Once Blind

One of my biggest fears as a mother is that one of my children will be kidnapped and be forced into sexual slavery. I know that this kind of slavery, and others, is happening right here in the US, even. And I don't want it to happen to my children.
I don't know what to do about it, though. Other than be the over protective mother that I am accused of being.

Kay Strom’s new release, Once Blind, exposes the atrocities of modern-day slavery by exploring the compelling legacy of John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace. I was afraid to agree to review this book. Because of my own fears I didn't want more nightmares in my head. But I do want to see if Strom had a solution to fighting these problems. However, I remain a chicken. I had my mom read the book first! What I didn't expect was her to absolutely love it! She kept stopping to come tell me some part of the book and how amazing it was. How absolutely horrid John Newton was, just a wretched, wretched beast of a man. She really couldn't put the book down, and couldn't stop talking about it. Now I know that I will have to read it on my own.

Once Blind – The life of John Newton by Kay Marshall Strom

I just read "Once Blind" the story of John Newton, the man who wrote "Amazing Grace". What an awesome book. I absolutely loved it.

I had never given a thought to the author of "Amazing Grace", but now the song has a much deeper meaning for me. I have always found the melody to "Amazing Grace" hauntingly beautiful. I would not have guessed that the melody was patterned after a dirge sang by slaves in the bowels of a slave ship.

The book is very well written and reads more like a novel than a biography. I was totally captivated throughout the entire book. It is truly amazing that our God forgives us no matter how wretched we have been. I kept reading and reading wondering when on earth John Newton would see the light – it took him many years.
It is a story of how John Newton was instrumental in ending the Slave Trade, but to me it was an incredible story of God’s Amazing Grace.
Kay Marshall Strom is an excellent writer and I will be looking for more books by her.

Pauline

Here is a description of the book:

After years of research into the former slave ship captain’s letters, treatises, journals, and church archives, Strom has penned a riveting biographical narrative of Newton, a broken and desperate man whose stirring hymn, “Amazing Grace,” has testified to millions of his transformation from the worst of the worst to a ringing voice for God. His personal accounts of the slave trade and piercing cry for abolition, along with the work of his friend William Wilberforce, helped turn the heart of a nation against the African slave trade to bring it to an end. Once Blind draws readers into Newton’s life in an engaging way few biographies can. Readers are introduced to his troubled childhood, his forced service to the Royal Navy, and God’s pursuit of Newton with relentless love and amazing grace. Newton once told Wilberforce, “There are two things I know in my life. I am a great sinner and Christ is a great savior.”

Strom is convinced her poignant account of John Newton’s fight against slavery two centuries ago is a very relevant call to action for believers today. “Slavers today don’t sail the high seas with chained captives packed into the holds of their ships like in the days of John Newton,” Strom writes. “And they certainly don’t march the slaves out to auction blocks behind the post office and sell them to the highest bidder. Yet when people are owned as property, bought and sold, physically punished for not working hard enough, locked up so they can’t leave, and thrust into deplorable or dehumanizing work conditions, then, whatever they’re called, they are slaves… Never have we needed John Newton’s legacy more than today!”

Unexplainably, most people are completely ignorant of the gruesome details of present-day slavery:
· Forcing a woman or girl into commercial sex, especially one under eighteen, is one of the most common forms of human trafficking today—rampant especially in Eastern Europe, Asia, India, and Nepal.
· Millions of people are enslaved as bonded laborers, especially in India.
· About 218 million children between the ages of five and seventeen are trapped in child labor, according to the International Labor Organization.
· As many as 300,000 child soldiers are presently forced into over thirty areas of conflict/war around the world.
· The U.S. government estimates that between 15,000 and 18,000 domestic and sex workers are trafficked into America each year and then tricked into working for little or no pay.

“Bringing awareness to modern-day slavery is my passion,” states Strom. “I have done extensive traveling and writing and have seen firsthand the individual faces of suffering in India, Sudan, and Nepal. We as Christians have stepped back from ‘doing justice and loving mercy’ like the Bible commands, when we should be in the forefront. As I address audiences across the country about this subject, I am asked again and again why we do not hear about these injustices. I have to answer them honestly. It’s inexcusable.”

Perhaps John Newton’s own explanation is just as applicable today. “The slave trade was always unjustifiable, but inattention and interest prevented for a time the evil from being perceived.” Fortunately, Once Blind deftly lays bare this evil, leaving readers no further defense for apathy and inaction.

You can find Once Blind on Amazon.