Mark of the Lion

I am an avid reader, biographies, leadership, church growth, novels and the like. I've come to realize it's the way I relax, unwind, de-stress--whatever you want to call it. Novels are for when I need a rest the most. Escaping from the "real" world for just a few moments into someone else's story. And I absolutely love the fact that I know there will be resolve. By the end of the book the conflicts will be resolved, the guy will get the girl, the ship will be found...whatever is wrong will be fixed. Ha.

That being said, I just finished an incredible series by Francine Rivers called Mark of the Lion. The trilogy is about 1st century Christians and what it took to live out their faith in Rome. I'm not kidding when I say it touched the very core of me. I tend to fly through books because I want to know how the story ends, but with these books there were moments when I just had to stop and process what was going on in the story. Realizing what so many before us have sacrificed so that we could have a relationship with God.

If you haven't read them, I would encourage you to! They are on my list to read again. As I was reading I was constantly asking myself if I had been in that situation would I have been that bold, that unwavering, that steadfast? I'm really not doing them justice here. Still processing. Just go get them! Good stuff.