The movie then shows Richard's struggles at seminary. Richard has no real intention of becoming a minister, and doesn't even want anything to do with God. All he wanted was to study hard and get good grades so he could finish his probation and get back to his computer job, but he quickly discovers that the school president has more in mind. The school president wants him to pave the way for future black students at the seminary. Shortly after arriving at seminary Richard meets Samuel, the gardener, and over time they develop a friendship that in someways resembled a father-son relationship. Throughout his time at seminary, we see prejudice on several different levels, and Richard's struggles to rise above it. Ultimately, the story is about redemption and doing what is right regardless of the cost.

I've been mulling this over for the past few days, trying to flesh out this post in my head before sitting down to write it. I knew what I wanted to write about, but never quite figured out the details. Today it morphed into something a little different. Namely, a post about my 2011 Goals. I've never been big on making New Year's Resolutions, but I certainly have a number of things I need to be working on in my life so I figured this is as good a time as any to get started!

-Become better organized. This one just occurred to me the other day while I was digging through one of my many piles of paperwork, looking for a receipt. I spend so much time searching for this or that piece of paper. Receipts, bills, insurance records, user manuals, notes, and so on. If it exists in paper form, I probably have it or something like it buried in a pile somewhere in the house. Part of my problem is that I save a lot of paperwork that really doesn't need to be saved. I need to learn to discern better what paperwork I really need to keep, and what I can safely throw away.

-Work on my spiritual walk. Over the last month or so our pastor has preached a number of excellent messages that were geared towards helping us improve our spiritual walk. Most of these were part of a series titled "Loving God Holistically." He preached a message each about loving God with our heart, our soul, our mind, and our body (strength). I felt like I gleaned quite a bit from these messages that would help me in my spiritual walk, but as of yet I haven't really taken any of that information and worked on it in my own life. The new year is a good time to focus on this aspect of my life. I'll probably write a little about some of those sermons in the future as I work through applying them in my life.

-Physical health/weight gain. Over the last couple of months I have all but stopped working on gaining weight and exercising on a regular basis. I actually dropped a few pounds during that time period, so now I have to work all over at putting them back on again. I also plan on getting back to using the weights and hopefully something for cardio as well.

Tonight I keep thinking back to this night exactly one year ago. My wife and I enjoyed pizza from our local B.C. Pizza for dinner, and then later that evening went to bed wondering (as we had every night for the past several weeks) if this would be the night that our son would make his entrance into the world. It was now several days past his due date, and we were rather anxious to meet him! Little did we know what the following morning would bring.

The story of Immanuel's Veins takes place in 1772 in Moldavia. Toma Nicolescu and Alek Cardei are sent by Catherine the Great, empress of Russia, to the Cantemir estate for the purpose of protecting the Cantemir family. The Cantemir family consists of mother Kesia, and daughters Natasha and Lucine, each strikingly beautiful. What should have been an easy assignment quickly turns into a very complex and dangerous situation. Toma hides the love he has for one of the daughters because his highest duty is loyalty to the empress, who had commanded him to not get involved with the daughters. He soon realizes that the daughter he loves is in grave danger and he sets out to attempt to save her in the face of incredible odds.

Overally, I really enjoyed reading this book. It grabbed my attention with the first couple of pages and held it through to the end. It is a tale of redemption and sacrifice and love, and of good ultimately winning over evil.

A couple of things I didn't necessarily like:

-Vampires play a big role in this book. As one who is concerned and disturbed by the vampire craze that seems to be sweeping the country and even some of our churches, I appreciated the way that Ted Dekker incorporated them into this book. I don't want to give away too much so that's all I'm going to say about that. Had I known the book contained vampires I wouldn't have requested it. Having read the book, I'm really glad I didn't know about the vampires because then I would have missed out on what I think is a great book.

-The Christian message in this book doesn't show up until pretty much the very end of the book. So don't start reading it expecting the entire book to be a Christian novel. It's rather worldly for much of the story.

