MSI Press Blog

  What is a book jewel? A sometimes-overlooked book with remarkable insight and potential significance. Starting in August, we will share near-daily, as possible, reviews of the monthly book jewel - short, succinct reviews that can be read in 1-2 minutes with links to the reviewer by reviewers whose words are worthy of being heard and whose opinions are worthy of being considered. Sometimes a couple of minutes contains more impressive thought than ten times that many. We will let you decide that. This month's book jewel is  Blest Atheist  by Elizabeth Mahlou. Amazon review by Debra Gaynor - Elizabeth Mahlou grew up in an abusive home. She tells of her mother stabbing her brother with a knife in the buttocks, and her father throwing a pitchfork and stabbing him with it. Taking an airplane ride had a whole new meaning in this family. The abuse was physical, emotional, and sexual. "The wounds were in the heart and mind and covered parts of the body." Like most bullies, their

  What is a book jewel? A sometimes-overlooked book with remarkable insight and potential significance. Starting in August, we will share near-daily, as possible, reviews of the monthly book jewel - short, succinct reviews that can be read in 1-2 minutes with links to the reviewer by reviewers whose words are worthy of being heard and whose opinions are worthy of being considered. Sometimes a couple of minutes contains more impressive thought than ten times that many. We will let you decide that. This month's book jewel is Blest Atheist by Elizabeth Mahlou. Amazon review by Brendan Howard - Elizabeth Mahlou's autobiography and tale of coming to believe in God has a lot going for it. Her candid descriptions of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse at the hands of relatives gripped this reader in a flood of sympathy and horror. Mahlou's great reserve of optimism and compassion as child and adult seems initially boastful. But in light of her life of childhood trauma, physical

  Dr. Elizabeth Mahlou is our most reclusive author. she  wishes to remain anonymous because she speaks candidly about her childhood abuse while avoiding naming names in order to shield the innocent from more emotional harm. However, using her pseudonym, she is willing to communicate with readers who enjoy her books,  A Believer-in-Waiting’s First Encounters with God  and  Blest Atheist . She is now hard at work on a follow-up book,  Raising God’s Rainbow Makers .  Dr. Mahlou maintained two blogs for several years. 100th Lamb  and Clan of Mahlou are still available, cached, on line. Dr. Mahlou knows our author, Sula, Parish Cat at Old Mission , and she wrote a story about her,   “Cat with a Divine Mission,”  that  appeared in   Guideposts Magazine   in December 2015.  Dr. Mahlou has often used a tiger, a kindred spirit, as an avatar . You can read more posts about Dr. Mahlou and her books and blogs HERE .

  Today's shared blog post comes from Dr. Elizabeth Mahlou, author of  Blest Atheist  and  A Believer-in-Waiting's First Encounters with God . The post is called: Nikolina, A Few Years Later and was posted on Mahlou's blog, Clan of Mahlou. For more posts about Dr. Mahlou and her books, click  HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com. Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can!  Find their contact information on our  Authors' Pag

  Today's shared blog post comes from Dr. Elizabeth Mahlou, author of Blest Atheist and A Believer-in-Waiting's First Encounters with God . The post is called: Along Came Doah and was posted on Mahlou's blog, Clan of Mahlou. For more posts about Dr. Mahlou and her books, click HERE . Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Instagram .   Interested in publishing with MSI Press LLC? Check out information on  how to submit a proposal . Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book  in exchange for  reviewing  a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com. Want an  author-signed copy  of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com. Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can!  Find their contact information on our  Authors' Pag

  from the blog of the 100th Lamb The Crushed Cup As I put away my things recently on a Royal Moroccan flight from Paris to Rabat, I noticed with annoyance that the previous passenger had left a crushed drink cup in the pocket of the seat in front of me. I removed it, only to find to my dismay that it a nearly invisible amount of liquid still in it that dripped on the tray in front of me. With nothing with which to wipe up the liquid, I ripped a piece of paper from my notebook and used that, a trick I learned from my days of living in the Soviet Union, where toilet was in short supply. Notebook paper is not the remedy of first choice, but it does work—in both cases. Then, I looked around and saw that all the stewards and stewardesses had already seated themselves for take-off. With a sigh, I put the crushed cup back in the seat pocket where I had found it. Now, it would continue to be an annoyance for at least the first portion of the flight until plane service began and would reac

