Annual Books Read List - 2025

 These are the books I read in 2025. As always, being on the list doesn't mean I necessarily endorse a book, just that I read it. Some I commented on, many I didn't.  Here's the list:

January 2025

• Cultural Sanctification: Engaging the World like the Early Church - Stephen O. Presley (NF).
• Holier Than Thou: How God's Holiness Helps Us Trust Him - Jackie Hill Perry (NF).
• Women and God: Hard Questions, Beautiful Truth - Kathleen B. Nielson (NF).

February 2025

• Wind and Truth (The Stormlight Archive, Book #5) - Brandon Sanderson (F). The much anticipated last in this five book series. I enjoyed it, but not as much as the earlier books. I have enjoyed reading Sanderson's wider Cosmere books, but I find I'm growing a little tired of them. This may be my last one, but we will see.
• The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis and J.R R. Tolkien - John Hendrix (NF).  I loved this book! Just really beautifully done. 
• Broken Bayou - Jennifer Moorhead (F).
• Happy Lies: How a Movement You (Probably) Never Heard of Shaped Our Self-Obsessed World - Melissa Dougherty (NF).
• The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife - Anna Johnston (F).
• The Killing Plains - Sherry Rankin (F).  This one was ok.  I enjoyed it enough to finish it, but it followed the formulaic pattern closely enough I had figured out who the murderer was and the motive well before the end. 
• The Storied Life: Christian Writing as Art and Worship - Jared C. Wilson (NF).  One of my favorite books so far this year. This book about writing is so beautifully written, I found myself experiencing "that stab of joy" over and over again as I highlighted and devoured the language. It makes me want to pick up my pen again and start writing.  I had lost my joy for it for a long time, but maybe it's time to try again.

March 2025

• Otherworld - Jared C. Wilson (F).
• You Shall Be as Gods: Pagans, Progressives, and the Rise of the Woke Gnostic Left - Erick Erickson (NF).
• Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (F).
• Till We Have Faces - C.S. Lewis (F).

April 2025

• Revering God: How to Marvel at Your Maker - Thaddeus Williams (NF).
• Gather: Loving Your Church as You Celebrate Christ Together - Tony Merida (NF).
• Still Life (Chief Inspector Gamache Mystery, Book 1) - Louise Penny (F). I enjoyed this and look forward to reading more of the series.
• House of Chains (Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 4) - Steven Erikson (F).

May 2025

• Sunrise on the Reaping - Suzanne Collins (F). Liked this one very much. 
• Theo of Golden - Allen Levi (F). This is one of those books I just needed to sit quietly and let sink in as I read the last sentence. Absolutely beautiful.  My favorite fiction book I've read so far this year, maybe in a long time.  I kept thinking my mother would have liked this book I think. Beauty, kindness, love, joy, sorrow, such an encouragement to truly see people as image bearers of God and be kind and generous and gentle with everyone we meet, and while the story is beautiful, the book is beautifully written, as well.  I loved this treasure so much.  
• Sighing on Sunday: 40 Meditations for When Church Hurts - Megan Hill (NF).
• My Friends - Fredrik Backman (F). This newest book from one of my favorite authors did not disappoint.  I've liked every one of his books that I've read, and this one was every bit as beautiful, heartbreaking, and satisfying as the others.  
• My Brilliant Friend (L'amica geniale #1) - Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (Translator) (F). I enjoyed this and am looking forward to reading the next book in the series. I found this through my daughter, who is taking Italian at college, and glad I was introduced to this book. 
• Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection - Charles Duhigg (F). Some of this book I really liked very much and appreciate much of what is discussed.  Very helpful, I thought.  Some blind spots I didn't appreciate as much in the final chapter, but too involved to discuss in a brief mention here. Overall, quite a helpful book and I would recommend it. 

June 2025

• The Three-Body Problem - Liu Cixin, Translated by Ken Liu (F). One of the weirder, more disturbing books I've read. It was very interesting, and well-written, but I don't think I am feeling it enough to go on with the rest of the series. I'll leave that decision open for now, but as I finish, I'm not so sure I want to read on.
• Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow - Gabrielle Zevin (F).
• Big Dumb Eyes: Stories From a Simpler Mind - Nate Bargatze (NF).
• The Story of a New Name (L'amica geniale #2) - Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (Translator) (F).
• Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again - Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson (NF). 

July 2025

• The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton (F).
• The Emperor of Gladness - Ocean Vuong (F).
• The Light in Our Eyes: Rediscovering the Love, Beauty, and Freedom of Jesus in an Age of Disillusionment - Nicholas McDonald (NF).

August 2025

• The Character of Christ: The Fruit of the Spirit in the Life of Our Saviour - Jonathan Landry Cruse (NF)
• Midnight Tides (Malazan Book of the Fallen, #5) - Steven Erikson (F).
• The Lost Bookshop - Evie Woods (F).

September 2025

• Reckoning Hour - Peter O'Mahoney (F). Meh.  This very much needed tighter editing.  Grammar issues drove me nuts, making me want to throw my Kindle across the room at times.  Example: ...."shook hands with Bruce and I."  Would you say "He shook hands with I?" No, you would say, "with me," therefore, should be "Bruce and me."  This was not a one off in this book.  At least it was a consistent error.  The story was ok, but I can't say I'll remember it, and it was quite predictable, and the characters were not people I cared much about. Also, the preachy social justice type comments felt forced and came out of the blue from a character that prior to the comments did not seem at all the type of person to say them.  It really just felt like they were added because it needed to be there somehow, and it didn't feel like a natural conversation. And the main character grew up in Beaufort then moved away up north and was coming home, yet throughout was treated as if he were the big city guy who had no understanding of life in the south.  Just didn't sit right with me. So, it was ok enough to finish, but not a recommended read. Also took me way too long to finish because of how I wasn't loving it. 
• The Scandal of a Divine Messiah: A Response to Maimonidean and Kabbalistic Challenges to the Incarnation - Brian J. Crawford (NF).

