The Book of the Lamp — Read free with Kindle Unlimited · Kindle eBook: $0.99 · Paperback: $5.75.
Book Reviews & Reader Voices
Reader Voices
★★★★★ The Book of the Lamp — Reader Voices
🍎 Barbara Weaver
★★★★★ · September 22, 2026
“Very creative, well written book challenging us to carry the light forward.”
Nathanael’s third-grade teacher, writing about the book’s creative imagery, love, hope, family memory, and call to carry the light forward.
🌿 Erik L.
★★★★★ · September 24, 2026
“To Read Again. And to Comprehend.”
A caregiving perspective on self-care, purpose, younger-reader accessibility, everyday health, and reconnecting with why people choose to help.
See all reader voices · Read reviews on Amazon ↗
Independent reader opinions, quoted and attributed to their authors. Amazon may group reviews differently across editions.
The First Reader Review
“To Read Again. And to Comprehend.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ · Erik L. · Amazon review of The Book of the Lamp
Writing after more than a decade of caregiving, Erik described a book that made him stop and think without asking every part of the story to be read literally. He contrasted it with self-help that simply tells readers what to do, and said it led him to reflect on the everyday demands healthcare workers face and how easily they can lose sight of why they chose to help. He noted that young readers could enter the story and still take real-life knowledge from it, and that it offers caregivers a human reminder about self-care, purpose, and reconnecting health with everyday life. He closed with this:
“He’s more than a character. More than a brand. He’s an idea, and an idea that just may have the potential to ‘flourish.’”
🍎 From Nathanael’s Third-Grade Teacher
“Very creative, well written book challenging us to carry the light forward.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ · Barbara Weaver · Amazon review of The Book of the Lamp · September 22, 2026
Mrs. Weaver, honored on our sites as a 🌲 Flourishing EVERgreen Guardian of the Pacific Northwest, wrote that having taught Nathanael in third grade made reading his book especially meaningful. The opening moved her to tears, in part because she remembers his kind grandfather. She praised its creative imagery and its weaving of love and hope, and especially valued the challenge to carry the light of the lamp forward. She closed with this:
“I love this book. It is very creative and well written, and I highly recommend it.”
🦅 From Momma Eagle
🦅 Nina Delores Smith
💌 Nathanael’s mom · Personal message to the author about The Book of the Lamp: From Crimea to the Kitchen Monk · September 20, 2026
“CONGRATULATIONS! And thank you! God has given you beautiful gifts and talents and a heart that deep down does care about people.”
— Nina Delores Smith, Momma Eagle 🦅
Shared word for word with Nathanael’s permission. A personal message from family, not an Amazon review or a professional endorsement.
Education, equality, and a life of compassionate care
I give equal prominence here to my gratitude for Pensacola Christian College’s nursing education and for the Human Rights Campaign’s advocacy for equality. Both belong in my story of faith, service, and human dignity.
With gratitude to Pensacola Christian College
Momma Eagle’s words about a heart that cares for people take me back to the people and education that helped shape that heart. Long before Kitchen Monk™ had a name, I was learning how to turn compassion into the daily work of nursing.
Thank you to Pensacola Christian College, and especially to the nursing faculty, clinical instructors, staff, and classmates who helped prepare me for a life of caring for others. My nursing education gave me a foundation to build upon: disciplined study, responsibility, clinical judgment, service, and attention to the person in front of me. I am grateful for the teaching, correction, encouragement, and opportunities to grow.
My journey at Pensacola Christian College included dual enrollment and a Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2012. As a sophomore nursing student, I received the nursing department’s Jude 22 Award. In 2012, I had the privilege of speaking for my graduating nursing class at the Crowne Center. Standing before that gathering was an early opportunity to use my voice in service of nursing—a responsibility I still carry.
The words of Jude 1:22 (King James Version) remain close to my understanding of that calling: “And of some have compassion, making a difference.” The award is part of my story; the work of putting compassion into practice continues every day.
Both of my parents sent me to Pensacola Christian College, where I earned my Bachelor of Science in Nursing in 2012 and prepared to become a registered nurse. My father paid half of my tuition. I am grateful to both of my parents for helping make my nursing education possible.
