

Will you please tell your teacher and your classmates how very much I appreciate all their good wishes and kind thoughts. It is wonderful to know that young people like all of you with so much to keep you busy could still find time to hold out your hand in friendship to someone far away.

I hope you'll believe me when I say that my decision to enter the political race was because I want so much to help preserve this wonderful country for you and the Skipper and all young Americans. There are so many things to be thankful for in America, so many things that must not be lost; our right to go to different churches, have our own ideas on government, choose our friends and what kind of work we’ll do when we finally finished our school days.

If some of us help keep this for you I know you'll keep it for other young people when you grow up.

Again thanks

Ronald Reagan

Important Things Ronald Reagan Said

They called him the “Great Communicator” because somehow he always seemed to know just the right thing to say. Some of his most famous quotes were . . .

Sometimes Funny . . .

“I’ve often said there’s nothing better for the inside of a man then the outside of a horse.”(which he got from Winston Churchill)

"A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane, and smells like Cheetah."

“I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.”

“I hope you’re all Republicans.” (two surgeons as he entered the operating room following his assassination attempt)

“I want you to know I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponents youth and inexperience.”(to Walter Mondale at a debate)

“But there are advantages to being elected president. The day after I was elected, I had my high school grades classified Top Secret.”

“The nine most dangerous words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

Sometimes Wise . . .

“Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears . . .”

“We can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”

“The American dream is not that everyman must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become.”

“We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than a lawbreaker. It’s time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”

“All great change in America begins at the dinner table.”

“I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.”

"Governments first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives."

“A people free to choose will always choose peace.”

Sometimes Profound . . .

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into 1000 years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified her brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction."

“If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.”

"Let us resolve tonight that young Americans will always . . . find there a city of hope in a country that is free. And let us resolve they will say of our day and our generation that we did keep the faith with our God, that we did act ‘worthy of ourselves,’ that we did protect and pass on lovingly that shining city on a hill.”

“There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he doesn’t mind who gets the credit.” –Words of wisdom from Ronald Reagan

For More Information

To find out more about the Rancho del Cielo, go online The Reagan Ranch

To find out more about the life and times of Ronald Reagan, go online to the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Library.




"A Time For Choosing"

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Aimee Copeland speech at Georgia Gwinnett College

Wonderful, inspiring, challenging speech!

The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard

The Hardest Peace: Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life's Hard by Kara Tippetts

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book is about Kara life, battler, and beauty of battling cancer. This is one of the best books I have ever read about someone battling cancer. She gives much insight on a Christian's life living in a "hard" place. As you read the quotes below, please know Kara is now in Heaven worshipping her Savior!

I trust the quotes below (many from authors she read) will be a blessing to you:

It is a honed art, as well as a spiritual discipline, to be able to step back for the details and see how her own stories are woven into a much bigger one…God’s story. ~Joni Eareckson Tada

Kara and I both recognize the vulnerability and transparency are so necessary and communicating a powerful story. But we also know that our testimonies won’t really reach ---or even change--- the life of the reader. Only the Word of God can do that. Which is why I so appreciate The Hardest Peace. It is filled with snippets of songs and slices of encouraging scriptures that in express the story of God and his purpose in our pain. Kara has a way of reminding us that God’s reasons are perfect and that our Savior, intimately acquainted with grief and suffering, is constantly pleading our case before heaven’s throne. What could be more comforting than that? ~Joni Eareckson Tada

My child, the troubles and temptations of your life are beginning and maybe many, but you can overcome and outlive them all if you learn to feel the strength and tenderness of your Heavenly Father. ~Lisa May Alcott, Little Women

If I am going to see myself clearly, I need you to hold the mirror of God’s Word in front of me. ~Paul David Tripp, Instruments in the Redeemer’s Hand

This is indeed the deepest comfort – – to be accepted by God, totally forgiven, and then by grace to forgive the deepest wounds and hurts. ~Rosa Marie Miller, From Fear To Freedom

The work of restoration cannot begin until our problem is fully faced. ~Dan Allender

We are not the author of our story. We are the characters.

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and trouble is to school and intelligence and make it a soul? ~John Keats

When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for this world? For us? The clouds open when we mouth thanks. ~Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

If the honesty with which I tell my story where the limitation of His strength, well, I would be screwed. But imagine if He were intimately involved in my story, which He is. Imagine if He showed Himself in my hard, which He did, and what if the hard of my story is the beautiful redemption of my today? Could suffering then take on a different hue? Could the coloring of the hard not be so dark, so hateful and gloomy? The well-meaning emails that admonish the way I speak about my story caused me to wonder at the depth of grace that can be understood without the presence of God in the midst of our suffering. If our hard is the absence of a good God, and how can anyone walk in faith?

