By Nicole

I just finished reading Ascent from Darkness   by Michael Leehan.  And, well, to be perfectly honest, I was scared to request this book to review.  I have read every Frank Peretti book at least once, and I absolutely love them... but when the spiritual battle is a real story and is so honest and in your face... it is a lot more sobering.  Michael gives us a clear and honest picture of his life as a satanist and his eventual salvation and transformation through the redemptive blood of Christ.  He is unwaveringly honest and gives enough of a vivid retelling to wake you up to the reality of the spiritual battle waging around us.  His writing is a little choppy, but he states at the beginning that he isn't a writer.  He is blunt and to the point, which is how the story needed to be told. I never felt like he was embellishing or trying to glorify the darkness he was serving at anytime.  I read this book in two sittings (since I was on ...

Before I allow myself to get overly rational or lose the element of newness and awe, I have to document, in black and white, one of the most colorful things that has possibly ever happened to me in my life. Just this past weekend, I went with a group of women from my church to our yearly retreat. (I say that like I am a veteran or a pro, even though this was only my second year.) Like a lot of the women who went (I think) I went to the retreat full of bottled up emotion and stress, hoping that in one fell swoop God would rain down love and relief and wash away all my worries, and that I would emerge from the Silverdale Beach Hotel a newly cleansed, refreshed woman of God, all because I paid my $60.00, endured the back seat of a 15 passenger van and made the effort to attend in the first place. The speaker had wonderful energy. Us women had wonderful fellowship. We laughed, we cried, we stayed up late sharing stories and ate Domino's pizza much too late at night. But at the end ...