He is Risen!

We just got home from my favorite church service of all time: Easter Vigil. It is at one such service at Sacred Heart in Alamosa that I was confirmed. Maybe that has something to do with why I love it so much.

Everyone crowds into the silent and darkened church up to an hour before the service is set to begin. It is dark because it is at this time that we continue to commemorate the death of Christ. There's just something remarkable about the stillness and then the increasing glow of light as we all pass our candle flames from one to one another. The lights once turned on in celebration of Christ conquering the grave seem to burn brighter after so long of sitting in darkness. The whole evening is a love song to Christ.

This obviously was not my first Easter Vigil service but it was my first time having properly observed the Lenten season. As you all who follow my blog know, I chose to give up literature for Lent. I replaced this pleasure reading with reading that would grow me spiritually. The ten books that I chose, I chose by complete accident. In fact they were all library books and I chose them based on their availability. I did however end up with a good variety and some very wonderfully insightful books.  I have blogged on each one and if you want to go back and re-read my reviews go on ahead. I will though recap these great books. Just as the darkened room gradually grown to be fully illuminated by nothing but the tiny candles, so these books ignited a thirst in me to no longer live in silent acceptance of my faith but rather active and continual worship; love for my neighbor and my enemy. What began as a simple idea has truly changed my life. Thank you to all who went on this journey with me!



1) Jesus: The Greatest Life of All by Charles Swindoll

• This book explained the cultural norms of the time of Christ.

2) Thirsting for God: The Spiritual Lessons of Mother Teresa

• Probably the single best picture of the love we are called to give to everyone as Christians.

3) God's Story, Your Story: When His Becomes Yours by Max Lucado

• A hopeful book about God's will for your life

4) Great Day Every Day by Max Lucado

• Another powerful Max Lucado book this time showing how to navigate through lifes every day challenges and being able to praise the Lord through anything.

5) Love and Respect by Emerson Eggerichs

• A in depth discussion on Ephesians 5 offering couples insight into what their partner desires most Love for the women and Respect for the men.

6) Too Busy Not To Pray: Slowing Down to Be With God by Bill Hybels

• This book brigs to light the amount or rather lack of amount of prayer in ones daily life. It invites the reader to create a sacred space in which you go to pray. This is much like the Garden Jesus chose to retreat to in order to pray Hybels also reminds the reader not to read a wish list to the Lord but instead talk and gain a true relationship with the Lord through prayer.   

7) Hope Unseen: The Story of the U.S. Army's First Blind Active Duty Officer by Scotty Smiley

• This is a beautiful and inspirational book. In it we see several things including the strength behind a God filled marriage, that even those who pray continually can fall and that no matter what happens God will see you through it and use your struggles to bless others.

8) Why?: Making Sense of God's Will

• This book invites the reader to think in a way they may never have before about God's will, free will and the evils of the world.

9) Cast of Characters: Common People in the Hands of God by Max Lucado

• Just like it says this book shows how God used the common people to do great things. The bible is full of unlikely heros and this book helps to show how culturally Gods choices were not extraordinary individuals but rather common ones with extraordinary faith.

10) Called Out Of The Dark: A Spiritual Confession by Anne Rice

• A vivid journey through one authors catholic upbringing, period of deliberate atheism, a writing career reflecting the nudging of God on her heart ad her ultimate return to her Lord.

Review: Called Out of Darkness

Called Out of Darkness by Ann Rice

Wow! (I've said that a lot this Lenten season) What a happy little accident that I stumbled upon this book.

48 hours ago I didn't know very much about Ann Rice. I first learned about her approximately a year ago through her book Pandora which I began to read but never finished. My sister Mara who was never much of a reader found the Vampire/Supernatural and suddenly increased her reading to surpass even my college reading as an English major. I was  surprised to find however that she hadn't read anything by Anne Rice. A few months ago I found about six Anne Rice books and sent them to Mara.

By chance I decided to like Anne Rice's page on facebook, why I have no idea but I did and noticed she is very vocal on her page. I decided with Lent coming to an end I would find another copy of Pandora and give it a second try. While looking through books on my library app I noticed that Anne Rice had a memoir and that it was available as an audiobook. I decided to read the description and realized this was exactly the type of book I needed to conclude my Lenten journey.

