Divinie

"Divine" by Karen Kingsbury

If you have been a follower of this blog you know that a favorite of mine is Karen Kingsbury.  Once again, she doesn't dissapoint.  This book is about a modern day Mary Magdalene.  A woman who was saved from demons by Jesus and became a part of His ministry.  A woman who witnessed the cross and was the first to see the risen Jesus.  This is a story of Mary who is lost to her sin and abuse.  A woman who needs rescuing, as we all do.  A woman who is rescued and in turn, with Christ's power, rescues others just like her.  "Women who practice abstinence are healthy women in every sense of the word.  The same is true for young men.  When they make a choice to wait, they tell the world they are worthwhile, valuable, special.  Every other action they take toward their future will fall in line with those feelings."  When we feel worth something or valuable we are less likely to cave to outside pressure, we are more likely to stand up for what we believe.  "I almost believed the lie that killing myself was the only way to find freedom.  But it isn't.  You do that, and the nightmare will continue as long as your daughers live.  Every day of their lives they'll wonder why their mama didn't love them enough to live."  I understand the desperation behind suicide, it's a hopelessness and a pain so deep you just want it to stop.  But the pain is passed on to those who are left behind.  And God offers the hope, the rescue you are looking for.  He has a plan for each one of us, even in the midst of the pain.  "Because people can't be judged by their clothes or their hair or their skin.  But only by the way they love Jesus."  Thats all that really matters, how we love Jesus.  "The horrors that come with abuse are not always expainable.  It's bondage."  Bondage that only Christ can set a person free from.  "Abuse is never fair.  It leaves its mark on everyone involved."  An indelible mark that once again only Jesus can erase.  He wants to make us new creations, not just give healing, but new creations.  "When people give their lives to Christ, He gives them His Spirit.  It breathes from the center of the soul, giving life to the heart and shining bright through the eyes of believers."  "That serving Him is all the life, all the love I could ever want, all by itself."  Now that is something to strive for.  "Telling her story was draining.  It took her back to unspeakable darkness and horror, back to the doubts and uncertainties and loneliness that had driven her into a life that should've killed her.  But she would tell it over and over again until she died, for the privilege of having a woman like Emma ask her about Jesus."  That is what makes all the pain, hurt and sorrow worth it, being able to use your story for redemption.  That is exactly how Christ turns beauty for ashes, how none of the trials or horrors that we go through are in vain.  "Jesus died to take all the pain from yesterday, to offer people a new life, a new start today.  A start that would build one tomorrow on top of another until change in that life became obvious to everyone.  It was true.  The power of Christ wasn't a one-time fix.  It would keep working in her life today and tomorrow and every day that she woke up believing the truth."  God doesn't stop working in us, as long as we hold on to His truths He continues to make us new.  This is a great story of love and redemption.  It is a story about abuse that is sometimes hard to read but most of all it is a story of God's great love for each of us.

The Soul Catcher

"The Soul Catcher" by Michael White

I got this book in a pile with some others.  I'm intrigued by slavery days and all that the blacks endured.  I'm saddened by the fact that this is part of our American history.  I've read numerous slavery books but this one was more from the standpoint of the whites.  It is about a runaway slave and the slave catcher who is hired to go after her.  Cain, the slave catcher is quite good at what he does but his life has only been a life of running away himself, a life of pain.  Through his journey to find Rosetta, the runaway slave, he discovers things about himself that he has kept hidden.  "Like it or not, slavery binds us all.  Master and slave alike."  It truly does.  Unfortunately we are all slaves to something.  But that is what Jesus came to earth for, to free us from our bondage.  "If God decided to put life in me who was I to say no to it?"   Controversial I know, but I dare go there.  We aren't the ones who decide if life is given or taken away.  Often times we think we have such control but really we don't.  God is the One who gives life and takes it away.  "Lot's of folks, especially white folks, find it easier to deny their goodness than go through the trouble of doing what they know's right."  It's not always easy to do what is right, especially when we are just doing what others have done before us.  But God is asking all of us to take a stand, even when it goes against others.  This book comes with a warning as it does have cursing and graphic details of harsh treatment done to the slaves.  But I have never read a book about slavery that didn't make me wince from the brutality of it.  God did create us all equal, none better than another.  We would all be better off to remember this.  This is a good book, where in the end the reality of what our fathers have done before us is not always the right way.  