October 2025

• Wild Dark Shore - Charlotte McConaghy (F).
• Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers - Dane C. Ortlund (NF). I loved this.
• The Impossible Fortune (The Thursday Murder Club, #5) - Richard Osman (F).  I enjoy this series.
• Attack of the Deranged Mutant Killer Monster Snow Goons: A Calvin and Hobbes Collection - Bill Watterson (F).  Ok, it is a little, no, a lot, goofy to add this to my reading list, but there is a reason to my madness. My Kindle app has quarterly challenges, and one of the mystery accomplishments for this quarter was to read a Kindle graphic novel.  I am not a graphic novel loving person, and literally, I am not kidding, the only listing on the book browser it gave me that I felt any desire whatsoever to read was this one, so I thought why not. I love Calvin and Hobbes and this was a nice reminder how much I used to enjoy these cartoons.  However, I did NOT enjoy reading them on the Kindle.  Some things just need the paper book. I just might go and dig up my old Calvin and Hobbes books and read some more for fun, but I won't be listing them on my book list again. I only list this one because, since it was on my Kindle, it automatically got added to my Goodreads and to my Kindle reading challenge.  Now I have to go at least one over on my goal because, while Kindle and Goodreads are counting this one as a book read, I am not. Different kind of reading. Not bad, totally worth reading, but not what I consider counting towards a reading goal. Anyway, I am well on track for this year's goal, so it doesn't matter anyway. 
• Tuck Everlasting - Natalie Babbitt (F).
• The Lord of Psalm 23: Jesus Our Shepherd, Companion, and Host - David Gibson (NF).  I loved this book.  Beautiful teaching on the riches of this Psalm and it has given me so much to meditate on this week.  Highly recommend. 
• The Peacemaker - Ken Sande (NF).

November 2025

• Blessed: Experiencing the Promise of the Book of Revelation - Nancy Guthrie (NF). Love this!!

December 2025

• The Widow - John Grisham (F). Typical Grisham, and I enjoyed it.

My 2024 Reading List

As is my annual habit, here is my reading list from 2024. Looks like I was a little lazier this year about writing much about the books - some years I share my impressions more than I did this year, but as I always caution, just because I read it doesn't necessarily mean I recommend it.  If you want to know what I think about any of these, feel free to ask. 

January 2024

• The Kingdom, The Power, and The Glory: American Evangelicals in an Age of Extremism - Tim Alberta (NF)
• Before We Were Yours - Lisa Wingate (F).
• None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God - Matthew Barrett (NF).
• Promise of Blood (The Powder Mage Trilogy, Book 1) - Brian McClellan (F).

February 2024

• All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr (F). My daughter was reading this for school and wanted me to read it, too, so I did.  I have seen this recommended in various places, but wasn't really all that interested in yet another WWII historical fiction.  Wow. I would have missed out for sure. It was not at all what I expected and I'm glad I read it, and I've really been enjoying discussing it with my daughter. This was a beautiful book and I loved it, but it did leave me feeling a little melancholy at the end, sort of a bittersweet feeling, so be warned if you want to read it - the ending is very satisfying, but not necessarily "happy," which is true to life, especially in war time. 
• The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly (F). While I mostly liked this book and appreciated the themes examined through the story and the growth arc of the main character, even finding myself tearing up at the final chapter, I don't think it's one I would recommend. It is marketed for ages 11+, and I definitely wouldn't have given it to any of mine at that age, especially not my youngest.  There are several scary elements and disturbing body horror type things that would have really disturbed her at that age. Also, I have a feeling an adult would better be able to appreciate the layers and deeper exploration of loss that permeates it than a child might. Just because a book is about a child of the middle grade age doesn't necessarily mean the book is best suited for a reader of the same age. 
• The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store - James McBride (F).
• The Midnight Library - Matt Haig (F).
• The Deconstruction of Christianity: What it is, Why it's Destructive, and How to Respond - Alisa Childers, Tim Barrett (NF).

March 2024

• The Crimson Campaign (The Powder Mage Trilogy, Book 2) - Brian McClellan (F).
• The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains - Nicholas Carr (NF). One of the most disturbing things I've read - maybe ever.  This depressed me a bit. I have another book addressing this topic from a Christian focus waiting on my Kindle that I will be reading soon which my pastor recommended to me after seeing I had read this one and how it had affected me.  
• The Autumn Republic (The Powder Mage Trilogy, Book 3) - Brian McClellan (F).
• The Unquenchable Flame: Discovering the Heart of the Reformation - Michael Reeves (NF).
• Forsworn: A Powder Mage Novella - Brian McClellan (F).

April 2024

• Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age - Samuel D. James (NF).  My pastor recommended this book to me after he saw how disturbed I was after reading The Shallows. It was a perfect recommendation.  Though I still have many of the same concerns I had after reading the first book, this was encouraging, while still sounding a much needed wake up call.  As I said in my post on Facebook about the other book, we Christians are not thinking deeply enough about how the internet is affecting our brains and how we process knowledge and the world around us. We are embodied people, and we need to experience the world as embodied people, with other people, and the internet is a disembodied space, and we need to be careful in this age we are living in. I appreciated this book very much.
• Servant of the Crown: A Powder Mage Novella - Brian McClellan (F).
• Seasons of Sorrow: The Pain of Loss and the Comfort of God - Tim Challies (F).  This book is a treasure.  It has cost Tim Challies greatly, but I believe God will use these words to comfort many. Though not long, this is not a book one can sit and read through all at once.  My own copy is drenched in tears, as I read Tim's honest, often raw, but deeply faith-filled and Christ-honoring labor through the first year of grief following the loss of his son. Many of the hard and anguished questions he is honest enough to leave on the pages are questions I, too, have found myself struggling through and wondering as I work through the grief of my mom's passing, and I am extremely thankful for his willingness to honestly pen them and publish them, as it has helped me to realize I am not alone in the questioning, and not alone in thinking them, and I don't have to feel guilty about them, either, as long as I ultimately entrust them to my loving, all-wise, compassionate Savior. I am sure many people have the same questions and wonderings this side of Heaven. It was not an easy read, but it was a deeply meaningful and worthy read. The theology and deep trust and love for Jesus underpinning his wrestling is something we must all come to grips with now, so that when we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and when we are so broken with grief that we almost cannot breathe and it is almost impossible to see, we can most certainly rest in the Shepherd we know and love, and who so greatly loves His own. I highly recommend it. 
• The Book That Wouldn't Burn - Mark Lawrence (F).