A foundation that continues to grow
Pensacola Christian College’s current nursing program describes an education combining science, laboratory and clinical learning, faith, and compassionate care. Its learning outcomes include therapeutic relationships, evidence-based care, and leadership. Its current nursing courses include physical assessment, pharmacology, nutrition, mental health, and community health. Those are meaningful connections to the whole-person approach I continue to develop today.
From that undergraduate foundation, my path led to a master’s degree in nursing in 2016, practice as a family nurse practitioner, and board certification in lifestyle medicine in 2019. Today, as Flourishing Nurse Ninja Nathanael Elijah Smith, FNP-C, DipACLM, I bring that continuing education and experience to Kitchen Monk™, Flourishing Nursing, and my writing. Food, daily habits, faith, belonging, and compassionate care are connected parts of the work I want to offer the world.
The Book of the Lamp: From Crimea to the Kitchen Monk, Book I of The EVERgreen Chronicles, carries that thread into storytelling. The nursing student who once stood at the Crowne Center is still learning how to carry the light forward—and how to help others recognize the light and worth in themselves.
To Pensacola Christian College and everyone who helped educate me: thank you for being part of the foundation that brought me here. To my mother and grandfather: thank you for giving that journey the love and protection it needed to grow.
Explore Pensacola Christian College →
Learn about Pensacola Christian College’s nursing education →
With gratitude to the Human Rights Campaign
Thank you to the Human Rights Campaign for advocating for LGBTQ+ equality, safety, and the freedom to live openly. As a gay man and a nurse practitioner, I value the work of people who help make dignity something we can experience in our homes, our communities, and the care we receive.
The Human Rights Campaign advocates for LGBTQ+ civil rights through public engagement and policy work. The Human Rights Campaign Foundation supports education and efforts to improve inclusion in settings such as schools, workplaces, and healthcare. Their mission and work matter to me because belonging should reach into everyday life.
Equal protection under American law
I thank the Human Rights Campaign, alongside generations of civil-rights advocates, for working to make the American promise of equality more fully real. The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits states from denying any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. The Human Rights Campaign helps advocate for protections and policies that advance LGBTQ+ equality; that work continues.
For me, equal dignity means being able to seek care, build a life, love my family, and contribute to my community without being treated as less human because I am gay. I want the same respect, safety, and opportunity for others. In nursing, that commitment begins with listening to each person and providing compassionate care.
Faith, Scripture, and the dignity of every person
My support for human rights is connected to my Christian faith. Genesis 1:26–31 describes humanity made in God’s image, and Psalm 139:14 speaks of being fearfully and wonderfully made. I understand these passages as a call to recognize the worth of every person, including all gay people and the wider LGBTQ+ community.
Galatians 3:28 and James 2:1–9 also inform my understanding of unity in Christ, love of neighbor, and the responsibility to reject favoritism. These are the convictions I bring to my own life and work: compassion, equal dignity, and room to belong.
My mother and grandfather helped me experience that dignity through their love and protection. My nursing education helped me develop the skills to care for others. Advocacy for equality helps carry the promise of belonging into public life. I am grateful for each of these contributions to the person I am becoming.
Explore the Human Rights Campaign →
Find LGBTQ+ resources for health, faith, families, and community →
The love that carried me here
I would never have gotten here without the love of my mother, Nina Delores Smith—Momma Eagle—and my grandfather, Kenneth Smith. They always protected me and believed in me, through every choice and every chapter of my life. Their love embraced me as I am—a gay man, made by God. I believe that same God-given dignity belongs to all gay people.
Thank you, Mom, for helping me keep breathing
Mom, I owe you my life—many, many, many times over. Through severe asthma, your love, vigilance, and care helped keep me breathing. I am still here, still breathing, and still finding my way toward healing because of the people who would not give up on me.
In the language of a grateful son, I call you my favorite—and the world’s best—“lifestyle medicine paediatric pulmonologist.” That is my affectionate tribute to the mother whose care for my breathing and my whole life has meant more than I can ever measure.