The Glass Castle

"The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls

This book will astound and amaze you.  It is a memoir about the authors childhood.  She had a drunk father and a mother who didn't want the responsibility of raising children.  They were always moving from place to place, as her father could never hold down a job.  He was not an abusive or mean drunk but he could never provide consistently for his family.  The children learned to fend for themselves, often went hungry and helped each other.  The circumstances that were endured were crazy but this family still stuck together.  The oldest sister ended up in New York and soon the other three followed.  The children were able to build their lives.  Their parents eventually followed them there and even though their children tried to help they preferred to be homeless.  This is a very eccentric family and very resourceful.  The children were determined to get out of the situation they grew up in and make better lives for themselves.  They didn't let where they came from stop them from their future.  This truly is an astounding book.  A very good read.  

The Kitchen House

"The Kitchen House" by Kathleen Grissom

This was a great book.  A really intense book but so, so good.  Once again I couldn't put it down.  It is about an orphaned Irish girl who becomes a slave.  She finds her "family" in the black slaves who also serve the household.  She is young and does not see the color of her skin as different from the other slaves but they know one day she will be the one in the big house.  The story is told from two viewpoints, Lavinia the Irish girl and Belle, a black slave.  The book really brings you into the story and leaves you sad at all the wrong done to slaves, appalled at the secrets in families and proud of those that stood with kindness no matter skin color.  "What the color is, who the daddy be, who the mama is don't mean nothin'.  We a family, carin' for each other.  Family make us strong in times of trouble.  We all stick together, help each other out.  That the real meanin' of family."  We are all family, all attached to one another in some way.  We all can help each other, doesn't matter where we came from, where we are going or what we look like, we are called to help others.  This book shows that clearly.  It was a heartbreakingly good book.  I'm always astounded that slavery is a part of America's history, it grieves me.  And I know forms of it still exist today.  God weeps for those that others call outcasts and He loves them just as much.  May we right the wrongs that have been done.

A Flickering Light and An Absence So Great

"A Flickering Light" and "An Absence So Great" by Jane Kirkpatrick

Honestly, these weren't the best books or even great books.  After I read the first I wasn't sure I was going to read the second but I did.  The first book is about a girl named Jessie who loves photography.  She gets a job in a studio, 1907, and proves that a woman can make her way in the mans profession.  But she has a hard time controlling her passionate emotions when it comes to her married boss.  I think that I just didn't like the premise of this story.  But there is struggle with right and wrong and letting God lead.  "Faith, hope and love are the three eternities.  To look up and not down, that is Faith; to look forward and not back, that is Hope; and then to look out and not in, that is Love."  None of these are easy but I like the simplicity of the statement.  Looking up to God and not our circumstances, is having faith.  Being able to put the past behind and press on is having hope.  And serving others and looking to others interest is love in its purest form.  "Kindness and compassion, sturdiness in a storm.  These are the qualities that truly marked a man."  I love the "sturdiness in a storm".  That is what husbands should be to their wives, the one place you can count on for peace when the rest of the world is swirling around you.

