Our daughter Dayna introduced me to a series of books a few years ago that have captured my imagination and tickled my funny bone. The books are literate but not stuffy, Christian but slightly irreverent. They are written from the perspective of a motherless little girl, harassed by her older sisters, fascinated with chemistry (poisons are her specialty), who regularly chooses to wedge her way into murder mysteries. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is the first in a series of ten novels following eleven-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce in post-war England.
The Canadian author Alan Bradley began writing this, his first novel, in 2007 when he was 69. In 1994 Alan Bradley took an early retirement as director of television engineering for a university to begin his writing career. He wrote short stories and articles for magazines and published a couple of non-fiction books. His success came after a little girl he later named Flavia “took over” a story he was trying to write one spring day in 2007. Born in 1938, Mr. Bradley published the tenth book in his series in 2019. According to Variety Magazine, the movie version of The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie starring British actors Martin Freeman (Sherlock) and young Isle Gie (The Sandman) went into production last spring.
“There are choices in life which you are aware, even as you make them, cannot be undone; choices after which, once made, things will never be the same. There is that moment when you can still walk away, but if you do, you will never know what might have been.” –Alan Bradley, The Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust, 2015.
Advertisers want us to choose their products. Our families, friends and co-workers want us to go along with their choices. Politicians want us to choose them. We are faced with choices about everything, in every area of our lives, every day. Some choices are bigger than others. How do you choose? Day by day we decide, or we let someone else decide for us, how we will live today. Proverbs 3:6 declares: In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path. Invite God into your decisions.
Keep healthy. Pray mightily. Enjoy your life today. Choose wisely. And let’s experience the love and power of God together.
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