Book Review Part 1
Tuesday, May. 07, 2002 - 9:48 p.m.
Dearie Diary,
Today I shall write about a book that I am reading at the moment. I borrowed the book last sunday (28 April). The title of the book is "The Power of Prayful Living" by Doug Hill.
The reason I borrow this thick book (it has 560 pages!) is the 'depth' of the book. It cover a wide range of topics. The content page shows that the book is grouped into 11 parts.
Part 1 The Fundamentals of Prayers
Part 2 Your Love Life
Part 3 Parents for Life
Part 4 Your Mature Life
Part 5 Your Family Life
Part 6 Friendship for Life
Part 7 Your Working Life
Part 8 Your Financial Life
Part 9 Your Home Life
Part 10 Your Emotional Life and finally
Part 11 Your Faith Life
See... Doesn't it cover a wide range of topics? Though I must admit that some of the topics are not relevant to me now, but I still decide to borrow it.
So I read part 1 and it was good! One of the topics included is about unanswered prayers. I learnt that ALL PRAYERS ARE ANSWERED, just not as we might wish... and that GOD TAKES ALL OUR REQUEST SERIOUSLY and responds by renewing our relationship with Him. We get a deeper relationship with God and a new understanding of ourselves... We may not get what we want, BUT we GET WHAT WE NEED! Well, this will be something I will remember the next time if next time my prayers seemed unanswered.
I continue to read the next part "Your Love Life". After reading it for a while I decide to stop this part first. Well I never got into a boy-girl relationship before so it seems a bit irrelevant for now. I think I will read it after I read the rest of the more relevant ones.
Part 3 is about parenting while part 4 is about retirement... Since I am not married and not that old yet, I shall not read them first. Nonetheless, I think I will read these last. I read them so that I can see myself in the shoes of my married or old friends. The issue addressed are really good. For parenting it deals from the stage of pregnancy to the birth to the toddler stage to the rebellious teens stage to even the death of the child. For retirement it deal with how to cope with physical restruction, chronic illness, death of partner, terminal illness etc. I hope that after read this 2 parts, I will be more sensitive towards the elderly and be able to know how to bring comfort to them.
Part 5 is about family. It is a very short part. I decide to come back to it later as my family life seem good to me. Except the fact that my parents still do not really approve (not strongly object though) me converting to Christian. And also my relatives who are very devoted buddhist. Part 6 friends... very relevant. So I start reading it.
When I was reading it, I realised that I had been neglecting many of my friends since I started working. I spend less time meeting up with friends, catching up with friends etc... So after reading about 3 pages of this part I call up this friend of mine and arrange to meet her up tomorrow.
In this part of the book, the following quote was included: "When I am feeling self-pity, God, help me to see beyond myself. When I am feeling despair, restore me to hope. When I shut people out, help me to believe in the healing power of companship. Remind me that I am not alone, that I am in needed, that I am heard, and that You are with me, now and always. Amen. --Rabbi Naomi Levy" I hope that this will remind and help me to value friendship...
I decided that I will read part 11... about my faith life after reading the friend part. I wander why is it that the author put it as the last part when I feel that it is very important in our life. Nonetheless, the topic addressed are very good. The topic on "Building Your Faith Life" and "Coping with Sin" attact me most.
I guess I shall stop here. I really hope that I will have time to write in this diary after I read the rest of the parts. I hope to pen in my thoughts after reading this book so that I can remember the issues addressed in this book.
To people who read this entry I hope some of the quote will touch your heart.
-Shu Ling-
p/s: I think I have quoted quite a lot from this book and I am not sure if I had broke the copyright laws. I hope not. If you think I had, please inform me. Thanks!
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