The Secret Life of Bees

I just closed this book after reading the final page and was compelled to run to my blog to talk about it. What a powerful story. This book was so satisfying and is up there as one of my favorites. If you haven't read it, I HIGHLY suggest it.

Forgiveness. It was mentioned in the book that people would rather die than forgive. Forgiving is a VERY difficult thing to do, but it is also something that we are supposed to do. Matthew 6:14-15 it states For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will will also forgive you: But if ye forgive men not their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. I don't know about you, but I definitely know that there are many things that I've done wrong, and I most definitely hope that one day I will be forgiven for those things. It is hard to forgive, but it's necessary. We're all human, we're not perfect, we make mistakes. Your entire past could be a mistake and full of wrong doing, but you can definitely say your prayers, repent, and try to change your ways. Try to make the best of the rest of your time on earth. It's never too late, and it's not right to make other's suffer that are in need of YOUR forgiveness. While it's easy to just turn your head, and and not forgive those who have done wrong to you, would you want your Heavenly Father to do that to you?

Mothers. This is definitely a book based on mothers. Lily struggles with so much in this book with her mom. Her mom died when she was young and Lily is constantly searching for love. When your mom leaves you or when you die, you are constantly going to be searching for that void inside. Many emotions probably arise from this, and in Lily's case there's a complete love/hate relationship with her dead mom. I know that the way that Lily has been effected by her mom's death can be the same for children who's mom left them behind..... moved on with their life. Selfishness. Those kids will always have a love and hate relationship with the memory of their mother. Yearning for her love and hating her for what she did to them.

Dealing with our problems. Dealing with our emotions. We all have ways in our life that we deal with our problems. Some people write about them, some people try to ignore them, sometimes we turn to our Heavenly Father. In this book there was a wailing wall, where you write it out on a paper and stuff it into the wall of rocks. Whatever is on your mind, you just write it out and stuff it in there and be done with it. I wish that problems could be that easy, but it did make me think of lists. Weird, I know. I thought how when something's bugging me I should just keep a journal with me, and write it there. It's not there to completely forget, but it's a list of things that I need to take care of, either within myself, or something that literally needs to be done. It's not good to keep things boggled up, and if you can write it down and get it off your mind it could help. So, instead of a wailing wall, I think I might incorporate a wailing book into my life. I have issues with dealing with the things that are on my mind, I let things bog me down.

These are the feelings that I felt while reading this. These are the things I would've talked about at our book club had I gone this month. My next book that I will be reading is Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I'm anxious to start it and have read great reviews about it.