What follows is a guest post from Dr. Elizabeth Mahlou, from her blog, Clan of Mahlou. I cannot resist. I am going to post something that came to me in email. I think all parents (and grandparents) can relate. Here it is: GOD CREATED CHILDREN (AND IN THE PROCESS GRANDCHILDREN) To those of us who have children in our lives, whether they are our own, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or students... here is something to make you chuckle. Whenever your children are out of control, you can take comfort from the thought that even God's omnipotence did not extend to His own children. After creating heaven and earth, God created Adam and Eve. And the first thing he said was "DON'T!" "Don't what?" Adam replied. "Don't eat the forbidden fruit," God said. "Forbidden fruit? We have forbidden fruit? Hey, Eve! We have forbidden fruit!" "No way!" "Yes, way!" "Do NOT eat the fruit," said God. "Why?" "Bec

    What is a book jewel? A sometimes-overlooked book with remarkable insight and potential significance. Starting in August, we will share near-daily, as possible, reviews of the monthly book jewel - short, succinct reviews that can be read in 1-2 minutes with links to the reviewer by reviewers whose words are worthy of being heard and whose opinions are worthy of being considered. Sometimes a couple of minutes contains more impressive thought than ten times that many. We will let you decide that. This month's book jewel is  Blest Atheist  by Elizabeth Mahlou. Amazon review by Kindle Dayzy - "I am frequently impressed by the quality of writing in a book from an unknown author (or an author without a large publishing company behind them)." For more posts about Mahlou and her book, click  HERE . GET THE PAPERBACK ON DISCOUNT AT  MSI PRESS WEBSTORE USE COUPON CODE FF25 FOR 25% OFF Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter Follow MSI Press on  Twitter ,  Face Book , and  Inst

  From an older blog post at Clan of Mahlou by Elizabeth Mahlou --  Donnie has a theory that once you start seeing a doctor for one problem, it is all downhill from there. One problem becomes two, two become three... I am not sure that I agree with this theory of progression, but I am not surprised that medicines -- chemicals we were not born with -- can have some unhappy side effects. Recently, I was diagnosed with Barrett's Esophagus, a pre-cancer of the esophagus. Nexium, which controls GERD (apparently, half of my friends suffer from this; my own situation is that the GERD is a result of my 37-year-old hiatal hernia) and usually does a pretty good, at least for me, has some side effects, about which my doctor did not warn me, so I found out in an unpleasant way. A few months ago, I had to have a root canal redone. The endodontist is unsure whether some of the root that had been resorbed would grow back up. Time will tell. Then, during a routine cleaning and x-ray, the dentist d

  From the blog of Elizabeth Mahlou, 100th Lamb . M iracles. Why do I seem to get so many of them? Then I wondered if I really did get a disproportionate share of them, or have I just learned to recognize them. My conclusion? I think miracles happen more often than people know (or recognize). On a related topic, there has been some lively discussion on some blogs recently of distractions during prayer. This is, of course, not a recent or uncommon discussion. It's been a problem throughout the centuries, and I, of course, do experience such distractions. I try to follow the advice to ignore them and return to contemplation, but sometimes these distractions take on a life of their own. Similarly, but with a happier result, sometimes while I am in the midst of work, particularly boring but important meetings, I become intensely aware of God's presence in the room. The result is that I become quite distracted from the business of hand, sometimes embarrassingly so. Nonetheless, if y

  Recently released - the audiobook for  Blest Atheist  by Elizabeth Mahlou. As a young child, outraged by the hypocrisy she finds in a church that does nothing to alleviate the physical and sexual abuse she experiences on a regular basis, Beth delivers an accusatory youth sermon and gets her family expelled from the church. Having locked the door on God, Beth goes on to raise a family of seven children, learn 17 languages, and enjoy a career that takes her to NASA, Washington, and 24 countries. All the time, however, God keeps knocking at the door, protecting and blessing her, which she realizes only decades later. Ultimately, Beth finds God in a very simple yet most unusual way. A very human story, Blest Atheist encompasses the greatest literary themes of all time - alienation, redemption, and even the miraculous. The author's life experiences, both tragic and tremendous, result in a spiritual journey containing significant ups and downs that ultimately yield great joy and humili

  With all the serious stuff in everyone's lives these days -- economy, covid, elections --it seemed that Friday the 13th needed a little levity. So herewith is a blog post from The 100th Lamb, a blog maintained by Elizabeth Mahlou (MSI Press author of Blessed Atheist and A Believer-in-Waiting's First Encounters with God ). Although Elizabeth no longer maintains the blog, the posts are still available. May it bring a smile to you this evening. A kindergarten teacher was helping one of her students put his boots on. He had asked for help and she could see why. With her pulling and him pushing, the boots still didn’t want to go on. When the second boot was on, she was nearly out of breath. She almost whimpered when the little boy said, “Teacher, they’re on the wrong feet.” She looked and sure enough, they were. It wasn’t any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on. She managed to keep her cool as they worked together to get the boots back on – this time on the r