Rice begins with an in depth and detailed description of the Catholic church of her childhood. Her poetic and vivid imagery sets a tone of pure adoration for the majority of the book. These images were a spectacular reminder of what I too have fallen in love with about the catholic church.

Throughout the book she details her family life and her struggles and her ultimate turn to atheism. I will admit that I was one of those she discussed who picked up her books about Christ and was skeptical. This is the woman who writes about Vampires! But after reading her memoir I will be looking at her novels very differently. I think this would be beneficial to all who read her novels to start here, or end here either way. It is always great to see what was going through an authors life and mind and see how they integrated it into their works. This author however is more in depth and fascinatingly real than any author I have ever heard of.

Her love and study of history, her struggles with conventions of gender, her struggles with reading and her passion for writing the outcast make her novels even more exciting to me.

The quote that struck me was actually one that is quite simple. It expresses why she ultimately came back to God:

"God was there. God was Everywhere. God was God."

It all leads back to love. She wrote about the changes that occurred in her life once she came back to Christ saying that now her life long job was to learn to love everyone. She claims it to be the hardest thing about following Christ.

I am so glad I chose to read this book and now that Lent is nearly over, I have a huge stack of Anne Rice novels on my to read list.

Review: Why?: Making Sense of God's Will

Why?: Making Sense of God's Will by Adam Hamilton

This is an excellent book! I wasn't sure based in the description if I really wanted to read it seeing as I assumed it would say the same things everyone seems to say: "Everything happens for a reason." Well I read it anyways and that was not its message at all. Instead, Hamilton brings forth a different theory that God has a will for us but also gives us free will to follow the path he is nudging us towards or not.

He begins by stating what many struggle with: faltering faith in times of great loss and sadness. The "if God is a god who would allow ____ then I want nothing to do with him." I personally have never felt like this. I don't know why but no matter how bad things may get I always know God is good and yes I have faced some pretty major loss having lost my dad to cancer just before I headed off too college. I guess I never saw it as God allowing something bad happening to me but instead saw it as part of life.

Next, Hamilton presents the awful reality of brutal rapes and murders and asks can we really say that was part of God's will?
No. He says God would not want that to happen. So why does it then? Hamilton believes that it is due to free will. If God hadn't given free will then we wouldn't love him truly. We would be puppets. So we have free will and some of us choose to use that free will to make bad choices. These bad choices harm others. God will not take away our free will but he will also never leave our side and will welcome us into his kingdom when we die. So no, when terrible things happen God didn't want them to happen but instead he stood by the person to the end. Also he uses terrible things to bring about something greater. Hamilton uses several examples including one in which a young man who was subject to racism was brutally mirrored leaving him completely disfigured. A photo of this man shocked and horrified the nation when it went public in magazines and newspapers. It made people have to see and know the horrors that were occurring and no longer sit passively accepting it.

Before this book I hadn't ever thought God's will, free will and pain and loss in this way but I am glad I picked up this book and can see this now.

Review: Hope Unseen

Hope Unseen by Scotty Smiley

I came across this book while browsing through the spirituality section of one of the three libraries I use to find audiobooks. I read the first few lines of the description and was instantly drawn to read it. For those of you who don't know, I am both an ex army wife and recently a close friend of someone who is visually impaired. Reading further I noticed this to be not only by a visually impaired army officer but a Christian visually impaired army officer. I was certain I had found my next book.

This story is not a dry autobiography as some sadly turn out to be. Smiley has a killer sense of humor which came through in this novel from beginning to end. In it he tells a series of stories, both before and after his injury which left him blind, guiding the reader through his internal and external struggles and triumphs. Through his descriptions I felt I truly knew him and the others he discussed.

