Reading

This is one of the last pictures I took before Lilly came down with her fever virus, which lasted for about three days. As you all know there is not much you can do with a sick child, so I took up reading again. When I was just laying there holding Lilly as she slept I had to do something....I picked up one of my favorite authors Francine Rivers. I am not really much of a reader, but her writing gets me hooked. She is a Christian Fiction writer and her books are incredible. This time I read "and the Shofar Blew." I actually finished it in five days, I think that is a record. The book focuses on a pastor and his wife who are "building a church." I know that sounds a little too familiar, but the book goes on to emphasize the fact that we are not in control of our lives and we must live each day for God and God alone. This was a very moving book and just what I needed to hear right now.

Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:
"The greatest commandment is that you love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. The second is to love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the prophets of the Old Testament, and both were lived out in Christ's life, death, and resurrection. We are to follow Jesus, not others, no matter how much we love them."

"Let God do the molding and shaping-and the breaking, if necessary. Keep your focus. What we believe about God determines how we serve Him. Often, that means keeping our noses out of God's business."

"The first order of business in the church wasn't to go out and put up a building for meetings. It was to win souls, teach, have fellowship, break bread together, and pray. It's not the building that matters or the programs or the numbers. It's not the music or the ritual. It's about our relationship with Jesus Christ. Believers make up the temple. They are the church. Christ's resurrection power is revealed through our new lives."

"The Lord said to love one another, not just when it was easy, not only when you felt the stirrings of passion, but always, despite circumstances. Hadn't Jesus been thinking of others even as He hung on the cross, wracked with pain and carrying the sins of the whole world upon him?"

I could keep going on and on, it really is a great book. You should read it if you get a chance.