Time is a relentless river. It rages on, a respecter of no one. And this, this is the only way to slow time: When I fully enter time’s swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here. ~Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts Devotional

Your story is a good story. In the grief, pain, and hope, the Author has a plan. It may feel like a desperate breaking of your very hard, but suffering is not the absence of God or good. In our culture the call often seems to be winning, being the best, most beautiful, most successful, but what if that isn’t the good story? How has suffering made your story richer? How has it shaped your story?

Il faut souffrir pour etre belle. You must suffer in order to be beautiful.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I said Gandalf, “and so do all who lived to see such times. But this is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” ~J. R. R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

Jason recently said in a sermon, “We want suffering to be like pregnancy – – we have a season, and it’s over, and there is a tidy moral to the story.” I've come to sense that isn't what faith is at all. What if there is never an end? What if the story never improves and the test continue to break our hearts? Is God still good? How does our story of love change when we look head-on at my absence from this life? How do you live realistically when you feel like your moments are fading, fleeting, too momentary? How do you fight for normal in the midst of the crushing daily news of more hard? How do you see cope without forgetting reality? How do we wrap our children and our love story and continue to live intentionally getting salty tears in the baked ziti? How do we share the story being written for us with our children while we try to protect their childhood? Bald can lead to such beauty. But it is never, ever pretty.

Marriage is an illustration, a living illustration of our marriage to Jesus. Marriage is a reminder, a shadow, a picture of what is to come. When a marriage is based on Jesus, based on love, on grace, on the goodness of God in relationship, all who come in contact with that marriage will go away blessed, richer, nourished. Marriage is to be the place of freedom to deeply know God’s goodness, mercy, forgiveness, and grace. It is to point us to the ultimate Goodness, Mercy, Forgiveness, and Grace that is to come. Is the ultimate “now and not yet” in living.

Yet, while we are comforted by knowing this, let us not rest contented with a weak faith, but ask, like the Apostles, to have it increased. However feeble our face may be, If it be real faith in Christ, we shall reach heaven at last, but shall not honor our Master much on our pilgrimage, neither shall we abound in joy and peace. If, then, you would live to Christ’s glory, and be happy in His service, seek to be filled with the Spirit of adoption more and more completely, tell perfect love cast out fear. ~Charles Spurgeon, Morning by Morning

But because I believe God’s plans for me are better than what I could plan for myself, rather than run away from the path he has set before me, I want to run toward it. I don’t want to try to change God’s mind – – his thoughts are perfect. I want to think his thoughts. I don’t want to change God’s timing – – his timing is perfect. I want the grace to except his timing I don’t want to change God’s plan – – his plan is perfect. I want to embrace his plan and see how he is glorified through it. I want to submit. ~Nancy Guthrie, Holding onto Hope

Give me the courage to stand the pain to get the grace. ~Flannery O’Connor, A Prayer Journal

There is no occasion when meals should become totally unimportant. Meals can be very small indeed, very inexpensive, short time staking in the midst of a big push of work, but they should be always more than just food. ~Edith Schaeffer, Hidden Art

Then the Shepherd smiled more comfortably than ever before, laid both hands on her head and said, “Be strong, yea, be strong and fear not.” Then He continued, “Much- Afraid, don’t ever allow yourself to begin trying to picture what it will be like. Believe Me, when you get to the places which you dread you will find that they are as different as possible from what you have imagined, just as was the case when you were actually ascending the precipice. I must warn you that I see your enemies lurking among the trees ahead, and if you ever let Craven Fear begin painting a picture on the scene of your imagination, you will walk with fear and trembling and agony, where no fear is.” ~Hannah Hurnard, Hinds’ Feet on High Places

Trusting God when the miracle does not come, when the urgent prayer gets no answer, when there is only darkness – – this is the kind of faith God values perhaps most of all. This is the kind of faith that can be developed and displayed in the midst of difficult circumstances. This is the kind of faith that cannot be shaken because it is a result of having been shaken. ~Nancy Guthrie, Holding onto Hope

For the Christian, death is not the end of adventure but a doorway from a world where dreams and adventures shrink to a world where dreams and adventures forever expand. ~Wayne Triplett, Heaven Is Waiting

Interestingly enough, the most – asked question in the Bible – – from Genesis to Revelation – – is “How long, O Lord, how long?” And the most repeated command from God is “Do not fear” or “Do not be afraid.” The people of God consistently cry out for relief, and the God of love bids us trust him. ~Scotty Smith, Objects of His Affection

In Heaven everyone and everything is lovable, but as the Lord Jesus said, “if you love them which love you, what reward have ye?” (Matthew 5:46). In Heaven everyone loves everyone else, and in hell no one loves anyone. But on earth we are in a perfect environment for learning how to love as God loves: to abandon ourselves to loving apparently unlovely people who reminded us that in many ways we are still very unlovely ourselves. ~Hannah Hernard, Hinds Feet on High Places

The sweetest thing in all my life has been loving – – to reach the Mountain, to find the place were all the beauty came from… my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back. ~C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

God’s purposes in present grief may not be fully known in a week, in a year, or even in this lifetime. Indeed, some of God’s purposes will not even be known when believers die and go to be with the Lord. Some will only be discovered at the day of final judgment when the Lord reveals the secrets of all hearts and commends with special honor those who trusted him in hardship even though they could not see the reason for it: they trusted him simply because he was their God and they knew him to be worthy of trust. It is in times when the reason for hardship cannot be seen that trust in God alone seems to be most pure and precious in His sight. Such faith He will not forget, but will store up as a jewel of great value and beauty to be displayed and delighted in on the day of judgment. ~Wayne Grudem, The First Epistle of Peter

Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them – – we can love completely without complete understanding. ~Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Over Stories

I recommend to anyone who is suffering through hardships or knows someone that is.

