Book Review: The Throne of Fire

The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan is the second installment to his series of the Kane Chronicles which follow Carter and Sadie, who are magicians, on their adventures learning, training and fighting the Egyptian gods.

Maybe it was me, I thought the story was good, but it took my a long time to get into it. The first few chapters were so slow in comparison to the first book, The Red Pyramid. It did pick up somewhere about half way through and the story really took off.

Sadie and Carter are trying to stop the god of chaos, Apophis, from being set free from the prison he had been in for thousands of years and at the same time trying to wake the sun God, Ra, for his slumber that has lasted just as long. The God's and magicians are divided on whether it Ra needs to be awaken and if Apophis is really being released. There are good magicians and evil one, selfish gods and friendly ones. There are those that will do any thing to destroy the world and those that would sacrifice themselves to save it.

Once it get going the pages will keep turning and moving you forward. I am ready for the next in the series.

Movie Review: Bridesmaids

I don't think there can be much else to say other than: SEE IT!

This is probably the funniest movie I have ever seen! I laughed the entire movie and loved every minute of it. So, if you haven't seen it, go see it, if you have, go see it again. This will be a movie that we will buy when it comes out on DVD. We will watch this over and over.

1st Samuel

In my opinion, 1st Samuel is where the drama really begins. I mean, I know that there was drama before but this is the the kind that really sucks you in. It's like a constant soap opera. Jealousy, betrayal, love, friendship... all the things that really make soap operas great. This is why they attempted a few years ago to make a show based on this called "Kings."

1st Samuel starts with Samuel's parents. His mother Hannah was barren, she had prayed to the Lord that if he would give her a son she would offer him up to the Lord and he would serve the Lord for all of his life. God granted her request and after she had given birth to Samuel when he was old enough she gave him to stay with Eli the priest. From then on, Samuel stayed in the presence of the Lord.

Eli was a great priest and but his sons that he raised did not respect the Lord or the temple the way that their father did. They would sleep with prostitutes and would eat the offering that people brought for the Lord. The Lord sent someone to tell Eli of what will happen since he did not try to raise his sons the right way and all three of them died on the same day.

Now, the Israelite's were demanding a king like all the other nations had, so God led Samuel to a humble man from the tribe of Benjamin. This man was Saul, he was said to be a head taller than other men, but in the KJV it says

"And he had a son, whose name was Saul, a choice young man and a goodly: and there was not among the children of Israel a goodlier person than he: from his shoulders and upward he was higher than any of the people" -1 Samuel 9:2

Now, to Michael and me this sounds like instead of being tall, Saul might have had an abnormally large head... it's just one of those things that makes us laugh.

Saul was humble when he first became king, but it was quickly shown that the power went to his head. He was no longer depending on God so God sent Samuel to anoint who he wanted to be the next king. This is when we find David.

Soon after, David will fight Goliath. We all know this story so I won't go into it. Saul becomes very jealous of David and from then on plots to find ways to destroy him. He throws spears at him, tells his son to kill him, he chases him all around Israel for years and years. A few times David has chances that he could have killed Saul but opted not to, knowing that he was once anointed by God. Saul eventually kills himself by falling on his sword (purposefully... it wasn't an accident that he "fell" on his sword) and his sons followed suit.

During all of this David had drama of his own. I had never realized before that during all this David took on three wives. That in it self I think is drama in the making....

1st Samuel is non-stop craziness. I can't wait to continue on into 2nd Samuel.

Ruth

It's nice when reading the Bible to get to a book like Ruth. Every book before it has at least 20 chapters and some go into the 40s. Ruth is a nice a simple four enjoyable chapters that make you feel accomplished without exhausting your brain.

Ruth lived the time of the judges. When so many of the Israelites were falling away we get to see a family whose faithfulness remained to the Lord.

Ruth was a Moabite woman who had married an Israelite. He soon died as well as his brother and his father. All that was left in this little family was Ruth, her sister in law Orpah and her mother in law Naomi. Naomi told the women to go back to the land of their fathers because she was going to return to Judah from Moab. Orpah went on her way but Ruth insisted on staying with Naomi. So they traveled together back to Judah. Ruth believed in the God of Israel and did not want to return to pagan ways.

Soon after they were back in Judah Ruth met Boaz who was the kinsman redeemer for Naomi's family. This meant by the law that he would have to take care of their family because they were his relatives through Naomi's late husband. Through this Ruth had married Boaz and the had Obed, who ends up being the grandfather of King David, which also leads to Ruth being in line with Jesus.

Throughout the hardships of losing husbands and traveling and having to live in an unfamiliar land Ruth was redeemed by Boaz, by the way she loved Naomi and by her love of God. At the end of the day, the troubles are worth it with God. Life is not easy, it can make you hard and bitter but by having faithfulness in God you are redeemed.

Judges

Judges is the book that you read and think, "The Israelites will never learn." They keep going through a seemingly neverending cycle of falling away from God, getting into trouble then God sends someone to the rescue they return to serve the Lord and then it starts all over again. I guess it's true what they say about history repeating itself.

