I Caught the Mail Man

I lost my set of keys which have the key to the mailbox, so I told my kids we had to wait outside so I could run and catch the mail man. Emma and Ruby immediately started giggling at the thought of me chasing the mail man and tackling him to the ground or something along those lines.

As soon as I saw him I made a run for it, with the still giggling girls following behind me ready to help. I got to him, a little short of breath, and explained that I lost my key (again) and asked for my mail. I grew anxious as he packaged what looked like bills into what looked like advertisements and it looked like that's all there was until....he reached back into the box for one more thing. A beautiful brown box from amazon.com!

I was so extemely excited to receive Francine Rivers newest book "Her Mother's Hope". I have literally been waiting for this book for years!

Let me tell you first of all one of the things that I'm pretty sure qualifies me as a nerd...if I like someone, an author, musician, speaker, ahemm...tv show (Lost) I stalk them! And by stalking them I mean more than becoming a fan on Facebook. I bookmark their website, read their fan mail, sometimes talk to other fans on their guestbook message board, read everything I can find about them and basically come to the point where I feel like they are really my friend.

So Francine Rivers is a friend of mine and she's been talking about her book for quite awhile now. The original release date was Fall of 2009 and I'm forgiving her for being a little behind because the first few chapters have been so good! Plus the reason the release date was pushed back was because her story, or saga, was too long so now I get to look forward to another book coming out soon that continues the legacy of young Marta from Switzerland.

I'm only a few chapters in so I'll have to give you more details later, but let me take this opportunity to tell you (probably again) about my Favorite. Book. Ever.

"Redeeming Love" also by Francine Rivers.

I was telling my neighbor about it recently and admitted that I allowed Redeeming Love to sit on my book shelf for quite awhile before someone encouraged me to read it. It looked like a Harloquen Romance novel (the only time I was into those was when I was probably 10 and my friend and I would sit in the back of the library skipping to the "good stuff"), and it was given to me by my mother in law, who read only what I thought were cheesy christian novels.

Redeeming Love is NOT a cheesy Christian novel! And it is NOT a explicit fluffy romance either, although Francine did write secular romance novels before she became a Christian. Redeeming Love, she has discribed as her statement of faith.

It's a story, similar to the book of Hosea in the bible, about a man who feels like God is calling him to marry a prostitute. He unconditionally loves her dispite the pain and rejection he faces because of her past.

I was in tears throughout the book, at first believing I wouldn't identify with Angel, the main female charactor, but in the end exclaiming that in so many ways I've been exactly the same as her.

Personally, the story brought healing that I was needing because of my past and I'm still thankful for how God used that book to bring positive changes in my mind and in my heart. The little book that looked like a romance novel and that was from my mother in law!

Have a lovely weekend:)