Thomas Nelson asked me to voluntarily include the following question, along with my answer.

Sacrificial love is the kind of love that is solely focused on meeting the needs of another, regardless of the cost. The greatest example of sacrificial love we will ever know is Jesus Christ's sacrificing his life on the cross for us - for me.

Thomas Nelson also printed a limited number of t-shirts for this book. If you're interested in winning a free "Spread the Love" t-shirt, simply comment on this post and I will select a winner randomly on Saturday, September 18. (Grey t-shirt, sketch of a heart in black, with the words "Spread the Love" in red.)

You can purchase a copy of Immanuel's Veins by clicking on the book image above.

Anne talks about her own experiences growing up as a pastor's kid, and her later struggles with certain sins. She discovered at a young age that many Christians/churches are very unforgiving of sin in people's lives. Through her own experiences and the many responses from her blog readers she discovered that people everywhere are in desperate need of compassion and healing, but we're all too scared to share our struggles with anyone else. She talks about the freedom that can be found in confession and how we can help so many people by encouraging this mindset. Anne explores why so many Christians hide behind their masks of fineness, instead of being honest about the struggles in their lives. By confessing our sins and struggles to like-minded Christians we can both help others and be helped ourselves. When we hide our struggles from everyone it's easy to start thinking that we're the only ones walking through the valleys. But when you speak up and reveal the brokenness in your own life you soon realize that there are others all around you that are just as broken as you are, and you all help to carry each other through. In the end, it all comes back to each of us being a sinner in desperate need of the Savior. Don't look down on someone that is broken, for we all are broken in different ways. Pick up the broken, and help them to see the love and grace that Christ offers.

This is a really good book. You can buy one here, should you be so inclined.

As mentioned, I enjoyed reading this book. However, I think the recommendation shown on the front cover is a bit overstated - "Gallops along with all the drama and intrigue of a great novel." This is a good book, but it did not grab my attention and pull me in the way a great novel typically does.

(I almost forgot that I committed to posting a review for this book on May 3rd! May 3rd is just about over - and here is my review, just in time!)

A little over 3 weeks ago I received an e-mail from BookSneeze informing me that the following day they were going to make 500 copies of Pete Wilson’s book, Plan B, available for review on a first-come-first-serve basis. Three months ago I had never heard of Pete Wilson, but a couple of months ago I found his blog and his church’s website and both have challenged me to grow in various ways. I was thus excited to hear about a review opportunity for his book, and jumped at the chance to obtain a copy.

The subtitle of the book is, “What Do You Do When God Doesn't Show Up the Way You Thought He Would?” Pete writes in a casual, conversational manner, which helped me to better grasp and understand the concepts he presents. He readily admits that he doesn’t have all the answers, but the point of the book is to help you understand how to respond during your Plan B times and how to use those times to continue transforming yourself into the person God wants you to be.

At first glance this book sounds very similar to another book I recently reviewed (“Where is God? Finding His Presence, Purpose and Power in Difficult Times”), but I felt challenged and encouraged much more by “Plan B” than I did by “Where is God?” Pete weaves real-life stories throughout the chapters to help illustrate his points – stories of Biblical characters (including David, Job, Naomi, and Joseph) and stories from people he has encountered in his ministry.

This book challenged me to:

-Trust God more, recognizing that sometimes trust requires me to take the first step of faith

-Wait on God, realizing that just because I don’t see him working to bring good out of a Plan B situation doesn’t mean he isn’t working and preparing for an ultimately better end to the situation.

-Remember that God’s presence is something I can always rely on, no matter what.

I highly recommend the book to anyone who has gone through difficult times in their life.

I will leave you some words from the last chapter of the book.

I heard this song for the first time a few days ago. I've been listening to it a lot since then. Thought I'd share it with all of you. Make sure you listen to/read the lyrics.