Changing My Life through Books, 2011

I am a lover of books, it's true. 

I don't exactly know when or how I learned to read, but I did it myself and when I was very young.  I recall tucking myself into a nook of my room, sometimes under the bed, and reading my sorrows and lonliness away.  You see, I was the daughter of a single-mother at a time when single-motherhood was still shocking.  As a result of the abandonment which left her marked by shame, my mother was a deeply wounded woman by seventeen years of age, and I received the bounty of her pain through emotional neglect.  From as early as I can remember, I spent hours and hours alone in my room and books were often my only friends.

Books nurtured and guided me through many years of murky waters, and I love them for it.

Books continue to nurture me, broadening my mind's horizons and deepening my heart's connection to this world and the next.  There isn't a cranny of my life that a seriously good book cannot touch. 

And so, I read.  Not as often as I once did; I just don't have that kind of time anymore, and, most thankfully, I don't have those deep wells of sorrow anymore--not since Christ.  And I set goals for each year, both spiritually and intellectually, leaving myself room to add just one more recommendation from a friend or something my Lord firmly hands me.  It's my way of actively partnering with my own Author as we together change my life by bits and slivers to look a wee more like His.

Reading Goals for 2011

Age of Opportunity by Paul David Tripp

Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas

Treasures of Encouragement by Sharon W. Betters

The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyun

...by E.M. Forester:

Where Angels Fear to Tread

The Longest Journey

Howards End

A Passage to India

...by Evelyn Waugh

Brideshead Revisited

Men at Arms

Officers and Gentlemen

Unconditional Surrender

TELL ME:  Has a book ever changed your life?  I know ONE continues to change me as I read and reread it ... can you guess?

A Library Book Sale, or How I Got Away with Grand Larceny

Our library recently had a book sale. It has one every three months, and we never miss 'em, youknowwhatimean? Well, if you're on a similar home education path, as outlined by Charlotte Mason, I know you do. And, if you've been on this path for more than a year, you know exactly how the living-book eagle-eye works, too, the eye that can spot a fantastic book from across the aisle and beneath a pile of twaddle entirely based on the type of the print on the binding and the smell of the ink wafting beneath your nostrils; you've an out-of-print card file readily accessible in your frontal lobe, with an alphabetical listing of the finest authors for children, dating before 1950 of course; and you cherish and gather to your bosom those dear-hearts coldly stamped "DISCARDED" like red-headed orphans from the potato famine.

Oh, is that just ME??

Nope.

I'm not alone . . . not anymore.

This fantastic find was caressed and held close by my darling son, who caused a few appreciative although unbelieving eyes to bug when he claimed it at the cashier's table as his very own "First Book Free for Kids!" I'm certain the cashier thought it was I trying to get the high priced, $2 book for free. I'm certain because she asked him, "Is that book for you? Did you pick that out yourself?" And offended I could not be when he looked at her with an enthusiasm that could only swell the heart of a true, blue (although I'd rather be red) bibliophile and replied, "Yes! Last year I found a book of the Brothers Grimm's fairy tales and read them all. Now I'll have a collection."

The cashier's gaze sought mine and I thought I'd give her a li'l wink and a smile. Yep, I'm definitely not alone. Oh, and there was ice cream for dessert that night, youknowwhatimean?