This book at times was a bit tough for me. As I've already mentioned I too was an army wife for a while. For this reason I empathized with Smileys wife. He describes the inevitable year long deployment and the stress and pain of separation. I have been close to others in the army wife community and know all too well how deployments work. It was refreshing to see the deployment from Smileys perspective and to see such a positive example of a strong marriage and dedicated and loving husband through a stressful deployment. I saw many examples of marriages crumbling including my own during deployment because one partner or the other did not stay true to the other or did not strive to maintain a strong emotional bond with the other despite the spotty communication. It opened up old wounds for me of being ignored and lied to about the availability or lack of availability of time and ways to communicate. It was good to see this strong soldier and husband and I hope through his book other military couples can build and nurture a strong bond trough deployment.

Also present through this book was the theme of "even the Godly fail." Smiley discusses his strength as a Christian and describes his families and his daily prayer and bible reading. Anyone reading it can see that he is a strong and dedicated Christian man, reading and praying more than most. But he still fails. He doubts his faith in a loving God and has to gain it back as the reality of his permanent blindness sinks in. He also comes to realize that though he has always had a relationship with God he had relied on his own strength to get him through. It is a beautiful story full of honesty and I am so glad Smiley found it in him to share such an intimate story with the world.

Review-Too Busy Not to Pray

Too Busy Not to Pray By Bill Hybels

This is an excellent book! It, as the title suggests, is all about prayer. It is not a fad style book promising to give you the secret code in which to pray a get everything you want. It instead discusses a relationship with God. Believe me while looking through the other library selections I found plenty of fad books. It is about discussion back and forth rather than a wish list.

This book is beautifully written and emphasizes the importance of having a close relationship with God. He mentioned a professor who talk about Jesus as if he had just had lunch with him. We are to not only worship our lord but allow a closeness to him.

He suggests having a special prayer place where you can go and be alone with God. Not the church, not somewhere fancy but somewhere just for you and God. This allows you to retreat and have a real heart to heart meeting and not let your busyness eliminate your prayer life. It made me wonder about my own prayer place. I hadn't ever thought to have one. It became obvious to me however since I always gravitated to having a sitting room of my very own. Hybels describes his prayer place as a corner in his office in which he had places things that aid him in his preparedness to prayer. I liked this idea greatly! For me I chose a smell. I have always been very into associating things to smells. The smell of the incenses at mass have always made me mindful of the spirit of The Lord. So this began my quick adventure to the mall with a few dollars in cash in my purse and now a small bottle of frankincense as myrrh oils. I am so glad I read this book. It has defiantly impacted me. This was a library book however I wouldn't be surprised if I end up buying a copy to read a few more times over the years.

Review: Love and Respect

Love and Respect by Dr Emerson Eggerich

Wow! This book was recommended to me several years ago by a friend and I finally have gotten around to read it! (Thanks Lesley!)

I found myself saying. "Oh wow!" often throughout which is a really good sign that a book has usable I formation worth applying to my life.

What Dr Eggerich has done here is taken a look into his own marriage and found a pattern he calls "the crazy cycle". This is when a seemingly innocent topic turns into a giant fight full of hurt feelings that just keeps going around and around and around.

He identifies the basic needs of men a women. Women need to feel loved and men need to feel respected. Of course men also need love and women need respect also but if asked would you rather have a life without live but be respected or a life without respect but be loved, most men would answer the first and most women the second. I had never thought if it that way.

At first glance it sounds sexist. He used the following verse:

However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband. (Ephesians 5:33 NIV)

Feminists everywhere hiss and claim this verse to be written and distorted to fit the male agenda. But Eggerich shows that this verse was never meant to be sexist. Some people have been terribly wrong to use it as such. He discusses how men by nature feel a strong need to protect and provide for their families and women by nature have a strong need to nurture and love their families. We all know these to be true. Don't the men in our lives feel their bests when they have rescued someone, won an athletic competition, been successful at work or were able to provide something for their family? Doesn't it crush them if they fail in one of these areas? And women don't we feel our best when we receive affirmation from someone we love or are able to nurture a person or pet? Wouldnt we bounce back faster from loosing a job than feeling unloved?

I encourage everyone to read this book but if nothing else read the following page of acronyms which list the things that are most important to each gender and if used against them can be the most crushing things as well.