May 2024

• Wimpy, Weak, and Woke: How Truth Can Save America From Utopian Destruction - John L. Cooper (NF).
• Murder at the Kinnen Hotel: A Powder Mage Novella - Brian McClellan (F).
• Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries - Heather Fawcett (F).
• The River We Remember - William Kent Krueger (F).

June 2024

• Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness - Carrie Sheffield (NF).
• In the Field Marshal's Shadow - Brian McClellan (F).
• The Christian in Complete Armour: Volume 1 - William Gurnall (F).
• Ghosts of the Tristan Basin - Brian McClellan (F).
• A Trial of Innocents - Michael Swiger (F).

July 2024

• The Skeletons in God's Closet: the Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgment, the Hope of Holy War - Joshua Ryan Butler (NF). I wanted to really like this book.  I found much that was compelling and worth pondering, but I also found some parts that make me uncomfortable recommending it to others. Where it is good, it is quite good, but there are enough points that I felt were a little confusing or questionable, or at the least not clear enough, that, again, I can't recommend it. And as I was reading, in the back of my mind I kept thinking I recognized the author's name and it seemed like it was something concerning, so I looked him up and was reminded of a controversy I had read about over a more recent book he had written, and for that reason I can't recommend him without caution. This review from Trevin Wax spells out what some of my discomfort with this book was very well, better than I can state it. I agree with the points of caveat and concern Trevin notes in this review, and his take on the whole matches my take away as well. So, while there are things I found helpful, I would recommend discernment in reading this one. Interacting with Joshua Ryan Butler's "Skeletons in God's Closet" (thegospelcoalition.org)
• The Siege of Tilpur - Brian McClellan (F).
• The Mad Lancers - Brian McClellan (F).

August 2024

• Gardens of the Moon (Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 1) - Steven Erikson (F).
• Ask Not: The Kennedy's and the Women They Destroyed - Maureen Callahan (NF).
• Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda - Megan Basham (NF). 
• Doing Life With Your Adult Children: Keep Your Mouth Shut and the Welcome Mat Out - Jim Burns (NF)
• 100 Proofs That Jesus is God - Curt Daniel (NF)

September 2024

• FAST: 10 Easy Steps to Success with Intermittent Fasting for Women Over 50: Lose Stubborn Belly Fat, Balance Hormones, Regain Mental Clarity and Finally Feel Like yourself Again - Heather E. Carson (NF).
• Misled: 7 Lies That Distort the Gospel - Allen Parr (NF).
• Deadhouse Gates (Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 2) - Steven Erikson (F).

October 2024

• The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World - Christine Rosen (NF).
• Recovering from Losses in Life - H. Norman Wright  (NF).
• What it Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always Reforming Church - Gavin Ortlund (NF).
• We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, Book 1) - Richard Osman (F).
• God's Big Picture: Tracing the Storyline of the Bible - Vaughan Roberts (NF).
• The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness - Jonathan Haidt (NF).
• The Reckoning - John Grisham (F).

November 2024

• Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years of Lockheed - Ben R. Rich (NF).
• The Answer is No - Fredrik Backman (F).
• Pilgrim Prayers: Devotional Poems That Awaken Your Heart to the Goodness, Greatness, and Glory of God - Tim Challies (NF). I feel kind of funny including this in my reading list, as it is not a read-straight-through kind of book, but it is so good I wanted to go ahead and include it so I could remember and talk about it here. I love the format of this book as a daily devotional that includes poem prayers to spark my own prayer for the morning. It really is a beautiful little treasure of a book, and I'll be using it in my daily quiet time routinely from here on out. 
• Sowable Word: Helping Ordinary People Learn to Lead Bible Studies - Peter Krol (NF)

December 2024

• Memories of Ice (Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 3) - Steven Erikson (F).
• I Cheerfully Refuse - Leif Enger (F).
• Recapturing the Glory of Christmas: A 25-Day Advent Devotional - R. Albert Mohler, Jr. (NF)
• The Rise of BlueAnon: How the Democrats Became a Party of Conspiracy Theorists - David Harsanyi (NF)
• The Best Christmas Pageant Ever - Barbara Robinson (F). One of my favorites to read at Christmas!

My Bible Reading Plan for 2025

 It's that time of year again when I decide what I will use as a plan for daily Bible reading for the coming year.  Back in 2003, we had just moved to Indiana and my husband was on a year-long deployment overseas. As a lonely young mom effectively functioning as a single mom in a new state that year, when our pastor challenged us if we had never read the Bible through in a year, maybe this was the year to do it, I decided that was exactly what I needed. And for the past more than 20 years since, I've made it a practice to do just that, some plans were heavier on the amount of daily reading than others, but always including at least one time through the Bible in a year. This is a practice I strongly encourage. Too often we read the Bible out of context and those favorite verses we love just may not mean what you think they mean if you take the time to read what they are actually saying. Any Bible reading plan needs to take context seriously, not just a verse here and there. Maybe you won't read the whole Bible all the way through every year, but everyone ought to take the opportunity to read it all the way through at least once, so you can grasp the whole arc of the scripture in context. It really is edifying. 

Another practice I gleaned from encouragement from another pastor is to read the Proverbs every day.  There are 31 chapters in Proverbs, so it works out nicely to read through the book each month, taking a chapter a day. That practice I'll continue this year, as I've found it very edifying and it is neat how the wisdom in Proverbs begins to filter into how you think through life's situations when you're spending every day reading through it. 

This year, however, I think I am going to change things up a bit.  I've noticed the past couple of years that the amount of chapters I had set to read each day were sometimes challenging, and it was becoming more that some days felt more like kind of a 'check the box burden' feeling, and I'd find my mind drifting and realize I hadn't really taken in what I'd read rather than really digging in and every day pondering what I was reading and digesting it well.  Some days were better than others, but overall, I think I've suffered a bit in deeper devotions and study. Also, I found that reading ahead for the various group Bible study opportunities I have during the week was suffering. I need to change things up this year and I'm hoping for a deeper devotional time for it. 

So, all that said, here is what I plan for my own personal daily reading this year. 

Every day (Sunday-Saturday): Read through the Psalms and Proverbs, repeating as often as the year allows. 

