The Screwtape Latters

The Screwtape Letters synopsis

I am now adding C.S. Lewis to my top list of favorite authors. I absolutely loved this book. It is a great inside look, even though it is fiction, into that other realm that we seldom want to think about. You can see how it is Satan's duty and mission to destroy every body's belief in who God and the truth of his existence. It actually clarified to me why 1/3 of the angels decided to fall along with Satan. I always thought to myself. "Why would they choose to leave wonderful paradise, living with our almighty creator, to go with the father of lies?" It is because Satan is so good at deception. He actually convinced them that God was not who he said he was and did not love them. This is not surprising because we fall into this ourselves. Satan has mixed so many lies with a little bit of truth. Whether it is evolution, or all ways lead to heaven because we all worship the same God, or that God does not even exist he is doing is best to destroy as many people's eternity as he can. He knows his end and that is where I rejoice!!! He will be thrown down there forever....and I will sit in the heavens worshipping and rejoicing my king!!! I also never thought of Satan and his little minions as calling God the enemy which is what we call Satan. It really made me think. We are in a battle, we do not battle against flesh and blood but against a spiritual realm. We need to be prepared and be ready. You never know...We could be having a personal vendetta, schemes planned, divisive ways to try to get us off our focus of our relationship with Jesus, just like Screwtape was leading his little cohort Wormwood in this story....Be Armed!!!

Now on to the The BIg Fat Reading challenge...it will be quite a little bit before I post more reviews since most of the books I am reading are 500 pages or more....I may read some other books along with the big huge fat ones...so I don't have to collect dust and clean spider webs off the blog.

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby

This was a pretty good book. It makes you think of what kind of legacy you want to leave behind. It also shows that what you may think of a person, is not actually who they are. I would like to think that when I die, that I will be known for my love of Jesus, being a great mom, and the encouragement I was to those around me. In no way, do I want my "social status" to define me. My goal in life these days is to live for the Lord and please him. Take responsibility for myself and do what God wants me to. All the people in this book are selfish and only think about themselves. They think about what they can get at the moment to be happy. It is all proven in the end that none of it brought them true happiness. There were devastating consequences to their actions. I have mixed emotions on whether this should be read in high school. On one hand it teaches a great lesson as I mentioned above and on the other hand there is a lot of adult subject matter that I am not sure I want my high schooler reading about. This could be because many children are not that age and it is hard for me to picture them at that age. There are already things going on with my oldest that make me a little sad she is growing up. Of course, she is excited but I am so not ready for her to grow up. That is a whole other blog in itself.

I have one more book to read before I start the the big reading challenge. I also got from my sister, some books that tend to be very controversial within my "circle of existence". The Harry Potter books. Oh yes, I plan to read them. I used to be very against them and then decided I am forming an opinion on something I really don't know what I am talking about. So, I will read them and then form my opinion as to whether my children will read them. Besides, they are not ready to read them anytime soon...Some of those books are 800 pages. I will not ask if they want to read them. When it comes to that, they can ask me. I also have The Series of Unfortunate Events. I saw the movie and was very leery but I will form my opinion when I read the books.

Skin

Skin Synopsis
This is just a great book for fun reading. Just some plain good brain candy, which one needs every once in awhile. I love Ted Dekker. If you want good suspense novels, than He is a good author to read. I can't really go into details more than the synopsis because it will give the story away. It always kept me on the edge wondering what would happen next, Who "Red" is, and Why each next thing is happening. I was a little disappointed how it ended. When you read it, you may agree or disagree. There is a lot of imagery on sin and how evil and dirty it is. It also gives a good depiction of who we are without Christ. Once again, I can't go into details because it will give to much away. It also is not good for before bedtime reading, due to it may scare the crap out of you and give you bad dreams.

I am also excited Janessa has found a book she loves to read. She needs to read it all the time and will actually forgo T.V. to read it. (Yes, I am jumping up and down in excitement. I want my children to love to read as much as me!!!!) It is 'Where the Sidewalk Ends" by Shel Silverstein.

I will start my big reading challenge, see below, come Feb 1st. So, for now I will still be doing some other readings until then. Will post updates on us soon. ;)