Books

2011 has been a reading year for me.

Struggle and angst drove me to reignite the flames of being a book lover, and it has brought me tremendous information, quiet and peace. I have read biographies and novels; devotionals and Bible Studies; secular and nonsecular how to’s that have fed my desire to learn. I have sat on my front porch, or snuggled in bed with my girls as we all turned pages in our chosen pieces of literature.

Reading is a wonder-filled love we can pass on to our children.

One night my (then nine year old) daughter came into my bedroom and asked if she could borrow a highlighter pen. “I am getting ready to read my Bible,” she told us.

I smiled, handed her the pen, and reminded her I loved her. After she walked out I turned to my husband and said, “She gets that from me.”

Finally.

In nearly every other way my daughter delights in being just like her father. She is—to her core—a daddy’s girl…I love that about her, but I continue to pray that I show her (without words) she is first and foremost a DADDY’S girl. She is a precious daughter of the King.

Reading is a valuable part of teaching her that.

There is humility in reading; an acknowledgment that I can learn from some one else’ thoughts and ideas. Reading is challenging as I constantly evaluate if or how I am willing to apply new ideas to my life. Reading can beautiful, heartbreaking and hysterical. Reading allows me to see aspects of myself in third person through concepts or characters on a page. Strengthening those skills through books has brought fresh life to my study of God’s word. I am seeing direct application and new and wonderful ideas in seemingly random scriptures.

I never thought I would get so much out of 1 and 2 Kings, the books I am teaching in Tuesday Night Bible Study. I find myself laughing out loud at how relevant it is. Shocked! The ladies in the class patiently listen as I say over and over again, “Can you believe how that applies directly to today’s culture?”

Solomon said it, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

Books have just given me a new way to look at the nothing new that is under the sun. What a pleasure.