Best-selling LDS fiction author Kerry Blair tries her hand at nonfiction in “Counting Blessings,” a newly released collection of thoughts and musings from Kerry’s creative brain. I had the opportunity to pick up a few copies at my local bookstore before they were even on the shelf – they had to go get them out of the box for me, they were so new.
We start the collection with “It’s About Time,” as Kerry thinks about her upcoming birthday and the significance we tend to put on time. “My Mother’s Days Are All Wet” tells us of the experiences she’s had being baptized, multiple times, on that holiday. In “Can We Talk?” she tells us her reaction to the latest documentary series about the LDS Church shown on PBS.
While many of these chapters are purely entertainment, some touch on sorrow. “A Bequest of Wings” tells of Kerry’s diagnosis with multiple sclerosis and the struggles she went through in learning how to accept the changes in her health, but she also shares how she managed to focus on the eternal perspective and to allow her trial to strengthen her, rather than tear her apart.
“I’ll Forgive, President Faust, But I’ll Never Forget” tells of Kerry’s sorrow over the passing of this beloved member of the First Presidency, and she takes us back to the moment when she, as a new convert, first learned that we have latter-day prophets and apostles that speak to us from the pulpit every six months. She waited all night at the Tabernacle for a good seat at Conference, thanks to the forbearance of a kindly night watchman, and sat in awe at the thought that we never have to go without light and knowledge from our Heavenly Father. This made me wonder how much I take that blessing for granted.
We sit at Kerry’s knee as she shares experiences with motherhood, with her callings in church, and with her feelings of self-doubt as an author. She is candidly honest, upliftingly humorous, and she’s just . . . Kerry Blair. And if you’re familiar with Kerry Blair, that says it all.
(This book was published in 2008 by Covenant Communications.)
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