DragonSpell

One Dragon egg holds the key to the future.

Once a slave, Kale is given the unexpected opportunity to become a servant to Paladin. Yet this young girl has much to learn about the differnece between slavery and service.

A Desperate Search Begins...

A small band of Paladin's servants rescue Kale from danger but turn her from her destination: The Hall, where she was to be trained. Feeling afraid and unprepared, Kale embarks on a perilous quest to find the meech dragon egg stolen by the foul Wizard Risto. First, she and her comrades must find Wizard Fenworth. But their journey is threatened when a key member of their party is captured, leaving the remaining companions to find Fenworth, attempt an impossible rescue, and recover the egg whose true value the have not begun to suspect........

DragonSpell is the first book in a series by Donita K. Paul, published in 2004. It tells the beginning of the story of a young o'rant  slave girl, Kale who has a remarkable talent for locating dragon eggs. After this talent is discovered, she is sent to the city of Vandela, in order to use her gift to serve Paladin. On the way there she is attacked by ogres, rescued by a doneel, his dragon, and a female emerlindian, and told not to go to Vandela but to travel with them. And so her adventure begins.

To me, this book seemed a lot like one of Tolkien's works, or Christopher Paolini's. And that's a good thing, considering that those are to of my favorite authors. Most writers these days keep their writing within this world, they just create different versions of it. And that's all well and good, but I personally think that some of the best authors are the ones who take the time to create their own worlds, languages, races, and cultures.

Donita K. Paul has definitely hit my favorites list with this one. The world she weaves is so beautiful, as I read it I felt as if I was in the book. The novel contained some Christianity, which made the book all the more enjoyable for me. I will read it again, and I hope that you will read it to. 

I recieved a copy of this book from Waterbrook Multnomah in exchange for writing a fair and honest review.

Warriors For Jesus Genesis 9:8-11

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, "I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you-the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those who came out of the ark with you-every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth."

Genesis 9:8-11



There came a time after Adam and Eve that people began to forget the teachings of their forefathers, or to choose to ignore them. People began to ignore God, and to turn to themselves and each other seeking to fill, as my youth leader says it, "the God-sized hole" that was in all of their hearts. The majority of the population of the earth chose to serve Lucifer and their own desires rather than to put their faith in the most high God. It was a dark time.

But through that darkness a beacon of light began to shine through. Noah was a Godly man who never forgot what he was taught about the Lord, and taught it to his own sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth and their wives. Even though people mocked him for his faith, Noah stood strong. Even when God told him to build a boat in the middle of the desert bigger than any boat had been built before, Noah listened to his Lord.

He built the boat, he loaded the animals, he got his family inside. And then the door banged shut. They stayed there, just the eight of them caring for hundreds of animals, for forty days while it rained, and then another two-hundred fourteen waiting for the waters to go down. And when they came out, God created the rainbow as a reminder that he had promised to never flood the earth again.

What I'm getting at here is the God made a promise, and when He makes a promise you can be sure he'll keep it. He promised through prophets the coming of His Son, and through his Son he promised us salvation, provided we put our faith in him and give him reign over our lives. It sound like a lot but I think that it is a small price to pay in exchange for eternity with Him.

Prayer: God, you promised us so much and you've kept every promise. Thank you. Thank you for the salvation you've given me, thank you for watching over me as I've gone throughout my life. I love you Lord.

Song: Who Am I by Casting Crowns

Warriors For Jesus Proverbs 3:5-6

And my computer is no longer broken! Yay!

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lena not on your own understanding. In all your ways akknolwdge him and he will make your paths strait.

Proverbs 3:5-6


I see this verse, or at least ones that have similar meaning everywhere in the Bible. Trust in the Lord. Give him your trust. Believe in him.

Do we as Christians truly give him our complete trust? Or at times do we stray from our paths because of our own choices? I think that we all know the answer to that question. At times, yes, we truly give ourselves to the Lord and trust in his will. But more often than not, we give into the temptation and make a choice that turns us from God.

Satan is crafty, and we are only human. One thing that my Youth Leader says everytime she's teaching the Seniors, or the Juniors, or a combination of the youth groups in our church she says this at least once "We are always going to sin because we are born with a sin nature."

Do you know what that means? It means that from the moment we were born, we were condemmend to hell. There's no escaping the life Satan has made for us, in other words, no matter what we are going to sin. We can't stop that, it's going to happen.

