About the Book
Book: Sermons from a Soapbox
Author: Ladonna Shanks
Genre: Devotional, based on personal experience; Memoir; Adult Nonfiction; “Life Lesson Essays”
Release Date: April 8, 2025
“What is God like?
Does He even exist, other than as a figment of the imagination?
Or is He real, a part of daily life and our world?
In Sermons from a Soapbox, Ladonna Shanks shares her personal spiritual journey of more than seventy-five years. “I cannot write what I have not experienced,” serves as the base of her easy-to-read, anecdotal essays. The short “sermons” challenge the reader to think, question, search, and consider living where God is . . . in the spiritual, long-term, instead of humankind’s physical, short-term.
Excerpt from the Book
Introduction:
Describing herself as “a bulldog running along at the feet of Jesus, barking at what He doesn’t like,” Carrie Amelia Nation, an American woman born in 1846, felt she was divinely ordained to promote temperance by destroying drinking establishments. Her methods for accomplishing this started with simple protests as she serenaded saloon patrons with hymns while playing a hand organ. Her efforts escalated when she began marching into bars, singing and praying while smashing bar fixtures and stock with a hatchet.
A woman passionate about her beliefs, she was arrested some thirty times between 1900 and 1910 for her “hatchetations,” as she called them. While her anti-alcohol demonstrations did little to stem the tide of its use, abuse, and the resulting effect on society, her cause and name became part of our nation’s history, originating in a time when the spread of information was limited to word of mouth, letters, and newspapers—no small thing since she is still remembered more than a century later.
I can relate to Carrie Nation’s vigorous approach as she attempted to bring about change in the world she lived in. Early in my spiritual life, with conviction and in ardor, I felt it necessary to impose my beliefs upon others.
Missed Any Excerpts, Go Here
Excerpt One: https://www.
Excerpt Two: https://www.
Excerpt Three: https://www.fictionbooklover.
Excerpt Four: https://www.deniselbarela.com/
Excerpt Five: https://lakesidelivingsite.
Excerpt Six: https://nannie3.blogspot.com/
Excerpt Seven: https://musingsbymaureen.
About the Author
Ladonna Shanks was born and raised in Oregon’s lush Willamette Valley. During her several decades of life, she has been an entrepreneur, a small business owner, and, most recently, a writer. Her first book, Tidbits and Pearls, A Book of Essays on Living Everyday Life with God was published in 2019. Ladonna’s family, including five grandgirls, and her commitment to God serve as her priorities.