Esther and delights of reading slowly

Does anybody know who wrote the book of Esther? Because I am reading through it and for the first time noticing how much I LOVE how it is written! There is great description of EVERYTHING and it is such an amazing story! I am loving going through it slowly. We see that Esther, who has been raised by her cousin, is very obedient to him. And in the study I am doing, it brought up the idea that, since she was so used to obeying and being respectful to Mordecai, it carried over to Hegai, who was in charge of her beauty treatments. A neat thought that I had never thought of, that :)

I've also noticed some really funny things about Haman's character. He calls his friends over JUST to brag, and also throws formal pity parties! I'm laughing as I type :D

And here's a nice ditty - Esther knows that food is a good way to open up a request :D The first thing she does is invite the King to TWO dinners before she makes such a great request as to be granted her and her people's life. I'm told by my parents that is is still effective today--and I've used it once or twice myself ;P

Can yall tell I'm having fun studying slowly? ;P

Thoughts on reading through the Bible in 90 days

It was a wild ride! Most days I would start reading in the morning and slowly tackle bits of it through the day and finish it all up at night. There were days when I fell behind, and when you fall behind, it takes a looooooooooooong time to catch back up! :P The best thing about it was that, no matter what passage anybody brought up at church or whenever, I was able to do, "Oh yeah, I just read that" and everything was fresh on my mind. (That being said, it's a lot to have on your mind ;) ) Also, of course, I can now say I read through the Bible in 90 days and that's fun :) Most of the time the reading was fun to do as well, except of course when the days reading is 15 chapters of Numbers :P All this said, here are the bad things about it:

Everything was at the speed of light - no time to think deeply about anything before BANG! You're in the next book of the Bible. And once you start, there's no turning back! It's impossible! Once you have that reading plan in your favorites online it's always there wanting you to come back! Also, with all the reading there is to do, it is oftentimes hard to see it as time with the LORD, as opposed to assigned homework or something of the like. I really had to work hard emotionally to keep my head where it was supposed to be. Toward the end I finally got into a groove of reading half during the day to get it done, and then taking some time on the last half at night for some more study and talking to God. If you're going to take this on, do it this way :)

All things considered, it was a big challenge with not a whole lot to show at the end of it. Though I can't really say this, because who knows? Maybe God trekked me through it because I'll need the experience for...something. Or maybe he cleared out some things in my heart I'm not aware of, or just used it opened a door to make space for something He'll put in my life at some time. So, I shall end with this:

Read through the Bible in 90 days if God tells you to do it :)

Stepping into Jeremiah

Officially 5 days until I finish the Bible!!!! After I finish I plan on doing a study called Beauty and the Pig by Pam Forster, on the subject of Godly beauty. We started it a while back and then moved and never finished it, but it was good from what I remember and I'm excited about it!!! There should be more blog posts as well, since I am not tackling the reading at various times through the day and then getting done at 10pm.

But before then, I must tread the dangerous waters of the book of Jeremiah.

I may have said this before, but Jeremiah is the hardest read in the entire Bible for me. I can't put a finger on why this is, or how to fix it or anything. Not to mention I am surprised that in this 90-day Bible reading plan we are taking almost as long to read through Jeremiah as we did with Psalms. Am I the only one who thinks this way about it? If I'm not, please share your thoughts, and if I am, can somebody give me an idea as to why this would be so that I can fix it?! I don't WANT to dread reading Jeremiah, and there's no blatant reason it should be a hard book, besides the fact that the whole message of it is rather depressing. But not beyond readability, I generally don't mind depressation as long as I know everything ends up all right :)

And a prayer request - most of our kiddos are sick right now, and Jdude's got bronchitis (I'm calling him Bronchiosaurus ;P) and a double ear infection. I've got some sniffles and other weird things and I think everybody's got some symptoms >:Z My cuz has the swine flu too. Pray that flu season passes quickly and without further event!