I recently attended my 25th high school class reunion. I was anxious about it but also excited. I wasn’t really a “popular” kid in high school. I wasn’t un-popular. I just had my friends and we did our thing, more of a bad girl than anything!
My husband encouraged me to talk to those that I wouldn’t normally talk to in high school or that I wasn’t friends with back then. So, I did! It was a really fun time -- took me back several years!
Fast forward two weeks and a few of us girls decided to meet for coffee. I suggested we invite a girl whom I wasn’t friends with in school. She did pom-poms and dated jocks; I smoked cigarettes and listened to Led Zeppelin!
We all began to share about our lives, and then we started talking about high school and the years after. She shared how un-perfect her life was back then, her struggles, her family issues, her own issues. How I had assumed wrong! I had looked at her and thought she had this perfect little life from a perfect little family. She shared that it had been anything but that. As I shared what my life was like during those years and the question was asked, “Sally, what happened, how did you change all of that?” I was able to tell them I had become a born-again Christian, which led her to tell me that she had recently become a Christian as well. I was encouraged and touched by her story.
That old adage “don’t judge a book by its cover” rang so true to me. Not only does time have a way of changing things, but so does Jesus. My reunion ended up being a reminder to not look at the outside of people’s lives, but to look through the junk and into the heart, just like Jesus does.
Sally Hall
Showing posts with label book. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book. Show all posts
Monday, October 4, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
Wrapped in Rain — Book Review
I must read each night as I lay in bed; it helps me unwind. One of my favorite things is to snuggle into my bed with the electric blanket on and read until I just fall asleep. The book gently slips out of my hands and I snooze.
An author I recently stumbled on in Trinity’s library has really caught my attention. I loved the first book I checked out so much that I ordered all his other books from the public library and I’m working my way through them.
The author is Charles Martin. He develops his characters and draws you into them. In three of his books that I’ve read, there is always one character that has wisdom and a fear of God that makes a profound, if not immediate, impact on the main character’s life —done in a humorous, straightforward kind of way. This particular book, Wrapped in Rain, is told through the voice of one man, Tucker. The other characters in the book are his father, his half brother, a neighbor girl and her little boy, and the woman who raised Tucker and his brother — a God fearing woman named Miss Ella. It’s a story about relationships as well as a man struggling with his faith in a God who has been represented as love but also has seemed to turn his back to Tucker’s suffering. In this story there is tragedy, abuse, sadness, humor, love, forgiveness, redemption and healing. What I love about his books are the characters. In Wrapped in Rain I really felt like I got to know the characters in this story. When the book was over, I didn’t want my relationship with the characters to end! Wrapped in Rain is the kind of book you stay up late to finish.
Sally Hall
An author I recently stumbled on in Trinity’s library has really caught my attention. I loved the first book I checked out so much that I ordered all his other books from the public library and I’m working my way through them.
The author is Charles Martin. He develops his characters and draws you into them. In three of his books that I’ve read, there is always one character that has wisdom and a fear of God that makes a profound, if not immediate, impact on the main character’s life —done in a humorous, straightforward kind of way. This particular book, Wrapped in Rain, is told through the voice of one man, Tucker. The other characters in the book are his father, his half brother, a neighbor girl and her little boy, and the woman who raised Tucker and his brother — a God fearing woman named Miss Ella. It’s a story about relationships as well as a man struggling with his faith in a God who has been represented as love but also has seemed to turn his back to Tucker’s suffering. In this story there is tragedy, abuse, sadness, humor, love, forgiveness, redemption and healing. What I love about his books are the characters. In Wrapped in Rain I really felt like I got to know the characters in this story. When the book was over, I didn’t want my relationship with the characters to end! Wrapped in Rain is the kind of book you stay up late to finish.
Sally Hall
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