Why Dinah?

I was intrigued by the story of Dinah in a study on the book of Genesis, led by Dan Brooks of Heritage Bible Church in Taylors, SC. During which, he peeled back the veil which time and a puritanical 'ideal' had settled over the patriarchal family of the Judeo-Christian faith.

I found the tribe of Jacob was as dysfunctional as any contemporary family can lay claim to. I saw myself in Dinah and her relations; I identified with both the love and jealousy felt in Jacob's brood as well as the strife, the self-sufficiency, the secret sins which threatened to destroy them all...and yet didn't.

I recognized, both the healing and the hidden hand of God... first in Dinah's journey, then in my own.

By this, I knew these are not new issues for today, nor are they regulated to be exceptions. This is the state of the American Family in general, and even many Christian American Families. In this same study, I was taken with the realized understanding that I had EVERYTHING in Christ, love, worth, relevance, and a future all by, through and in that One who called Abram out...who calls us out...to be His own. And that it didn't depend on me, was a relief and release that I'd never known before...I wanted to share that, too.

What better way than by telling a story that had so touched and transformed my way of thinking, and based on the whole Word of God.

In writing the tale of Dinah, I learned in awe and gleaned in hope from the God thereof, as the willful, stubborn, proud and arrogant became the instruments of example and wonder at the ever present faithfulness and love of El Shaddai (literally translated, the God who nourishes from his breast), each becoming a testimony of deliverance and fulfillment of promise!

For all the correction, editing and such, I have read my book a hundred times over, and though the paragraphs are nearly memorized, I am always amazed at the power of the will of God to accomplish what he said he would, even as every action by one, and often many more, defies, distains, and even kicks against it. It is not a simple thing called destiny, it is a complex and intricate Design!

And, I fell in love with my Lord as, for the first time, I recognized the God of the Old Testament as my God of the New Covenant, I recognized his provision because of his love, his plan and his faithfulness to all generations...Truly, there is no shadow of turning with the Great, "I AM"!