The differnce between Christian and non-Christians however, is that we accept and know that we have done wrong, and we beg God to forgive us and try our very hardest to embrace him and hold on to him. We try our very hardest to be worthy of Him, even though we know that we will never come close.

Song for the Day: Jesus Messiah

Prayer for the Day:

Lord, I want to thank you again for the sacrafices that you have made for me and my people. Without you when we die we would go straight to the pits of the earth. We love you Lord, you who are the King of Kings, who have brought us out of the desert. Forgive me in that I have sinned against you, help me to be a better person that I am.

Amen

Warriors for Jesus Luke 23:34

Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing."

Luke 23:34


Wow. Just wow.

Do you get the true magnitude of what he is saying? "Forgive them". He's asking forgiveness for his tormentors, for men who have beaten and starved him, mocked him, and nailed him to a cross. Can you see how totally amazing that is. I don't know about any of you, but I wouldn't be like that if people had nailed me to a cross. I don't see "forgive them" comming out of my lips anytime soon in a situation like that. Do you? I have a feeling that you wouldn't either. For one thing, you'd be mad as heck, for another, you'd probaly be dead. Just thinking about it makes me wince.

And it should make me, you, and everyone wince. Do you really understand just how much pain and humiliation that they made him feel? And to go through all that and just say "Forgive them" shows truly just how much Jesus was willing to give to us so that we could go to paradise. A few passages earlier, Jesus asks God to "Take this cup from me". He didn't want to have to do it.

He knew he was going to be in a lot of pain, and he asked God to take this burden from him, he was scared. We forget that while Jesus was a perfect human, he was just that, human. He had feelings just like we did, he was subjected to temtation just as we are. The only difference between us and Jesus, other then the fact that he was God in the flesh is that while we were both tempted, we have given in to the temptation. And we will continue to give in to it. We were born with a sin nature, and we are never going to lose that until we die.

Do you get it? Here was this human who had done no wrong, God's son, who knew what had to be done, asked His Father to take the burden from him in prayer, and still went to the cross because it was the only way to pay for our sins. He didn't need to do it, he could've refused. But he did it anyway. And then even when he is in emence pain, he begs forgivenness for his tormentors. Forgivenness for men he barely knew who spent the past few days spitting, taunting, beating, pressing thorns into his head, and the grand finale, the took nails and drove them through his hands and feet. And he forgives them.

I hope that someday we all understand the power of God's love and forgivennes completely. Because being able to do that is pretty amazing in my eyes.

Song of the Day: Our God is an Awesome God

Prayer:

Hey God, thanks.

Warriors for Jesus Psalm 119:105

Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.

Psalm 119:105

That's the way it should be. God's word (The Bible) should be a lamp to guide our spiritual lives, and a light for the path of your life.

God tells us to obey authority (Children to parents, parents to government, etc) but what should be first and formost in our lives is to obey his written laws. Many of the laws today go along with the Bible, and for that we should be thankful, but there may come a time, and maybe there are some laws even now that go against God's teachings. I say maybe because I am a teeenager who is still to young to vote so I have no knowledge of the majority of the legal system.

But, for an example, say there was a law that told you to worship an idol ( I know that in some places they've had or have laws like this, take Daniel into consideration.). You know that worshipping idols is wrong and a sin, but say that the consequence was death. Death would be the penealty for disobeying this law. Would you worship the idol to save your own skin? Our would you stay on your feet, stay silent, and stay strong in your faith to God?

The sad thing is is that even now we as Christians are being ridiculed and persecuted for our faith and beliefs. It's hard for the average Christian teen, espeacially because of school and peer pressure. It's hard to be any sort of Christian in a non Chirstian environment. And sometimes it's easier to be like Peter for a moment. Sometimes it's easier to be afraid and give in, denying your faith and your God.

But we shouldn't be like that, we shouldn't be afraid. We have the King of Kings on our side, and no matter who forsakes us in our lives he's always going to be there for us. So even when people make fun of you, for your faith or any other reason stay strong, satnd up, and don't let sin tear you down. Be courageous in your faith, and obey God in everything, even when others think your wrong.


Song for the Day: Courageous by Casting Crowns

Prayer:

Jesus, forgive me of the sins I've done, and for the sins I'm going to do. Help me to obey you in all things, and no matter what happens in my life to put you first. Lord, please help me to be a better Christian, and to walk in you path always. You are worthy, and we give You all the praise. You chose to save us whe You didn't have to, when we are truly worth less than the dirt under your feet. Thank you for loving us so much, God. We love You just as much.