My thoughts lately...

While I'm home on maternity leave and spending lots of time sitting on the couch holding the baby and breastfeeding her, I've had more time than usual to read and watch movies. I created a list of books that I wanted to read during this time and I added several movies to the Netflix queue that I wanted to watch. So far I've been able to read several books and watch a couple of movies. I just went to the library yesterday to restock on books...by the way, the list of books is getting longer instead of shorter as I keep finding more books that I want to read.

I started reading the first book in The Mark of the Lion series, A Voice in the Wind, about a week and a half ago. This book is about a Jewish Christian slave girl named Hadassah and the persecution of early Christians. It is one of the books that I have read that I will never forget and often reflect on.

About that same time I started reading Romans during my Bible study time and became interested in Paul's description of himself as a servant of Christ Jesus in verse 1 of the first chapter.

I watched One Night With the King which is about Queen Esther and how she saved her people from death. Then, a few days ago Brent and I watched the movie Lady Jane, which is about Jane Grey being a 16th century Protestant martyr.

Today I finished the 2nd book in the Mark of the Lion series titled An Echo in the Darkness which continues the story of Hadassah. Again - another book that I will not forget and will reflect upon often.

All of these things have collectively had me thinking, mostly during late night breastfeeding sessions, about the meaning of being a servant of God. I've been thinking about the idea of focusing not on what I want in life but what God has for me to do. I've been thinking about the ways that early Christians had to show their faith and the risk that they put upon their mortal bodies by making their beliefs known to others. It's caused me to wonder if I have that kind of faith. It's made me consider my attitude of servanthood. It has made me want to be a better servant and to desire to strive to be more like Hadassah, Paul, Queen Esther, and Jane Grey.

Again, like I've written before, I don't think that things in life happen by chance or luck. I think it was definitely God's work in my life that I've read and watched all these things at about the same time and caused me to really think about this subject.