The Vow: The Kim and Krickitt Carpenter Story - 4 stars

The Vow: The Kim and Krickitt Carpenter Story **** By: Kim Carpenter, Krickitt Carpenter, Dana Wilkerson

      

 To Have and to Hold

This is a true story of how a couple's love persevered and triumphed, only by the grace of God.    After their wedding in September, Kim and Krickitt Carpenter were involved in a devastating life changing car accident, on their way to Krickitt's parents for their first Thanksgiving that November. As a result of the accident, Krickitt lost almost two years of memory. She didn't remember meeting, dating or marrying her husband, Kim.

The book chronicles Kim and Krickitt's life together. Since they were married for less than three months before the accident, most of the book covers very little of their life before the accident but focuses more on their life after the accident. After many frustrating months, Kim and Krickitt had to accept the fact that Krickitt's memory may never come back. Through the help of a great counsellor and the by the grace of God, Kim and Krickitt struggle to date again, love again and eventually re- marry.

While I thoroughly enjoyed the story of the Carpenters lives, the writing was not so great. The writer who helped put the story together did not do justice (in my opinion) in the portryal of Kim's love and feeling for his wife. While I understand the writer was trying to help us understand Kim's frustration with the fact that the love of his life has no recollection of who he is during the recovery, instead, he was portrayed as bossy and overbearing. The writing was very mediocre. It seemed like a rush job. While the writing may not be the best, the story is absolutely wonderful, it is worth buying the book just for the story.


Reading level: 12 and up.

Redeeming Love - 5 stars

Redeeming Love  ***** 

by Francine Rivers

The True Face of Unfailing Love.

The book is an allegory on the OT story of Hosea. As most Christians know, the Lord asks Hosea to go marry Gomer a prostitute and to love her as a wife. This was to be a type of the relationship between the Lord and Israel. .

The story is set in the 1800's during California's gold rush. Gomer is portrayed in the book as a prostitute named Angel, while Hosea is portrayed as a farmer named Michael Hosea. As to be expected of a prostitute who has led a very hard life, Angel is a very beautiful but  mean, hard, unemotional and uncaring hard hearted woman. Hosea on the other hand loves her and obeys the Lord by treating her as a proper wife and not the prostitute she is. In true prostitute fashion, she returns to her old life and ways again and again, yet in true godly fashion, Hosea goes after and brings her back again and again all the while, begging the Lord to change her heart.

The book was very well written and I thoroughly enjoyed it for the story. It is based on the book of Hosea in the Bible where the Lord attempts to show us His undying love for His people. This book is NOT meant to be a manual for how to live your life as a believer ( God will it not ask a believer to go marry an unbeliever), it is meant (just like Hosea) to teach us that:

God demonstrates His love to us that while we were still in our sin, Christ died for us. (Rom.5:8) and

even when we are faithless, God remains faithful because He cannot deny Himself. (2Tim.2:13).

I really do not care for romance novels, but the biblical story behind this story is what drew me and held me captive to the end.


Reading level:  adults only.

Same Kind of Different As Me -- 5 stars

Same Kind of Different As Me 

by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

 

A true story that reads Better than fiction.    A true page turner and a call to authentic  Christian service! 

 

This book is a true story of three very different people whose lives come together by divine appointment. The people are Ron a very wealthy art dealer who travels the world selling rare paintings to his extremely wealthy clients, Denver, a mean, rough and rugged homeless drifter who escapes from modern day slavery (share cropping) in the deep south only to end up as a homeless bum in Texas, and Debbie the arts dealer's wife, a woman of true faith, love and compassion.

Debbie felt the Lord was calling her to move beyond charity dinners for the less privileged in society to showing His love to the "least of these". Like most women, she draws her husband, Ron into serving with her at the shelter.   Ron on the other hand agrees to help just to please Debbie and appease his conscience. While they are serving the homeless, Debbie encourages Ron to develop a friendship with Denver, a very mean and rough homeless bum whom she is convinced the Lord will use to bring change to the city.

 This book was very touching and will change the way you view the less privilege. This book showed me what it really means to help the less privileged. Helping the "least of these" is more than visiting them as a group to feed them and "share the Word" with them. Truly caring for the under privilege is getting to know them and being involved and truly concerned about their lives. This book has really changed my life.

My favorite part of the book was when Ron asked Denver he could be his friend. Here is how Denver responds (very profound):

 "I heard that when white folks go fishin they do somethin called `catch and release.'" Catch and release? I nodded solemnly, suddenly nervous and curious at the same time.

 "That really bothers me," Denver went on. "I just can't figure it out. 'Cause when colored folks go fishin, we really proud of what we catch, and we take it and show it off to everybody that'll look. Then we eat what we catch . . . in other words, we use it to sustainus. So it really bothers me that white folks would go to all that trouble to catch a fish, then when they done caught it, just throw it back in the water." He paused again, and the silence between us stretched a full minute.

Then: "Did you hear what I said?" I nodded, afraid to speak, afraid to offend. Denver looked away, searching the blue autumn sky, then locked onto me again with that drill-bit stare.

"So, Mr. Ron, it occurred to me: If you is fishin for a friend you just gon' catch and release, then I ain't got no desire to be your friend."

 This book will challenge any Christian to seek the Lord more and also to love as we have been commanded to. Debbie was a true woman of God who was willing to serve the Lord where ever He took her. This book deals with heart breaking tragedy (the death in the book really affected me), prejudice, crisis of faith, forgiveness and authentic Christian love.

While I love the portrayal of Christ's love in the book, there were some troubling theology present. Like someone having a "visitation" from a dead person. Scripture does not teach that the dead can "visit" with the living. Having said that, this does not in any way take away from the greatness of the book.

 I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is 17 and older.