Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Must Read




I read a lot of books. I would guess that I'm currently in the middle of 3-4 books. I would say that I'm rarely disappointed in a book and that's mainly thanks to Amazon.com and their wonderful reader rating system. If it's anything below 4 stars, I probably won't read it; and, this method has proved to be very successful for me thus far. Case in point... "Same Kind of Different As Me". I purchased a book on Amazon and it came up with the screen, "If you liked this book, you'll probably like these books" type of thing, and this book was one of those listed. Out of 200+ reviews, "SKoDM" was rated 5 stars. I'm already impressed and I haven't even purchased the book yet. So, I did buy it and read it within a couple of days and, I have to say, it was a REALLY good book.

It's a true story and it's narrated from the points of view of the two main characters, Denver and Ron. Denver was, essentially, a slave working a plantation long after slavery was abolished. He ultimately leaves the plantation to find a better life and ends up destitute and homeless, living on the streets of Fort Worth. Ron, on the other hand, was an upper class art dealer living in TX. Their lives intersect when Ron's wife, Deborah decides that they need to do something with their lives and signs them up to serve meals at the Union Gospel Mission in Ft. Worth.

The story is about the impact these two men had on one another's lives and the deep friendship that they formed. It's truely a testament to divine appointments and seeing God use people in the body of Christ. Whether you believe in God or not, you won't be able to help but love this book and fall in love with a man who, by society's standards is uneducated, but whose words are enormously full of wisdom and insight, whose actions are full of love, and whose heart is full of grace and forgiveness.

Just a couple of my favorite 'Denver quotes':

"Whether we is rich or poor or something in between, this earth ain't no final restin' place. So in a way, we is all homeless- just workin' our way toward home."

"Just tell'em I'm a nobody that's trying to tell everybody 'bout a Somebody that can save anybody."

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