There are many people mentioned that God sent to deliver his people, I don't plan on going through all of them. I'll go over the most famous, such as Gideon and Samson, but I'll also tell you about a couple of the others. If I went through all 13 judges you might as well go read the whole book. It would save me some time.

To begin, let me tell you that during this time the Israelites did not have a king. I only mention this because throughout the book of judges this was mentioned about 100 times. It seems to be of importance. Maybe if they had a solid ruler they wouldn't have fallen so much? I don't know, but no king resided over the Israelites.

Ehud:

When you read about Ehud, it's one of those that you end up reading with your mouth hanging open in the craziness of what happens. Ehud is a left-handed judge who went to visit Eglon the king of Moab (the Moabites were oppressing Israel.) He said that he had a secret message for the king and they were left alone together. When Ehud got close to the king he pulled out a sword and stabbed the king in the gut. Judges 3:22 says "Even the handle sank in after the blade, which came out his back. Ehud did not pull the sword out, and the fat closed in over it." Did I mention the king was a very large man? After Ehud killed the king he locked the doors to the room. When the servants went to the king and noticed that the door was locked they believed that the king was relieving himself. While they waited the king died and Ehud got away, and through this Israel was delivered.

Deborah:

Deborah was a prophetess and was a judge of Israel. They often came to her to settle their problems. She had called a man named Barak to her and told him that he was to gather up his forces and that God would deliver Sisera, the commander of the Jabin's army into his hands. Barak insisted that Deborah go with him and because of this Deborah told him that Sisrea would now be delivered by a woman instead of Barak. When the battle began Sisera ran to a nearby camp and Jael, from a tribe that they were friendly with, let him into her tent. She fed and watered him and he soon fell asleep. Jael then took a tent peg and hammered it through Sisera's temple. And the Israelites were delivered once more.

Gideon:

Gideon was called on by the Lord but was doubtful of his call. He was from the weakest tribe and considered the least in his family. Essentially he was considered the weakest of the Israelites. He tested God by taking a wool fleece and asking God to make the fleece wet and leave the ground dry and then again, but this time with the ground wet and the fleece dry. After he gathered his men. God said that there was too many men and sent away those who trembled in fear. After they left God said that there were still too many and told Gideon to take the men to get a drink and the men that pulled the water up in their hands were those that they would use to deliver the Israelites. He ended up with himself and 300 men. They went to the camp at night on the surrounding mountains while the Midianites camped in the valley and took their trumpets and jars and make enough noise that God made the Midianites turn on themselves.

Samson:

Samson is the most famous of the judges. Everyone now knows that he was a Nazarite. He was set apart from the beginning by God to deliver his people from the Philistines. Samson did quite a lot before he got mixed up in the likes of Delilah, but we won't worry about it now, just know that one involved a riddle, one some new rope, and then there is that whole mess with the donkey jaw. Samson fell in love with Delilah and the Philistines used that against him by paying her to get out the secret of his strength. After constant nagging he finally revealed that his strength was in his hair, in which she shaved his head while he slept and then gave him up the the Philistines. They gouged out his eyes and shackled him up. The Philistines were having a celebration and brought out Samson as entertainment. He was put in between two pillars and he prayed to God to let him die along with the Philistines and he used his strength that God had given him to collapse the arena that they were in. The Israelites were delivered once again.

It is a cycle we get ourselves to in life. That's what I've learned. If you let yourself be swayed into idol worship then you spend your time waiting for someone to come and rescue you. But Jesus has already done that. He has come to our rescue, we just have to take him up on it and break the cycle.

Book Review: 1984

I only actually made it to about page 40 but I just can't continue. I know that there are people that love this book (my husband included) but I just couldn't get into it. I've come back to it a few times to try and try but my brain just doesn't wrap around it. In the little bit that I read I felt like all it did was talk in circles and never actually move on.

I like books to have a plot that moves and doesn't just stay in one spot forever. I had to force myself to keep trying to read even after my eyes were drooping from boredom.

Book Review: The Help

The Help by Kathryn Stockett is the first book in a couple of months that sucked me in from the first page. This is a story about three women in Jackson, Mississippi during the 1960s in the middle of the civil rights movement. Aibileen is a colored maid in her fifties, who is kind hearted, loves the children she works with and prays every night. Minny is a colored maid who has been fired by multiple families because she can't help but state her mind; she also happens to be the best cook in town. And Skeeter is twenty two years old, has just returned from school and is starting to see things differently for the first time in her life. She wants to be a writer; she wants to make a difference.

I was pulled in so easily into this story. It tells about the abuse some of the maids took when working for white families but also shows the compassion between the races and how some employers truly cared for their workers. There was so much that even though I just finished the book I can't fully put into words how it made me feel. I'm glad I read it though. It makes you think about the way things were before in a time that I would never know. You felt for the people, even those that you grew to dislike through the story.

I know that there is movie coming out later this year based on the book and I hope that they do it justice.

I am now off to take care of my neglected house, since I ignored over the day and a half in order to read.