Wednesday Soliloquy: Count Your Blessings

My friend Heather and I had had a wonderful night at Institute last night. We learned about Abraham and about all the blessings he received because of his exact obedience. He was truly willing to sacrifice everything that he had--even his only son--when the Lord required it of him.

Afterwards, in the car on the drive home, Heather and I talked about how the Lord asks for us to make sacrifices that sometimes don't make sense or aren't at all easy. We shared our own personal experiences with being tested and tried in our lives, and how everyone in the world has different challenges, but we all ultimately are pushed to the breaking point.

In the end, we realized that when we overcame those struggles, we found a new appreciation for our lives and for the little blessings we took for granted before.

I'm not going to write a huge long speech about this, but I invite you to remember past challenges you have had (not a current challenge--one that you actually saw through to the end). When you overcame those trials, how were you changed? Was the world around you any different than it was before?

I just want to invite anyone reading to take a moment and really think back. When we're in the middle of a really hard period of our lives, it's almost impossible to see how it could all work out--how it could make our lives better. But when you look back, it's much clearer to see. And thinking back on the past can make it easier to deal with the present.

And on a completely unrelated note, the earth we live in is awesome. Enjoy my all-time favorite video.

2015 Reading Challenge: I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells

A book set in high school: I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells

Synopsis: 

John Wayne Cleaver is dangerous, and he knows it. 

He’s spent his life doing his best not to live up to his potential.

He’s obsessed with serial killers, but really doesn’t want to become one. So for his own sake, and the safety of those around him, he lives by rigid rules he’s written for himself, practicing normal life as if it were a private religion that could save him from damnation.

Dead bodies are normal to John. He likes them, actually. They don’t demand or expect the empathy he’s unable to offer. Perhaps that’s what gives him the objectivity to recognize that there’s something different about the body the police have just found behind the Wash-n-Dry Laundromat---and to appreciate what that difference means.

Now, for the first time, John has to confront a danger outside himself, a threat he can’t control, a menace to everything and everyone he would love, if only he could.

My rating: 5 out of 5

Sometimes I feel like I'm being a little too liberal with my 5 out of 5s, but this one really deserves it.

I already knew that Dan Wells was a horror writer, and the title alone is a good indicator of how gruesome the book is going to be, but I was still really thrown by just how spooky and unique this book was.

I've read generic horror before--almost everything by Michael Crighton, a few by Dean Koontz, and one by Stephen King--but this was something I'd never seen before: a horror story where the main character and hero is a sociopath with homicidal tendencies.

We all hear and read about sociopaths in the media, but I didn't realize how little I understood sociopathy until I read this book. Dan Wells knows what he's talking about, and it was mind-blowing to see how a character reacts to things when he literally feels no emotional attachment to those around him.

This book wasn't just original and spooky, it was actually very inspiring. It explores the struggle to practice self-discipline and to have decisions determine destiny, not the other way around.

And this is one of those where I was really glad to discover that it's the first of a series. This bookw as so good that I read it in one day, and I can't wait to read the rest of Dan Wells's books now.