Monday: Read and think over the passage we will be studying in our Wednesday morning women's study. 

Tuesday: Read and think over the passage we will be studying in our Wednesday evening study.

Wednesday: Read the Wednesday am passage again and prepare for the morning.

Thursday: Read and think over the passage for our Sunday school lesson.

Friday: Read and think over the Sunday school passage again and the passage for the Sunday morning sermon if we know it.

Every day: Work on scripture memory. (I've been stuck on Colossians 1 for way too long now)

I'm looking forward to this new plan for the coming year. It will be different for me, and I have a feeling it will feel really weird not to be starting over in Genesis on January 1, but I'm looking forward to being better prepared for the group discussions and to learning more for myself as well. 

May I encourage you, too, whatever plan you might choose, to spend some good time in Bible reading and prayer each day? It is a gift of God's grace that we have these means to draw near to Him.

Thoughts on Unplugging, Touching Grass, and a Book Recommendation

 I’ve been reading The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World, by Christine Rosen. Well-written, disturbing, and something I know social scientists are beginning to think and warn about, but I’m afraid not enough of us are concerned enough about this topic.  We’re all feeling it, to some extent, I think – this anxiety, loneliness, and loss of real community and connection with real, live, embodied people as our culture becomes more and more reliant on mediated communication and technology that is making our world more virtual and less “in real life” and “in person” than we’ve ever been.

For all the conveniences and good that we truly do see in our smart phones and other technologies, I fear we are losing some things that should not be lost. I think the problem lies in the fact that far too often we move from using these technologies as a helpful tool to using them as a way of life. There is the addictive quality of the online life that I’m finding disturbing. The irony that I’m hashing out these thoughts and sharing them on my social media platforms is not lost on me.

The problem I’m seeing is that these mediated ways of staying in touch just don’t deliver what we hoped they would, but our addiction to them and our alienation from each other continues to grow. Communicating via Zoom or screen or text just isn’t the same and doesn’t fill us with joy the same as being there in the flesh over a cup of coffee or around a meeting table or in a classroom or sitting in the church pew in person. We are losing the ability to read other people’s emotions. The chapter in the book on that topic actually scared me. The author talks about apps that are being developed that use AI to determine how someone you’re interacting with is feeling based on what the AI determines from all the aggregated data it mines about them, etc. She also makes a compelling argument tying some of the trend we are seeing in an uptick in aggressive, even deadly, road rage incidents, to a generalized loss of ability to be patient combined with a loss of empathy in our culture. It is complicated, but think about it. We spend so much time in our personalized worlds, staring at our various screens, communicating in a mediated way through our screens, with our apps and whatnots carefully mining our data and feeding us what the AI determines we want based on our scrolling and too many other data points to even go into, and we demand faster and faster responses and have less and less patience with slow-loading webpages, and then when we venture out into the real world, we want everything there to react the same way. We become the center of our carefully mediated universes and we have little patience for anyone who may inadvertently get in the way of our instant gratification and what we think we deserve. Somehow, we are becoming more irritable and less able to assume the best of others. Not to mention plain old distracted driving. Too many of us can’t exercise the self-control to wait to look at our phones until we are no longer driving. We can’t be alone with our thoughts even for the few minutes we may be stuck at a traffic light.

The chapter on how we wait spoke to me as well. We aren’t able to sit quietly and just think anymore.  Any empty space must be filled with distractions or we feel we are wasting time. I recently complained about people who sit in a waiting room and rudely listen to loud videos on their cell phones. We’re so self-focused we don’t even care that there are people around us who may not want to hear our loud conversation or video. Again, I think we’re becoming conditioned to live in a little personalized bubble that caters to our every desire that our vision is becoming more and more tunneled inward. How often do we look up and away from our screens and truly interact with strangers in these situations anymore? Are we losing the ability to talk to real people we encounter in daily life? How often have you tried to talk to someone and they have one earbud in, even while they sort of talk to you? How can you truly give attention to someone if you’re only half listening? It’s rude, yet I see it all the time. So much of our creativity comes when we are a little bit bored and allow our minds to wander and just sit with our thoughts. But more and more, we spend less and less time doing that. We almost fear boredom these days.

There is so much to think about after reading this book and I have truly not done justice in my rambling here.  I know this.  I’m not sure this post even makes much sense, but what I hope anyone who has followed my rambling to this point takes away is – read this book.  PLEASE.  I confess that as I was reading I felt discouraged because the thought came to me, those who really need to read this, the people who are in danger of being that impatient road rager, for example, will never read this book or even think about what our distracted, virtual addictions are doing to us. Because people don’t read anymore. It’s too long, takes up too much energy, doesn’t feed the dopamine hit that the next round of the game on the phone or stupid video or scroll through the social media feed delivers. But we really, truly need to be thinking much harder about what this all is doing to us as human beings. We really, truly need to think about how much we need real, face-to-face friendships and fellowship.

A few small things I’m thinking about changing in response to reading this book are, for one thing, I’ve decided the leave my earphones at home when I go out for a walk. I did that today and it was a vastly different experience, one I quite enjoyed. Listening to the birds, hearing the oh-so-satisfying crunch of the acorns as I felt them under my shoes, even hearing my shoes on the pavement as I walked and enjoyed the peace of the quiet around me was profoundly satisfying in a way my walks haven’t been when I’ve taken them plugged up with my podcasts.  I enjoy those podcasts, but I’m changing up how I listen to them. I need more quiet and undistracted time built into my day. I’m also setting aside time to work again on memorizing scripture.  Taking the time to burrow down and really focus on it. And I’m also making a point to handwrite in my journal – spending the time it takes to get into the flow of writing. That was another insight the author shared – how writing with our hands is a different kind of processing than typing, and it’s another thing we’re losing as a culture  – and she’s right.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog post in this space, and this one has ended up being longer than I intended. It’s a little rambly, but it’s all things I wanted to say. I’m a bit rusty, though, and I think my thoughts probably aren’t as fleshed out and clear as I would like them to be. Maybe I need to start blogging again and sharpen up those thinking skills.