Excerpt from “Love & Respect” by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, pgs. 260-261

How Does a Husband Spell Love to His Wife?
As we have seen, love to wives is spelled C-O-U-P-L-E. Following is a brief review of these six concepts. If a husband memorizes and uses even one or two of them each day, he will do his part in keeping the Energizing Cycle going. Husbands should ask themselves these questions:

1. Closeness - Am I always remembering to move toward her and accept her need to talk and connect with me to be reassured of my love?

2. Openness - Do I share my thoughts with her, and am I sure Iʼm not resisting her efforts to draw me out?

3. Understanding - Am I careful not to try to “fix” her every time she talks about one of her concerns or problems? Am I remembering that she is an integrated personality and whatever happens affects all of her, especially her emotions?

4. Peacemaking - Am I always willing to resolve issues, and am I careful to never say, “Letʼs just drop it and move on”?

5. Loyalty - Do I constantly look for ways to tell her that I will be loyal to her forever - that sheʼs the one love of my life, the only woman for me?

6. Esteem - Do I always let her know that I treasure her and put highest value on her as a person? Do I let her know that what she does and thinks are important to me? Does she know I couldnʼt possibly do without her?

How Does a Wife Spell Respect for Her Husband?
A wife spells respect for her husband C-H-A-I-R-S and uses these six concepts to let him know how important and vital he is to her. Wives should ask themselves these questions:
1. Conquest - Am I always standing behind him and letting him know I support him in his work and endeavors in his field?

2. Hierarchy - Do I let him know I respect and appreciate his desire to protect and provide for me and the family? What have I said recently to communicate this?

3. Authority - Have I gone on record that, because he has the primary responsibility for me (even to die for me), I recognize him as having the primary authority? Do I let him be the leader? How have I helped in that regard recently?

4. Insight - Do I trust his ability to analyze things and offer solutions and not just depend on my “intuition”?

5. Relationship - Do I spend shoulder-to-shoulder time with him whenever I can? Do I let him know that I am his friend as well as his lover?

6. Sexuality - Do I honor his need for sexual release even when I donʼt feel like it?

As a husband spells out love to his wife through C-O-U-P-L-E and a wife spells out respect to her husband through C-H-A-I-R-S, they canʼt help but meet each otherʼs needs. The beauty of it is, if you meet a need in your spouse, it will come back to you as your spouse meets one of your needs.

How Mark Twain Ruined My Life

Let me take a pause in my reviewing to discuss an author I have a love hate relationship with. Mark Twain.

First of all I will say this; There is a lot of controversy around this man and whether his books are appropriate for school, or people in general. I am one who believes he is appropriate. It is through the honest truth that he shows just how horrific slavery was as well as demonstrate how if children are raised with racist parents they see it as the norm until otherwise directed. Very Sad. Huck Finn thought he was going to hell for defending an African American. That was a very powerful symbol.

Anyways, how it ruined my life.

So I had recently been on a long car trip (30 hours in 3 days) in which I was alone the whole time and became a close friend with audio books. They made the time fly and kept me alert and able to focus on the road. However, I had not finished The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn upon arriving back home and had it on my iPod in my purse. I was hanging out one night with my friend and her husband who is African American and they had not heard a particular song I happened to have on my iPod. I offer to let them listen via my iPod so we plugged it in to their cars stereo and  unbeknownst to me doing so resumes the playing of the last thing I had been listening too: Huckleberry Finn. . . and the first sentence had the N word. Multiple times. And it took me a good 4 or 5 sentences to figure out that I have no idea how to work my iPod and should just unplug it and throw it across the car. Unfortunately neither had read the book. Out of context much?

That took some explaining.

Review: Fire Always Burns

Fire Always Burns by Krista Lakes

Ahhhh, take a deep breath. Feel that? That's genuine Colorado Rocky Mountain air! Oh how I love a book set in my home state!

This story is such a hidden treasure! I found myself reading it in just two days, partly due to its approximately 200 pages in length, but mainly due to the smooth and captivating way it is written. I simply adored the accurate depiction of small town Colorado. If its one thing Lakes is good at, its depicting small town mentality. It doesn't matter if its the small mountain town of Conifer or my home town on the plains, the small town vibe is the same. As a recent transplant to the big city I've nicknamed the "island" of Dallas, I ate up these small town references. My favorite had to be the local library being attached to the property of the high school. (Notice the wording there: the high school. As in one school. Not one of the 55 schools in the district such as the district I now work in). I instantly thought of my high school and the library on the same property.