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Here is link to her blog, she wrote it as she was going through the struggle and now that she is in Heaven her family members continue a beautiful tribute to her by writing in her blog!

Here is the tribute to Kara's life!

The Living God

The Living God by Richard W. Dehaan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Richard W. DeHann and his family have been a blessing to Christians for many, many years. His father, M.R. DeHaan started the ministry, Radio Bible Class, his son, the author of this book took over in 1965. Both were excellent Bible teachers. The started a little booklet called "Our Daily Bread", that helps Christians begin having a daily time with the Lord.

This book is a teaching book on the Word of God. You will see by reading the quotes below. I side note is this book was written in 1967 and the cost of the book printed on the inside of the jacket cover of this hard back book that is 192 pages is $2.50. I trust you will learn much from the quotes below:

The Bible does not merely contain God’s Word to us. It is God’s word, and if you will not listen to God as he speaks through the Bible you will never really know him.

Our Christian faith is not built upon fables or myths, nor is our knowledge of God gained through the philosophical speculation of finite men. Speaking of the Old Testament Scriptures, the Apostle Peter positively asserts:

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:21)

The very universe testifies to the Trinity in its arrangement. It is made up of space, matter in time. Space is composed of length, breadth and height. Matter is energy, motion and phenomena. Time consist of past, present, and future. There are those who strongly insist that all of this is a reflection of the triune God who created and sustains all things. Although this may be true and does give corroborative testimony to what the Bible teaches, always remember that we basically believe in the triune God because that’s the way the Bible presents Him.

In these declarations [Mark 1:11 and Matt. 17:5] the unique Father and Son relationship is acknowledged, and is positive evidence for our Lord’s deity. There is an absurd idea in some circles that Jesus is the Son of God in a unique sense, but that he is still not eternal God. If those who make assertions like this would only acquaint themselves with the Jewish usage of the term “Son of God” they would save themselves from their hopeless confusion. In Acts 4:36 Barnabas is called the “son of consolation.” This does not mean that his father’s name was “consolation,” but that he (Barnabas) was a consoler. James and John were called “sons of thunder” by Jesus. (Mark 3:17). This does not mean their father’s name was “thunder.” His name was Zebedee. These men were called “sons of thunder” because they were men who acted in a thunderous manner. When Lucifer is called the “son of the morning” in Isaiah 14:12 it is not a description of his origin, but of his nature and glory as he was created by God. When God declared that Jesus Christ was His beloved Son, and when Jesus spoke of Himself as the Son of God, they were identifying themselves with one another, equal in every respect and identical in nature. The people of Jesus’ day well knew what He meant. They knew that our Lord was claiming absolute deity when He spoke of God as His Father. For that reason we are told in John 5:18,

… the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:5-8).

Notice, first of all, verse 6 which tells us that Christ Jesus “being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” The keywords in this verse are “being” and “form.” The Greek word translated “being” is one which indicates continuing existence from an indefinite past. A good rendering of the opening portion of verse 6 would be that Christ Jesus “having existed and continuing to exist in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” The Greek word translated "form” refers to the inner essence of a person, and has nothing to do with physical shape. These two words, “being” and “form,” tell us that Jesus Christ has existed and continues to exist in the image of God in being and essence. Even in becoming a baby, Jesus Christ retained this form, this essential deity. The baby in swaddling clothes lying in a manger was God. He had not surrendered the “form of God.” He retained His divine nature.

Continuing on in verse 6 we are told that Christ “thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” This translation is somewhat of a departure from the literal, but does express the thought quite well. The word rendered “robbery” means “a prize to be grasped or retained.” A good translation of these words would be that He “did not reckon His being equal with God a prize to be eagerly retained.” Jesus Christ, existing in the essential being of God, did not count His equality with God so precious that He would hold onto it at all costs. A few translators have expressed the idea here as suggesting that Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be reached for. This is a completely impossible translation in view of the previous declaration that Jesus Christ had been and was continuing to exist in the exact image of God in Being and Essence. His love for fallen man induced Him to let go the outward expression of his equality. Remember, however, that He retained the inner essence of God, and that His absolute deity is here declared because only God can be equal with God.

Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ is man. He died, but He rose from the grave bodily, ascended into Heaven in a real body, and today is seated at God’s right hand in this glorified human body.

I recommend this book for anyone that would like to learn from God's Word!

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