Tag Archive: love


Most people reach a point in their lives where they are looking for meaning or for their purpose in life.  They make statements like, ‘I’m going to find myself’.  They may feel lost without a purpose in this world.  I’m not sure what the author, Sharon Carter Rodger, wanted to express but she has managed to breathe hope and faith into the characters in this book, as well as the readers of this book. (Psalm 13:1) ‘O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way?’  This passage in the Bible describes the first half of this book, not the overall story but the hidden significance of the story.  The hunt begins for the hope, destiny and a name.  This story reveals that the power of caring  and loving enough can reveal your own purpose, propel you into your own future.  I find a sweet romance in the fact that it all begins with a promise.  The realization came later on for me, when I read this short declaration.  “Lovers are lunatics.” (page 74)

Both of the characters do not know their real names and one of them has given up on knowing who they are.  What would you choose to know if you had one choice, your name or your destiny?  Is one more important than the other?  Could knowing one, reveal the other?  Those who are marked by God, by His Spirit, learn to help others to know that God sees them, and they are not lost.  We reveal all this as we drift in and out of people’s lives.

Kim S-J

Oh my goodness!  Okay, let me just quote the man, Ted Dekker, himself.  “This Story Is For Everyone But Not Everyone Is For This Story.”  Once again, Ted DeKker places a parable before you and challenges you to discover more about yourself and the true meaning of life.  There is so much transformation taking place in this novel that it keeps you on your toes.  You can feel pulled in two different directions.  Will you hold out for everlasting, passionate love, or boiling hot lust?  Both passions get in your head.  You are wrestling with the possibility of deception and is the deception worth it.

What ever attracts you, whatever draws you, you may find yourself walking the majestic halls of the castle to find — your lover.  In your search, there will be many opportunities to be pulled away.  You will find out what you are made of and what your relationship is made of, when the sirens call your name.

Two very handsome and very different men are sent to protect two beautiful princesses and their mother.  Before they could actually get there, the more sober warrior receives a warning from heaven, delivered by a dried up, old man.  Evil wants to challenge him.

As freaky as the old man looks with his crow, and as distant as the information sounds, you and the main character store it in the back of your mind, like a haunting memory.  What happens next are the things that book clubs are made of .  Who would you love?  Why?  What would you do to save your love?  Is it worth it?

Kim S-J

It took me a while to even wrap my mind around the idea of not having the full spectrum of emotions at my disposal. The main character in this book, Rom, was having the exact opposite struggle. We were on opposite sides of a looking glass. There is an line in the very beginning that expresses my point. “That archaic word passion, for example. Try as he might to grasp this thing, he could only conjure up thoughts of varying degrees of fear.” The moment I read the word passion, movie images, lyrics to songs and my own personal thoughts burst into my consciousness. You see, in this book the only emotion that was genetically allowed was fear. In order to purify humanity of war, murder and other negative results of passionate emotions, they were eliminated through genetics.

I imagined the setting to be clean, sterile and dull. This is a world where things are done because they have the skill to do them, not because they are driven by a passion for it. As you begin to read about the character Rom, you begin to desire more for him. He had a full life, but it lacked the enjoyment and passion that would make what he did more fulfilling. Another character who was also living her life free from ‘extreme emotions’ was a lady of royalty, named Feyn. Her life was desirable even though you knew she was in the same predicament as the other character. The position she held was powerful. You could see how those at her status valued ‘fear’. Fear manufactured the perfect slaves. The ‘order’ that came from this ‘fear’ resulted in absolute power. So now the reader has a decision to make. In my mind it was should you suppress passionate emotions so that everyone could live a predictable, tame, (lame) life or; for the good of all humanity, allow them to live with all of their emotions and passions. Give them the challenge of taming their emotions and using them to find wholeness and discover deeper mysteries.

Rom’s world changes when a vile of forbidden blood, along with some coded writing, is thrust into his hands by a creepy old man. Rom’s life explodes with color and passion, and it over flows into his relationships. Now I don’t think people should take drugs but introducing passion back into the human blood stream seemed to take him on a trip; a trip humanity had seemed to have forgotten about. This life giving blood threatens to bring chaos, disrupt order; but who’s order? Is it really chaos or could it be a time of awakening to move by free will and find life? The choice is not to hard for me when I was in Rom’s shoes, but lady Feyn. Why would a woman destined to rule give up this predictable structure, or order, just for a short time of emotional bliss?

This story makes you wonder if you are taking some things for granted, and if your emotions were meant to lead you to something greater. I highly recommend this book, which is the beginning of a series. You will discover much more than a thrilling ending.

–Kim S. J.

