love to paint

One of the elders at our church made an interesting comment in his closing remarks at church yesterday. He explained that there is an interesting contrast between the heroes of today's literature and movies.  The idea is that everyone has the strength within themselves to save themselves.  Heroes like the ones Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis play in the movies.  In these stories, people only need themselves--they have all they need (like the main character in Eight Keys which I review here ) I remember being struck by this several times as I sat and watched recent contemporary films.  Independence and self sufficiency are values our society places a huge value upon. Many stories from days gone past present a different savior.  That savior comes from outside of themselves. Think of The Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia or The Door in the Wall .  Reinforcements come to help save the day when the main characters are in trouble.  Th...

Technically, the book I'm about to review is a made for movie biography.  It is the book undaunted by Josh McDowell with Cristobal Krusen. I remember when I married my husband eleven years ago, he had a book by Josh McDowell-- Evidence that Demands a Verdict .   Undaunted is the story of Josh McDowell's childhood through his journey to seminary.  The story itself was interesting.  It was interesting to see the root of his books--why he wrote about the evidence and how he approached the defense of our faith as Christians.  He might be considered a Saul turned Paul person.  He began as a persecutor of the church and became a follower of Christ.  I was encouraged by how God changed lives of several people in McDowell's family.   The writing of this book reads like a movie script.  It is not a literary novel.  It is not a gripping biography.  I suspect, based on McDowell's own preface, it was told by McDowell and written by Krus...

We just back last weekend from a week's vacation in Maine.  We had a great time!  My husband and I are learning how to take vacations as a family--coping with expectations, stress, planning, the unexpected, and still relaxing.  It was a long drive for us, which gave me plenty of time to read several books. The first one I picked up was Son by Lois Lowry.  I had picked it up for a moment while we were packing and read a few pages before we left.  It was hard to put it down, but I had to.  Packing had to be done first. So, I was glad to get into the car and start riding. Son is the conclusion to Lois Lowry's The Giver .  There are two other books that are a part of this series The Messenger and Gathering Blue.  The Giver  was first published in 1993 and the other two were published in 2000 and 2004.  It was a fun surprise to find out that she'd written a conclusion. The book is divided into three shorter stories which link togeth...