I worked on reading this book all of November, and finished it last night. I cried at the end. Mattie's story is such a heart warming story, not because he had a terrible disease, but because he let his 'heartsong' shine through it all aspects of his life. This memoir was narrated by his mother, with Larry Lindner writing it out. She said she was always a story teller, not a story writer :)
I think the favorite thing I had about this book, was the humanity in it. I was recently on a trip that had workshops and tables where you could do different things. At one of the tables were different quotes that you could read to find a word that inspired your to write on a card decorated with your fingerprints. The word I chose was 'HUMANITY'. I have noticed that many times that we have a tendency to portray humans and our humanity as a curse. 'I'm only human.'
That's right, you are only human, but you are a human created by GOD. God said you were good. He called humans 'very good'. Being human is not a curse, we might fail sometimes in being human, but that is not the curse. The curse is our fallen, sinful, souls.
And we seem to portray celebrities as selfish, cold hearted people. But in this book, you see a side of them you have never seen, because you never allowed yourself to see it before. Many times I had to pause and just look up at God and say "Thank you for humanity". Humanity is a beautiful thing to treasure and protect, and I believe that is what Mattie knew with his heartsong of peace. The best way to treasure and protect humanity is with peace.
I have added all of Mattie's books of poetry to my 'to-read' list. He was such a beautiful, and talented boy. I highly recommend this book.
I decided not to give a 'clean or not' review for this book. But I would rate Messenger a five out of five just for the joyful message is brings.
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