The second book Jessie has gained confidence in her photography skills and moves from home to help other photographers in their studios.  She hope to put her romantic feelings behind her and pursue her dream.  But it seems no matter how far she travels she can not forget her forbidden love.  I did not like the way that this book ended.  I'm not even sure I would recommend these books.  The one thing I did like was the way Jessie pursued her dream even when she was told it was not a woman's place.  She never let anyone deter her from her passion no matter how hard the road.  "Suzanne was bound by the desire all have when faced with grave emptiness: the yearning to keep the old routines, hoping they might wash away despair.  And yet they couldn't because something-everything-had changed."  When someone we love is taken from our lives we want to keep the same routine to nothing will change but like this says, everything has changed and so we must change with it.  "Memories aren't supposed to hold us hostage.  They're meant to transform us, make us different, but in a good way.  When someone is missing from our lives, I think the memories of them ought to bring us comfort, a hopefulness that even though they're gone, we have them here.  We will know them in ways no one else ever will, so they stay a part of our lives."  Memories are supposed to be a good thing, even of one who is not longer with us.  They should bring joy of the time that we had with them.  "I only meant that it is part of human nature to grieve, and that, at some point, as God sustains us and we hear His words, we are able to move forward.  Never forgetting the loss-no, not ever that-but not allowing that absence in our lives to be so great that we no longer see the sunlight for its warmth, or fail to notice snowflakes or forget to listen to the laughter of our children who still walk this earth, who can still put their arms around our necks, seeking comfort."  I think sometimes when we lose someone we love we forget to go on living.  God says that their is a time to grieve and a time for joy.  Yes, there is a grieving period but then there is a time to move on and get on with living, never forgetting but remembering all that one still has to live for.  "How could a man reclaim his future when the past held such sway?"  If we don't let go of the past we can never look to the future.  Our past holds us back from who God wants us to be.

The Forgotten Garden

"The Forgotten Garden" by Kate Morton

Oh my goodness people, this book was sooo good.  It was a happened upon book, a book that was in a box of books my friend let me pilfer through.  It was a dauntingly large book, 551 pages.  But let me tell you, it just might be one of my favorites.  I'm not a mystery reading girl, not into crime and who done it kinda books.  But this book involved mystery, plenty of it, left me guessing and guessing.  I love a book that I can't predict and this was one I couldn't grasp the answers to until the last few chapters.  I literally had to keep reading because I needed to know the answers, needed I tell ya.  The book is about a little girl who is found on a dock in Australia, alone.  The dockmaster takes her home and calls her his own.  When she turns 21 the truth is revealed and her search for her family begins.  She dies before all her answers are found but her granddaughter tries to finish the puzzle of the past.  The past has more questions than answers but it will finally be revealed and the granddaughters life set right again.  This is a must read.  It involves love, and pain and loss and hope.  It is a book about what we do to find where we come from and how far we will go for love.  It is a great book.  Read it.

Half Broke Horses

"Half Broke Horses" by Jeannette Walls

This was a great book.  At first I wasn't too sure, thought it might be a little boring and man the writing was small, but once I started I just kept on reading.  It is a true-life novel written about the authors grandmother.  Her grandmother, Lily was tough and loving and kind and hardworking.  She was a go getter and refused to let being a woman stand in her way.  It is a great story of triumph and courage.  "It seemed to me that when you were in the middle of something, it was awful hard to figure out what part of it was God's will and what wasn't."  "Most important thing in life, is learning how to fall."  You learn how to fall you can learn to get up and try again.  "When God closes a window, He opens a door.  But it's up to you to find it."  Theres a way, He always makes a way, sometimes it just takes a little work.  "Every kid was good at something, and the trick was to find out what it was, then use it to teach him everything else."  Just need to find what a person is good at and build on that.  We all have our gifts.  "When someone's wounded, the first order of business is to stop the bleeding.  You can figure out later how best to help them heal."  First you have to meet the immediate need then you can tell them about Jesus.  If they are hungry or cold how can they really hear you?  Show them Jesus first, then tell them.  "When people kill themselves, they think they're ending the pain, but all they're doing is passing it on to those they leave behind."  "I realized that you can get so used to certain luxuries that you start to think they're necessities, but when you have to forgo them, you come to see that you don't need them after all.  There was a big difference between needing things and wanting things-though a lot of people had trouble telling the two apart."  I think we get our needs and wants mixed up a lot.  We forget how much we really do have and what really does matter.  "The problem with being attached to an anchor is it's damned hard to fly."  "She might not have turned out like you planned, but that don't mean she turned out wrong."  That's a good one for us parents to remember.  Just because our kids didn't say, do or think they way we wanted doesn't mean they said, did or thought wrong.  I bet we didn't turn our quite the way our parents thought we would either.