Before I go, though this post is already too impossibly long, I wanted to share something that came to mind while reading this book. There is a song that has become popular in the marching band world, and rightly so because it’s a beautiful piece of music. I was reminded of it while reading because the lyrics deal with our discomfort and yet also our eerie draw to the lure of the ubiquitous nature of our virtual technology and datamining social media. The song is “The Hymn of Acxiom” by Vienna Teng. 

To get the full picture I want to share, listen to this adaptation first, which is the marching band version of just the music.

 

Now, read the lyrics by Vienna Teng:

somebody hears you. you know that. you know that.

somebody hears you. you know that inside.

someone is learning the colors of all your moods, to

(say just the right thing and) show that you’re understood.

here you’re known.

 

leave your life open. you don’t have. you don’t have to.

leave your life open. you don’t have to hide.

someone is gathering every crumb you drop, these

(mindless decisions and) moments you long forgot.

keep them all.

 

let our formulas find your soul.

we’ll divine your artesian source (in your mind),

marshal feed and force (our machines will)

to design you a perfect love—

or (better still) a perfect lust.

o how glorious, glorious: a brand new need is born.

 

now we possess you. you’ll own that. you’ll own that.

now we possess you. you’ll own that in time.

now we will build you an endlessly upward world,

(reach in your pocket) embrace you for all you’re worth.

 

is that wrong?

isn’t this what you want?

amen

 

Now listen and watch this video of it being sung:

I think this song brilliantly captures how conflicted I feel about smart technology and social media and how dependent we are on it now. There is the beauty of how useful our media is as a tool for keeping in touch with people, sharing and finding information quickly, yet there are also quite disturbing costs we are only beginning to scratch the surface of coming to terms with, the disturbing ways it is actually changing us and our culture. I hope you can see a bit of the horror I’m beginning to feel with how commodified we, ourselves are becoming. You know the saying – nothing is free. If what they’re offering is free, if there is no “product,” YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. Every smart device we use, every webpage we visit, every social media post we make, every game we play, every video we watch, we are giving them more of ourselves to market and buy. We’ve opened a kind of Pandora’s box, and I don’t think we can go back, but I do hope we can be much, much more mindful and careful and aware of how much it could control us and become a dangerous idol to us. Let’s start thinking about using what good we can as a tool, but dropping it as a way of life. Look up, look out, engage with other embodied human beings face-to-face, with phones put away. Spend time touching grass and taking in all the sensory experiences of touch, sight, smell – see the beauty through your eyes apart from the mediation of a screen. Enjoy something beautiful for the sake of the beautiful, not for the sake of the social media post you could make. Try enjoying a fun experience without posting about it, at least some of the time, let your memory of an event be just that, a beautiful memory without a social media post to go with it.

Think about it.  And go read Christine Rosen’s book, The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World. My thoughts about it may have rambled too much in this post, hers do not. She brings clarity and a needed warning I hope more people will hear.

Book Recommendation: The Christian in Complete Armour

 I am so thankful for pastors who read and recommend good books. Our pastor in Virginia used to recommend a book almost every Sunday night, and if Pastor Jesse recommended it, I didn't even need to question it, I was almost sure to like it or want to read it. I read and really enjoyed a lot of books I never would have encountered had I not known his recommendations for them. 

Well, our pastor here in Texas also has a habit of reading and recommending good books.  Again, if Pastor Josh recommends a book, I am almost always sure I want to read it. This summer he has recommended we read The Christian in Complete Armour, Volume 1 by William Gurnall for a church book club at the end of this month.

I don’t know why I do always do this, but whenever I think about reading a Puritan author, my first thought is that it will be difficult, dense reading, so that’s what I was afraid of when I took up this book to start it. But, just like with The Valley of Vision prayers, I was pleasantly surprised that reading this Puritan felt extremely current and relevant. The Puritans are NOT dry and dusty. They are NOT the dour, legalistic, unlikable, uncharitable people you were mistakenly led to believe they were in your high school history and English classes. They were real, joyful, lively Christians who wrote about the real Christian life, and this book was so extremely timely as I read it (and just finished it today). How encouraging it is to read from believers who lived a long time ago, but who experienced the same Christian life and loved, worshiped, and followed the same Jesus that we do today. Sure we have technologies and lifestyles and things that on the surface seem very different from life back in the 1600’s, but get beyond those surface differences, and people are just people. We have the same heart issues and we aren’t really all that different. Same goes for the people in the Bible. They are real people, not really all that different from us. And we all need the same Savior, who never changes, who loves His people and works with us and in us the same as He does with all of His people.

I’m thinking I am going to take the discussion questions and type out some of my reactions, for the book club, but it’s a little bit daunting, because I think I underlined something or marked up almost every single page of the book. Good thing I finished with some time to spare.  Haha.

All that to say two things:

1.  Read this book.  You will be glad you did. It is so encouraging. The author is practical and compassionately pastoral as he takes the reader through his logical and carefully made arguments for being a watchful, armor-clad Christian who stands firm in the face of temptations and trials. I walk away from it so encouraged that I have a Savior who intercedes for me and who will never let go of me.

2.  If you have a pastor who reads and recommends good books – listen to him and be thankful! If he’s recommending good books, it’s because he cares for your soul and wants to see you grow in the grace and knowledge of your Savior.

A Short Review of a Netflix Disappointment

 My daughter and I both recently finished reading All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, and we both loved it.  She was reading it for school and kept saying I just had to read it, so I did, and we have had some wonderful discussions about it along the way. It is a great book, very beautifully written, heart-wrenching story, and it left us both feeling a bit melancholy at the end. The Pulitzer Prize it won is well-deserved. So, loving it as we did, we thought we'd try watching the miniseries Netflix recently released.

My advice if you loved the book: DO NOT BOTHER with the Netflix travesty. 

My advice if you haven't read the book yet: Read the book, skip the Netflix mess. 