Living with severe asthma helped lead me toward this calling: to bring healing into the world, one person and one act of compassion at a time. Before I learned to care for patients, I knew what it meant to need care. Before I could offer hope, you and Grandpa helped me hold on to it.
Thank you, Momma Eagle—Nina Delores Smith—and thank you, Grandpa Kenneth Smith. For protecting me, believing in me, and loving me as I am. The breath I carry into this work, and the love I try to share through it, carry your legacy.
Fearfully and wonderfully made
For we are all fearfully and wonderfully made. Psalm 139:14 gives us those words, and Genesis 1:26–31 places humanity’s creation in God’s image within the sixth day of creation. Together, these passages shape my belief that every person has inherent worth.
As a gay man, I believe that includes me and all gay people. My mother’s and grandfather’s love helped me know that I could be loved as a whole person, through my choices, my growth, and every chapter of my life. That is the dignity I want to bring into nursing, faith, and community: to see people fully, care for them compassionately, and make room for them to belong.
These graduation photographs bring those threads together: a nursing education, an opportunity to speak, family standing beside me, and a mother’s embrace. Years later, Momma Eagle’s message beside her copy of my book brings me back to the same gift—the love of people who believed in me before they could see where the journey would lead.
Educated to care. Loved enough to belong. Committed to dignity for all.
“Testify to Love” — Our Song, Our Promise
Dedicated with love to Grandma Carolyn, Grandpa Kenneth, and Mom, Nina.
Your love lives on in the care I give. — Nathanael
The official song of Kitchen Monk™ and Flourishing Nursing™. Inspired by Jesus, we seek to love faithfully and never give up on anyone. Rooted in faith and compassion, we welcome people of every faith and none.
The love of Grandma Carolyn, Grandpa Kenneth, and Mom, Nina is woven into the stories we share and the care we give.
Every patient. Every person. Every day. We will testify to love.
We keep listening. We protect dignity. We respect your choices. We help you find the next step. When needs extend beyond what we can provide, we keep helping people find appropriate care.
Whose love do you carry forward? Remember someone who shaped your life—and one act of care that could honor them today.
Share Your Voice
Have you read The Book of the Lamp? Reviews on Amazon help other readers find the story. More reader voices will be added here as they are shared, always attributed and linked to the original.
Reviews on this page are real, attributed to their authors, and summarized without changing their meaning. We never invent, combine, or edit reader comments into new quotations.
🌿 Where to next?
★★★★★ Reader voices — Barbara Weaver and Erik L. Two distinct five-star Amazon reader reviews of The Book of the Lamp: Barbara Weaver, September 22, 2026, who celebrates love, hope and carrying the light forward; and Erik L., September 24, 2026, who reflects on caregiving, self-care and purpose. Open Amazon’s review section. These are attributed reader opinions, not endorsements by any organization.
← Back to The EVERgreen Chronicles · Kitchen Monk™ Recognition & Reflections
✝️ Nathanael’s Faith: Jesus, Our Anchor, and Our Hope
A personal faith invitation from Nathanael: Riverside Fellowship in Hammond, Oregon, is my anchor church. Its teaching points to repentance, faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection, confession of Him as Lord, and salvation as God’s gift of grace. Receiving Jesus into our hearts means personally trusting and following Him.
Riverside’s salvation teaching · Its Jesus Class
My mom, Nina Delores Smith—Momma Eagle—is a devout Jesus follower. During my visit home for our special Jesus-loving reunion, I returned to Riverside for two Sundays. I treasure that homecoming and the faith and love woven through our family’s story.
Read the full explanation: accepting Jesus, resurrection, the Rapture, Tribulation, Christ’s reign, and everlasting life → The guide distinguishes Pensacola Christian College’s published position from wider Christian interpretations and Riverside’s own salvation teaching. Read Momma Eagle’s faith and reunion feature →
Our faith reflections are shared as an invitation. People of every faith and none are welcome and deserve compassionate care.
With Momma Eagle—Nina Delores Smith—may we renew our strength in the Lord and “mount up with wings as eagles” (Isaiah 40:31, King James Version): a poetic image of hope, not a promise of literal wings.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” 
