About a month ago I was given an open door to join a book club...a moment of panic might have overcome me as I thought of making another "commitment" in my life, in which I feel I have so many as it is...
but this was different..the book is one that has set on my shelf for at least 2yrs, and I would think about it only to put it down and once again claim "I have no time to read"...or "I only have time for textbooks and the Bible"...and this list goes on...
now let me assure you there is no sarcasm that comes in my statement about the Bible, at all, I think that is the place to get your true fulfillment in reading and learning about God and who He is...but I think, I know at least for me, reading has opened a deeper connection between me and God, between me and the Bible..between me and whatever book God brings to me...
will this happen with each book? No I doubt it, it just happened these last two I read were both God-filled and God- Glorified..and both so different and yet the same about the authors personal journeys..ones I could connect with and relate too...
Oh just so curiosity doesn't get the better of you, they were "Made to Crave" and "Same Kind of Different as Me" Both I highly recommend!
Now I have a new book club book and I am excited to dive into it when it arrives, but decided I would start "The Shack"...I have just barely opened the cover, and I can see already it will take me on another intense journey...this one is fiction, and yet the circumstances and situations that surround it are all too real...I am excited and yet a little nervous...
but I believe that God has given me something so valuable through these 2 first books...He has given me so much more through them, but He gave me a taste for reading, something I have desired for years and never could get..I find myself in constant conversation with Him about the books...in fact at book club I don't think I said more than two words about the book, and yet I have such a passion about it that couldn't be expressed...at least outside of my head..
my daughter read "The Same Kind of different as Me" after I was done, and she loved it as well, and still, just couldn't find words to say what it did and meant...
next I went back to "Made to Crave" I had started the first few chapters and I don't think I was ready to finish, until I finished my other book...
I couldn't put it down..I laughed, cried, and talked with God the whole time...as the reality of one of my biggest struggles was put in my face as if God Himself wrote it and was speaking it to me...yes that real..yes that true...and it wasn't JUST the words written in the book, it was God speaking so directly and boldly to me..not audibly..but w/o a single doubt from Him..and I felt the "weight" of my struggle become lighter as He took it from me...let me RE-phrase that...as I let it go finally, for the first time in my life..I let it go and gave it all to Him..knowing that it wouldn't magically get better, and in fact as more realities opened, it would become harder...and yet I now knew..know..that He has them..there is a freedom in this..and for the first time this struggle is not my own..it is not greater than God..it is not above Him...HE is holding it, HE has it...
for those of you who have never heard of this book, I highly recommend "Google" it and learn more..it is a about the struggle with food, with weight...but it is SO SO SO much more...
that bares repeating...
it IS about the struggle of food, weight..but it is SO SO SO much more! I can promise you that!
I can also promise that is you allow it, it will open the door to your heart to allow God to speak to the depths of you, and HIS truths will be revealed like never before...
yes there is a wonderful, talented author who wrote the book, but I can say with certainty, that GOD wrote that book through her..and I have no doubt she would fully agree!
So there is it...my taste for reading has come..something I longed for as I have bought countless books, sat in book stores for HOURS....smelled the inside of books...yes I said smelled...there's something about the inside of a new book..the pages so fresh..and yes I JUST had to stop and smell one...
and then there is almost a "magic" (I use that term loosely) in an old book...that smell of ...well it is almost a smell of history..I feel like I go back with the book, and I am in that place where the book was published so many years before my existence...something I will never get tired of...
and now with my love and passion for books...I have a taste..and it is sweeter than anything I have tasted...it has opened my mind, my heart, my conversations with God...my inner most being to who He created me..and I look forward to this new journey that God has given me...along with so much more....
I pray each of you find your "taste"
"I pray You, O God, that I may be beautiful within" Socrates
"I have found my beautiful" Made to Crave
"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not"
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight." 1 Peter 3:4
Love you All <3
