Playing for Pizza

Playing for Pizza
author: John Grisham
pages: 258 hardback
2007

Oh my goodness!  I read this book then totally forgot it even before I could review it!  As this was my first John Grisham novel I had high expectations and hopefully someone somewhere else down the road will recommend to me another one, as this one did not appeal to me.
One thing I do remember were the good use of description of food, the descriptions of small towns in Italy and that the story was about American football (not a sport that holds my interest).  I did enjoy Grisham's ability to kind of make me feel that I was there in Parma, Italy, but I guess I did not really want to be.
It may have been that I was in the process of moving out of Thailand so my thoughts were on other things as I read about this footballer trying to hold on to his sport any way he could.

If... What do I know of Calvary Love?

If
What do I know of Calvary Love?
author: Amy Carmichael
70 pagers; paperback
1938

This small book is so dense with awareness on how life is to be lived according to the love Jesus showed at Calvary that it can not be taken in all at one time, but rather a few poems a day, poem after pondered poem.  I am thankful to Laura Smith for sending this treasure to me as it came in the mail just when I needed this type of reflection.

Amy Carmichael, missionary to India, wrote the poetry of this 70 page book mainly overnight when a fellow worker approached her with the sad situation of a younger one who was "missing the the way of Love", as she put it in the introduction of the book.  The majority of the book is made up of poetry which leads to introspective evaluation of one's own understanding of love and how that is lived out in life.  The part right after the poetry was most insightful to me.  I will type up the ending as it is not only a great conclusion but a great appetizer for what his book holds for anyone questioning Love.   And I have a feeling I will re-read If  What do I know of Calvary Love? again and again, if I am brave enough to do so.

Beloved, let us love.


Lord, what is love?

Love is that which inspired My life, and led Me to My cross, and held Me on My cross.  Love is that which will make it thy joy to lay down thy life for thy brethren.

Lord, evermore give me this love.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after love, for they shall be filled.


Amen, Lord Jesus.

 

and the Shofar Blew

 and the Shofar Blew
by Francine Rivers
441 pages hardback
2003

Recently I was at a missions conference and while talking with a couple of ladies I had just met and the subject turned to good books.  The novel The Atonement Child by Francine Rivers was highly praised.  Excited about getting a good recommendation, I returned back to Houston and looked for it at the church library; it was not there so I chose and the Shofar Blew instead. 

Before I got through the first chapter I felt like I had read the book before (there is not too many stories out there that have a zealous Christian leader named Paul whose son was Timothy and Timothy's mom's name was Euny (short for Eunice) and Lois as a grandmother).  As the ending did not stand out to me, I filped to the back of the book, read a few pages and decided that I never finished it.  A few more chapters of reading made me guess why.  It is not a very happy story.  Actually, for most of the pages it is down-right discouraging.  But as timing would have it, I started a migraine (sometimes if the headache subside a bit, reading helps to pass the time, especially through the nights when the pain is too great for sleep to come), anyway, I worked my way through about 15 painful years of what happens to a life of a family and community when a pastor looses sight of growing God's church and grows his own power-hungry ego instead. 

To her credit, Francine Rivers' characters are authentic and consistent throughout the story and as always in her books, redemption's theme rings true.  For that I'm grateful.  But it does not make me any too excited to be a pastor's wife.  But then again, my husband is not Paul and I do not play the piano, so if that is what God wants of me, I pray I have ears to hear and a heart to obey.

This is probably not going to be the first book would recommend, yet I do hope to get the chance to read The Atonement Child someday.  I have read several books by Francine Rivers through the years (A Voice in the Wind, An Echo in the Darkness, As Sure as the Dawn, Leota's Garden, Redeeming Love, The Last Sin Eater) and each of these stories, with wide range of settings and plots, captivated me immensely.  If you have not read a Francine Rivers novel, pick one up, but be fore-warned they are not for the faint of heart.