It's too bad, really, because the casting for the miniseries was excellent, but the screenwriting for the adaptation was terrible, in my opinion. I understand that movie adaptations are difficult and they will necessarily have to leave some things out. But this was just quite bad. The book does a wonderful job going back and forth between flashbacks and the present day of the story to let the reader understand the characters and learn important plot reveals slowly and at the appropriate time to make for a beautiful, heartbreaking story. The miniseries changes important plot points and reveals things much too early that you didn't read until well into the book, such that in the miniseries they just don't make any sense without the background build up, and if you hadn't read the book, I'm not sure you'd even know what was going on or why it was all that significant. It just ends up being a confusing mess, and you don't really feel much of anything for the characters, whereas, in the book, you grow to love and understand them. Werner's character is especially flat in the miniseries, and that is just inexcusable. His character growth arc is one of THE major significant points of the book, and by episode 3, I am not seeing ANYTHING about him yet that hints that the show will be getting any better. Granted, we've only made it to episode 3, but I hate it enough that I just don't care. I am done with it. If it hasn't been able to win me over by this point, well, life is just too short to waste any more time on it, in my opinion.

Read the book. It is very much worth the time spent. The miniseries is really just NOT. And that is a shame. 

A Few Thoughts and a Book Recommendation

 

A few weeks ago, my husband gently told me that his boss was having a drop-in open house, and knowing how uncomfortable these things are for me, he said that we didn't need to stay long but he felt we really needed to make an appearance. So, because I love him, I didn't follow my first panicky thought and beg him to go without me and we went, and I tried my best to put on my smile and make small talk with people I've never met before, something I really, really, really am not good at doing. Oh, how thankful I was for the kind woman there, who also didn't know many people at this particular gathering, who, whether she took pity on my discomfort or just saw me as a sympathetic ear, engaged me in conversation and kept that conversation going and seemed to enjoy carrying the burden of the conversation and drawing me in in spite of my own awkwardness.  I told my husband later, nothing makes me feel quite so much like the most boring, dull person on the planet as these kinds of gatherings, where there is no structure and I don't know anyone well enough to not have my mind go completely blank.  I am not good at small talk, no matter how much I try to make myself.  I have to consciously remind myself not to cross my arms in self-protective posture that telegraphs discomfort and to smile and to relax. It is all I can do to not show all that on my face and try to make my brain come up with reasonably chatty things to talk about so I don't come off like a complete ninny. At least that's what the angsty agony feels like inside my head.

So, when I came across the book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain, and I tried to remember where I heard about it and I'm not sure if maybe it was recommended on Goodreads, or a podcast, or where I saw it, but it intrigued me. 

I love this book. I understand myself and my temperament and so many experiences from my past much better after reading it, and I understand my children better, too. We are a family of introverts, to one degree or another - and that is not a bad thing, not a thing that needs to be cured,  contrary to the constant, and I think often unconscious and well-intentioned, messaging our culture subtly throws at us all the time. Managed, probably so when it manifests as social anxiety like I had at that gathering, learn how to appreciate the strengths and shore up the weaknesses, absolutely, but cured and changed and forced to be something we are not (an extrovert) altogether, no. I especially liked the exploration of whether innate temperament is necessarily destiny, and the investigation of how the different temperaments are wired to process new information in terms of sensitivity. I resonated with a lot of that discussion. I won't rewrite it all here, but read the book. It is fascinating. 

In fact, I resonate with a whole lot of what the author explores in this book.  I found myself crying in the last chapter where she discusses "How to Cultivate Quiet Kids in a World That Can't Hear Them," especially in the look at how school is overwhelmingly geared and designed for the more extroverted person and how difficult it is for the introverted to shine under that structure and how often their special and unique strengths are overlooked and overshadowed by their louder, more outgoing peers.  I cried a little for how deeply I resonated with her scenarios from my own experiences,  and a lot for how close to home it hits from things my own children have experienced.  I am still struggling with anger towards  a certain teacher my daughter had last year and how her preference for the popular, more extroverted students led to my quiet, sweet, sensitive, intelligent daughter by the end of the year describing her struggle with the class participation part of that class and through heartbroken tears describing how hard she was trying to perform to the expectations and how demoralized she felt everyday and how she hated to go to that class and telling me she hates a subject that usually is a favorite one for her. Class participation grade was more about personality than about actual contribution, and that was obvious from several examples she shared with me. I found myself wishing I could hand this book to that teacher and plead with her to read it and have compassion and understanding for students like my daughter. In that last chapter, the author gives some practical advice for parents and for educators in how to nurture both temperament types rather than defaulting to the pervasive "Extrovert Ideal" which so defines our culture. This quote, from the thoughts for teachers that she lists, "Don't think of introversion as something that needs to be cured. If an introverted child needs help with social skills, teach her or recommend training outside of class, just as you'd do for a student who needs extra attention in math or reading.  But celebrate these kids for who they are," had me ready to jump out of my seat yelling, "YES!" She shared that the typical comment on report cards is how they wish the student would talk more in class, and that is so frustrating to me.  They always want more, but don't recognize when that introspective, quiet kid is trying to be more, it's never good enough.  You can see this is a sore spot for me. Enough on that from me. I appreciated this chapter very much, and I appreciated that the author's tone is much more positive and helpful than my little almost rant here. 

And the conclusion of the book was beautifully written, also making me cry. Overall, though I may not agree with every single jot and tittle, I resonated with almost all of this book. I highly recommend it.  I really wish everyone who teaches or manages or spends time with people at all would read this and understand that both extroverts AND introverts have beautiful strengths and weakness that are worth cultivating, understanding, and nurturing, not seen as a detriment to be fixed.  We need each other, we need the varied ways of looking at the world. A balance of both temperaments is necessary and we need to be better at understanding each other, learning from each other,  and giving each other space to be. This very positive, well-researched and wonderfully readable book is a gift, and I recommend it. 

Holy Space and Holy Time: A Few Thoughts After Reading "The Holiness of God"

I just finished reading The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul. This is not the first time I’ve read it, but it is one I find it is beneficial to revisit every so often, and it’s a book I highly recommend.  As he says in the book, “People in awe never complain that church is boring.” Neither will they find taking time to think deeply about God’s holiness boring. 

I am not going to write a full review, but I did have some thoughts I wanted to share that I pondered as I was reading the last chapter today, which is titled, “Holy Space and Holy Time.”  First, some quotes from that last chapter: 

“The consecration of sacred space does not end with the close of the Old Testament. It is rooted and grounded in the act of creation itself, and something profoundly important to the human spirit is lost when it is neglected.”

“Each Sabbath day, believers observe sacred time in the context of worship. It is the keeping holy of the Sabbath day that marks the regular sacred time for the Christian. The worship service is a marking of a special liturgical time.”

