C.H. Spurgeon's Evening Devotional
Wednesday July 2, 2025

"Unto Thee will I cry, O Lord my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if Thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit."-Psalm 28:1
    
    A cry is the natural expression of sorrow, and a suitable utterance when all other modes of appeal fail us; but the cry must be alone directed to the Lord, for to cry to man is to waste our entreaties upon the air. When we consider the readiness of the Lord to hear, and His ability to aid, we shall see good reason for directing all our appeals at once to the God of our salvation. It will be in vain to call to the rocks in the day of judgment, but our Rock attends to our cries.
    
    "Be not silent to me." Mere formalists may be content without answers to their prayers, but genuine suppliants cannot; they are not satisfied with the results of prayer itself in calming the mind and subduing the will-they must go further, and obtain actual replies from heaven, or they cannot rest; and those replies they long to receive at once, they dread even a little of God's silence. God's voice is often so terrible that it shakes the wilderness; but His silence is equally full of awe to an eager suppliant. When God seems to close His ear, we must not therefore close our mouths, but rather cry with more earnestness; for when our note grows shrill with eagerness and grief, He will not long deny us a hearing. What a dreadful case should we be in if the Lord should become for ever silent to our prayers? "Lest, if Thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit." Deprived of the God who answers prayer, we should be in a more pitiable plight than the dead in the grave, and should soon sink to the same level as the lost in hell. We must have answers to prayer: ours is an urgent case of dire necessity; surely the Lord will speak peace to our agitated minds, for He never can find it in His heart to permit His own elect to perish.
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Monday, January 11, 2016

Whispers in the Reading Room by Shelley Gray


Librarian Lydia Bancroft and club-owner Sebastian Marks are the unlikeliest of friends, but their love of books connects the two in Shelley Gray’s Whispers in the Reading Room, book three in The Chicago World’s Fair Mystery series. Lydia and Sebastian form a fragile friendship, but when she discovers that Mr. Marks isn’t merely a very wealthy gentleman, but also the proprietor of an infamous saloon and gambling club, she is shocked. One fateful night, suddenly Lydia is a suspect to a murder. She must determine who she can trust and if Sebastian Marks is actually everything her heart believes him to be.

{More about Whispers in the Reading Room}

Whispers in the Reading Room (Zondervan, November 2015)
Lydia’s job at the library is her world—until a mysterious patron catches her eye . . . and perhaps her heart.

Just months after the closure of the Chicago World’s Fair, librarian Lydia Bancroft finds herself fascinated by a mysterious dark-haired and dark-eyed patron. He has never given her his name; he actually never speaks to a single person. All she knows about him is that he loves books as much as she does.

Only when he rescues her in the lobby of the Hartman Hotel does she discover that his name is Sebastian Marks. She also discovers that he lives at the top of the prestigious hotel and that most everyone in Chicago is intrigued by him.

Lydia and Sebastian form a fragile friendship, but when she discovers that Mr. Marks isn’t merely a very wealthy gentleman, but also the proprietor of an infamous saloon and gambling club, she is shocked.

Lydia insists on visiting the club one fateful night and suddenly is a suspect to a murder. She must determine who she can trust, who is innocent, and if Sebastian Marks—the man so many people fear—is actually everything her heart believes him to be.

Learn more and purchase a copy.

If you have a love for reading then Shelley Shepard Gray's book Whispers in the Reading Room is just the book for you.  A fun winter, curl-up-by-the-fire book read.  You won't want to stop turning the pages Gray has you trapped from the start to the finish.  It is definitely a hard book to put down.  I have read Gray's Amish writings but this is the first one of her books nonAmish that I've read and love it as I love her Amish books.  It's the third book in the World's Fair series, but I didn't feel as if I'd missed anything by not reading 1 & 2 first.  Now, I'm going to have to back peddle and read the first two books. 


{More About Shelley Shepard Gray}

Shelley Shepard Gray is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, a finalist for the American Christian Fiction Writers prestigious Carol Award, and a two-time HOLT Medallion winner. She lives in southern Ohio, where she writes full-time, bakes too much, and can often be found walking her dachshunds on her town’s bike trail.
Find out more about Shelley at http://www.shelleyshepardgray.com.




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