As for the story itself? It can be summed up in this quote found in the last chapter

"The fires of today lead to the forests of tomorrow." (Lakes 203)

I personally did not read the description on good reads or anywhere else. I simply just began with nothing but the title. At the beginning of each chapter there is a one paragraph description of a different stage of a forest fire. Sort of a time lapse. This fire imagery literally smoldered under the rest if the story. Clearly it was not happening as the story was, it would be one slow moving fire if that were the case. It instead foreshadows later events and personifies the characters inner struggles.

I saw this as a re-coming of age story. A redemption story. Though the characters in this novel have already come of age and entered the adult world through college, careers and kids, they screwed up along the way. Some have lived in guilt for a short time while others for around 20 years! Here is their second chance to reclaim their identity, rekindle an old "spark" of love and to learn respect themselves by going down memory lane to the "self" they were as teenagers.

What a sneaky sneaky story of redemption and second chances hidden in a steamy, sometimes scalding hot hot HOT little romance novel.

Speaking of hot, why yes this novel contains sex scenes. However I was pleased to find out they were realistic and intimate. Not porn. Not embarrassing to read or so fantasized it will make your husband angry because real sex just isn't like that. Romantic, intimate and most of all believable.

This novel, like a juicy sitcom, kept me wanting to turn more pages to unfold the mystery of Audrey and Rays long ago past and follow Holly and Andrew cheering them on to please, please end up together.

The downside to this book is its editing. There are quite a few typos throughout however, if I can get over it so can you. The writing is certainly good and it is simply typos not poor writing. This story is worth it. I believe it to be self published which would explain the typos. Oh editors, the unsung heroes of the literature world!

I would recommend this novel. Especially since for a limited time it's available for only $2.99!

Click here to order it.

http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Always-Burns-ebook/dp/B00BL6RS70/ref=la_B00AW3NJTY_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1362592453&sr=1-1

March 1st: check point #2

Two months down, ten more to go!

By now I'm sure most New Years resolutions have fizzled out. To be honest I am a few books behind schedule and also have not blogged each book yet like i had planned! But I refuse to quit! Here is my progress so far:

1) Secret Life if Bees -Sue Mink Kidd

2) One Tuesday Morning -Karen Kingsbury

3) Shiver -Maggie Stiefvater

4) Beyond Tuesday Morning -Karen Kingsbury

5) Every Now and Then -Karen Kingsbury

6) Shades of Blue -Karen Kingsbury

7) The Magicians Nephew -CS Lewis

8) The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe -CS Lewis

9) Saving CeeCee Honeycutt -Beth Hoffman

10) Little Bee -Chris Cleave

11) The Story if my Life -Helen Keller

12) Thirsting for God: The Spiritual Lessons of Mother Teresa

13) Jesus: The Greatest Life of All -Charles Swindall

14) Gods Story, Your Story: When His Becomes Yours -Max Lucado

Review: Jesus: The Greatest Life of All

Jesus: The Greatest Life of All by Charles R Swindall

Do you know the new testament stories? The Christmas story? The crucifixion and resurrection? Even though you say you believe it to be true do you really feel its truth? Or does it seem mythical?

It's ok to say it seems mythical. The nativity scenes and church plays depict a land and time so different from our own that it doesn't seem real. We wear cross necklaces yet a cross is not something that is part of our current world. It's easy to put bible stories in a similar category as fairy tales despite our best intentions to feel their reality.

This book helps to bridge that gap of understanding by uncovering the historical view of the story of Jesus. It exposes just how opposite of glamorous his birth was, how the marriage customs truly worked then and how the time of his conception marred the reputations of his parents, how the laws truly worked back then and so much more. By the end you begin to see a real life picture that you can relate to. Israel becomes a real place and not a magical land far far away.

Through out this book I discovered answers to questions I didn't even realize I had.

Jesus: The Greatest Life of All is a must read. It really is a history lesson worth experiencing!