“In sacred space and sacred time Christians find the presence of the holy. The bars that seek to shut out the transcendent are shattered, and the present time becomes defined by the intrusion of the holy. When we erect barriers to these intrusions, dikes to keep them from flooding our souls, we exchange the holy for the profane and rob both God of His glory and ourselves of His grace.”

Here’s what I got to thinking about. During the time when our church could not meet because of the COVID restrictions, we were blessed to be able to have the option to stream the service online.  I am so thankful for the technology that allowed us to do this and for the care of our pastors, elders, and teachers who did their best to stay connected with the church family during that time. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best we could do at the time. I understand the necessity for that time, and I completely understand the necessity for those who are at greater risk to continue to use that option now that we are able to cautiously and in a socially distanced way begin to meet together again physically. So, please don’t take what I’m about to say wrongly. Also, PLEASE do not come at me with the argument, “the church is not the building.” Seriously, that is NOT what I’m about to say, so don’t hear that, and don’t come at me with it. I got SO, SO tired of reading that on social media.  It MISSES THE POINT of what those of us who were sad about not meeting together were trying to express. 

During the time when we only had the online version of worship services, our family did our best to make that time special.  We got up on time, got dressed, and set that time aside to watch and engage as best we could with the service on screen.   But there was just something missing.  It is just not the same. I couldn’t adequately describe what made it so very different, exactly, but this last chapter of The Holiness of God and the discussion of sacred space spoke to me deeply in light of what we’ve just gone through. That is what is missing. There is something profound  and indescribably powerful about physically meeting together with the church that is deeper than merely keeping the elements of the service but watching on a disembodied screen. No, the church is not the building, it’s not that the bricks and mortar of the building itself are inherently sacred, but it is what we do when we gather there that makes it sacred space. And of course, even worshipping by screen when that’s the only option we have can be sacred, too, but the church is the people - specifically the people gathered together. And yes, when we neglect that setting aside of sacred time to worship together, there IS something profoundly important to the human spirit that is lost. Though I understand and support why we had to forego the gathering for a time, we DID miss something profound. The first Sunday we got to go back, even with masks and social distancing and much fewer people in the building, it was like a breath of fresh air and that profound something that we have when we gather together in that set apart, sacred time and space was rich. The holy just felt nearer.

No matter how much we tried to make the online Sundays sacred, the profane was somehow just still so near. The distractions were many, and it was just not the same.  

There is something deep and profound that we gain when we are able to gather together and sense the energy of our church family all worshipping Jesus together.  There is something deeply sacred that points us to our holy God in a way that we lose when we are denied the opportunity to set aside time and space for the sacred.  We are embodied people and we experience this life with our physical bodies. There is just something other about setting aside time and space to focus our attention together on the Holy and sacred.  We are bombarded all week with the temporal and profane, we need that set apart space and time to put away those distractions and be reminded physically and through our senses with singing and praying and hearing the Word preached to focus our attention on our Savior. 

I’m not at all sure I adequately expressed what I’m pondering in this post. Boiled down, I am reminded to think carefully and prepare myself before I go to worship and remember that we are on holy ground because we are gathering to worship a holy God. I am greatly looking forward to getting to meet with my church family tomorrow morning, even if we have to wear masks and sit apart to make it happen. How thankful I am for the grace of God that sustained us during the months we had to be apart, and how very thankful I am now that we can meet together again. 

Gazing Into a Palantír

This morning as I was reading my social media news feeds, I realized a couple of things:

 First - I MUST stop letting that be the first thing I do in the morning.  My habit for years has been to read my Bible and pray in the morning.  For a long time I tried to make sure I didn’t read anything else before I had read the Bible and prayed, but recently, because I use my phone as my alarm clock, I’ve found myself slipping into the habit of checking my phone after the alarm goes off, before I’ve even gotten completely awake, and I find myself checking news headlines and social media feeds to see what new devilry has happened overnight (I can’t help but think of Boromir in The Fellowship of the Ring whenever I look at my Twitter feed these days). I need to stop doing this.

This morning, I found myself scrolling through the news feeds and I realized I was feeling overwhelmingly discouraged over the fractured nature of our country, how quick to take offense many people on all sides of every issue seem to be, how quick many people on all sides of every issue seem to be willing to ‘cancel’ those who don’t hold to their exact view on any issue, how lacking in common civility and decency we are becoming and how hard it is to have a real and meaningful conversation and attempt at genuine understanding when differences of opinion are present, how unsettled and lacking in peace and hope things seem to be all around us, how even words don’t mean the same things anymore depending on who you’re listening to, how difficult it is becoming to believe anything you hear from any news source or so-called expert, and lots of other things, too. This bled over into my prayer time, as I admitted I don’t even know how to pray about some of the things we’re seeing. More on that in a minute.

Second - It occurred to me that too much poring over social media and a too steady diet of the 24/7 news media first thing in the morning and too much through out the day has just as poisonous an effect on my mind as looking into the Palantír did for Denethor, the Steward of Gondor in The Lord of the Rings. 

The Palantíri were crystal seeing stones in The Lord of the Rings world which allowed people to look into them and see real events and people - future or present wasn’t always clear. This from the Wikipedia article is helpful to describe them: “A major theme of Palantír usage is that while the stones show real objects or events, they are an unreliable guide to action, and it is often unclear whether events are past or future: what is not shown may be more important than what is selectively presented. Further, users with sufficient power can choose what to show and what to conceal: in The Lord of the Rings, all uses of Palantíri influence the action through deception or misreading of what is shown.” 

Stay with me, I think you’ll see the analogy I’m trying to paint. One of the big dangers with using the Palantíri by the time of the events in The Lord of the Rings is that not all of them were still accounted for - some had been lost, meaning you had no way of knowing who else was using one somewhere else and since they are connected, you had no way of knowing who else might be influencing what you were seeing. 

In the case of Denethor of Gondor, he had been looking into a Palantír and it had driven him a bit mad with despair.  He saw the evil that was encroaching as unavoidable and insurmountable. In a word, he felt they and their way of life were doomed.  Ultimately, as the Wikipedia quote suggests, this proves to be an unreliable guide to action as he makes very unwise decisions that not only affect him but many others as well. In the end, in his despair and madness he chooses suicide, very nearly taking his son Faramir with him, were it not for the heroic actions of Gandalf and Pippin who had not yet succumbed to the mind-numbing despair.

