denise Leora madre

"This was my heart. Hate could squeeze me, choke me, pierce me…but it could not choke the love from me…it would not. Love had to win." [Munier, Diane (2015-03-28). Finding My Thunder (Kindle Locations 3053-3054). Kindle Edition.] This is the battle cry of Hilly Grunier, narrator and heroine of  Diane Munier's sophomore novel,  Finding My Thunder . As we meet Hilly, dangerous secrets swirl around her, accusations lurking in every hello and how-de-do. B ut Hilly doesn't fear small-town scandal or the speculation about her relationship with the Negro woman living behind her house. She doesn't fear her father's temper or her mother's babbling. Opinions of the faceless town or rudeness at school...none of these trifles make the short list. Hilly Grunier fears one thing and one thing alone: never having a chance with Danny Boyd, the eternal, undisputed champion of her heart. It doesn’t matter that Danny hasn’t spoken to her in years,...

For most of my life, the word “passion” solely evoked glossy romance novel covers, soap opera super-couples, and an innocent 1990  Fred Savage commercial . The line? “My passion for you will never be quenched.”  (So random. So adorable.)     Then in 2004, The Passion of the Christ  forever changed my understanding. Christ’s Passion aptly translated the Greek word “to suffer.” Bookended by triumph and seeming defeat, the six-day journey carries Jesus from palms under a donkey to nails on a cross, all leading to Sunday where Passion becomes redeeming power.   We see in Christ a perfect picture of how one passion informs the other: he suffered because he loved us so much: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) But how does that look for us? What is the connection between our Passion and our passion? And how does it relate to Christ’s Passion, to his re...