I suppose everyone had a parent who was always telling them what they couldn’t do.  There were so many things I couldn’t do, it was hard to see the things I could do as freedom. Oh and let’s not forget the things I had to do.  I use to think my mother was guessing or trying everything out on me to see who I would become.  Does pulling the wings off an insect count?  Maybe I’m a surgeon.

I couldn’t spend the night at my best friend’s house. I couldn’t play by the dead end street that had a ramp, like the other kids with bikes.  I could only have one bread roll, when everyone else got three. On my day off, I still had to get up, clean up and make my bed. Oh, and my personal favorite, when it was time to go to school, I had to travel over 3o minutes away to a school where no one would talk to me.  I think there was one other person of my race there but I never saw her. I love that question, “How was your day?” I wanted to say, “Same as my life, confusing and pointless.” But you know what teens say, “Fine.” And then disappear.

You are suppose to believe that despite all these rules your parent or parents love you, but you begin to feel like the family pet. At some point rebellion sets in and you find yourself building your own ‘golden calf’.  Whatever pleases you goes.  You ink it in your skin if you have too.

Hopefully at some point you grow up. I mean that you look deeper into all those…rules.  I couldn’t spend the night at my best friend’s house because she was being abused and I didn’t know it.  I couldn’t go to the dead end street because behind the ramp, in the wooded area, drugs and prostitution was taking place.  I could only have one roll of bread because I didn’t pass it through like everyone else, and I would get sick.  On my day off I had to get up, because depression runs in my family and if you don’t learn to make yourself get up when you don’t want to, you won’t.  I had to travel 30 minutes to a different school because it kept me from being satisfied with a little.  I began to…dream of more than what I was surrounded by and what it would cost me to stand alone sometimes.

The commandments in God’s word may seem harsh or confusing but they come from the Heavenly Father who knows what you cannot see. Not only will they protect you but they will put you in position to fulfill the plan for your life and open your eyes to what it will cost you.  If you are consistent, and faithful you will see His reasons and begin to understand.  People have lots of advice to get you out of jam or help you go around God’s word to get you what you want. But when you realize that “only Jesus” has the foresight and the power to protect you from demons and fulfill your purpose. Only Jesus loved you so much that He would pay the price to redeem you from the trap of destruction that satan has for you.…burn everything else. Act 19:19 Let God’s Words be written with His finger in your heart. Jer 31:33 (Our hearts)/ Ex 31:18 (His finger)

It takes all that and then some. Acts 19:1-20 (The story of a group of people who showed the value of God’s words over all others) / Duet 6:17-20 (God’s promises to you,if you obey and trust Him)

1 Thessalonians 5:21-22 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. Abstain from all appearance of evil. KJV

(Written to my brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus)

Love ya

Kim S-J

Learn Love

 

You may think it comes naturally but it doesn’t.  What human beings naturally do is ‘measure’. We measure our time, one another, education, ourselves and many other things.  Everyone wants to believe that they love correctly.  We even measure when we’ve loved enough and it’s time to stop.

God shows us His nature, Love, all through the old-testament (Gen 28:15).  You see the needle and the thread more plainly in the new-testament (John 3:16).  So many times, Jesus the Christ, confronted those who measured their love and others by good deeds or status.  The truth is whether it is correction or a holy kiss, it should be like moving from one form of love to another and you can only accomplish this by the Holy Spirit.  (Luke 4:18) We have to learn to ‘fall back’ in the arms of God everyday or we will keep feeling the need to draw our knife, like Peter did when he felt threatened in the garden with Jesus.

The human gets in the way.  What you’ve been through, how someone looked at you, the measure of how many times they did this to you will get in the way.  You can’t teach, preach, prophesy or greet anyone without God’s love that says, ‘they have a different past, they don’t understand, or this is how they were taught’.  This is not okay to the human being, but to God these are his babies and He’s determined to teach them. You’re His baby and He is determined to teach you.

I speak to a lot of people.  You can hear the Lord take control.  The things I want to say and the point I want to make, doesn’t make it pass my lips (thank God right).  It only happens because I discovered that the reaction or the point I thought was so important doesn’t accomplish what I thought it would.  His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts.  If we trust God enough to fall back in His arms, everything will turn out right.

It is a command because it is impossible to carry out God’s instructions without it. The Love of God insures that your correction never goes too far.  What you equip others to do isn’t too much. It’s the buffer to make sure you don’t harm others and you are not too hard on yourself.

I love Shawn McDonald’s song, ‘Simply Nothing’.  There chorus says “What are you man, if you do not learn love”.  I believe this is what Paul was trying to get us to understand. (1 Cor 13)  All the dreams and aspirations you may have for yourself will come to nothing if you don’t “learn love”.

(Written to the Christian family) Romans 13:10 / 1 John 4:7 & 12

Love Kim S-J