I see a parallel here with social media and news feeds.  Often what is in the news stories we read may be true, or at least contain facts that are true, but we don’t know what is being left out or how those facts are being selectively presented, and we don’t always know who, what, or even the why that is driving the narrative being presented. Very often, what is not being said may be as important, if not much more important, that what is being said. It is frighteningly easy to deceive people and twist the truth in a blog post, news story, social media post, speech, etc.  And another parallel is that we don’t always know what powerful person or entity may be behind the decisions to mislead or deceive by choosing what to include and what to conceal with the theory, post, news story, speech, or whatever that we’re reading, or what motives are driving them.  

So, what I’ve been thinking about today is that I need to be careful about how much time I spend allowing myself to gaze into the Palantír of social media.  A steady diet of it isn’t wise or healthy for me.  A sure sign that I’ve gazed there too long is when that malaise and sense of despair and futility begin to descend over me.  

I need to be much more diligent to fill my mind with truth.  I need to be vigilant about news sources and do my homework and check out sources, yes. But even more importantly, I need to start my day and fill my mind with God’s word first.  I need to filter my thinking through the lens of His word, and make sure I’m spending much more time developing a godly worldview, a biblical worldview, than I am soaking up a worldly mindset and listening to voices that do not know Christ.  The more I know Christ, the more steeped I am in His word, the better able I am to discern truth from error when I do watch the news or read social media posts.  

And remember how I said sometimes I just don’t know how to pray about what I’m seeing happening in the world around me, that it just seems so broken? Well, that’s when I take great comfort in knowing that when I don’t know how to pray as I ought, the Holy Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. (Romans 8:26) I take great comfort in knowing that Jesus Himself is at the right hand of the Father ever interceding for His people and He is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God in Him. (Hebrews 7:25). God is sovereign and He is working all things for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:29)  Nothing can separate His people from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord - not even the overwhelmingly discouraging and even frightening things we see happening in our fractured and divided country around us. (Romans 8:38-39)  I may not understand what’s happening, but I can trust that God knows and He is working all things for His glory and for our good, and He loves His people. It is in this light, in this understanding that I must decide how to respond and act in the world. 

This is where I need to put my focus and attention, where I need to spend the bulk of my mental and emotional energy, and I need to be very wary how I view the Palantír of social media and the daily news feeds and not let them deceive me or unduly influence how I view the world and how I live and act in it.  

Morning Will Come

“The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream has ended: this is the morning.” 

- Aslan in The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

My daughter and I have used this stay at home time to read C.S. Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia together. These books have been like treasured friends since I was young, some of my very favorite and well-loved books which I’ve read more times than I can remember.  I greatly enjoyed experiencing them with my 13-year-old daughter these past couple of months, and we cried together as we finished The Last Battle yesterday. She said it’s so sad when you end a good series like this because it’s like saying good-bye to friends.  I agree.  

I do have some issues with C.S. Lewis and some of his theology, and we discussed some of it when it was necessary while reading the books, but one thing he does very, very well is to depict what it is like to have a deep reverence and longing for Christ and for Heaven through his story-telling.  The beauty of the stories, how he shows you can have great joy in the beauty of this life, but yet still have a deep longing for something greater than what we merely taste and glimpse as a shadow in this life has always been what I love about the Narnia stories, but this time especially, it just hit me so strongly. I’m careful not to take the works of fiction that the Narnia books are and make them something they shouldn’t be, but I am thankful for the encouragement they give me to think deeper about the truth of Heaven and the brilliance and beauty of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. These books aren’t meant to be an allegory, but looking beyond the stories, they do help me to look at Jesus in a more devotional way, to long to love Him and long for His return and long for the day when all tears and sickness and all of the ‘all things’ that are working together for good for those who are called according to His purpose and who love Him will be fulfilled and the dream will have ended and the morning will have come. 

I’ve mentioned before how we’ve just finished our Bible study in Romans, and this morning as I was preparing for our online worship service with our church, I was going over the verses I’m memorizing, Romans 8:37-39, “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” This morning that just set so very solidly in my heart as I pondered these words.  What joy. What hope. What peace.  

And then, y’all, church this morning was wonderful.  With just having finished that book yesterday and still feeling that longing for Christ and for Heaven that is so beautifully illustrated in it, I could not sing the songs today without tears. The songs we sang were glorious and so Jesus-focused. The energy of the singing, the urgency of the pastoral prayer, the encouragement of the sermon, were such a blessing today, and while it caused me to greatly miss being with my church family even more, it energized me to worship as I sat in my living room with my family.  Once again I’m reminded that Sundays are a celebration, but also a time to stir up our longing for the day when we will see Jesus face to face. I’m so thankful for Sundays. I need this time to recharge and to reflect and to be encouraged to remember the truth and be pointed toward Jesus. 

I’ve been struggling recently with some depression, and all of these things, the Narnia books, our study in Romans, the faithfulness of our pastors and elders to lead us well in this challenging time when we cannot be together physically, have helped me lift my eyes and fix them on Jesus.  I cannot adequately put into words how much lighter I feel today than I have in a long time, and how I long to love Jesus more and live with a heart that is undivided and wholly serving Him. This is the joy of eternal life - joy and peace in this life, knowing Jesus, knowing that nothing - no circumstances that surround us, no depression that messes with our mind and emotions, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord, and knowing His peace and joy in the longing for that day when we will see Him face to face. And ultimately there is the joy of knowing that one day, in His time and good Providence, the dream will end and the true morning will come.

Status Update - Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Taking…...a break before lunch. After taking a walk with my daughter this morning and cleaning out the mess in the fridge that I’m not sure what happened in there but is clean now, I decided I haven't written a blog post in a few days and want to, and even though it’s not Monday, somehow here on week six of these stay-at-home times the days are a little muddled together anyhow and a status update seems to be all I have mental energy for right now. So, here it is - a very Monday sort of post on this fine Tuesday.

Drinking….Constant Comment tea, my favorite.  My husband, my hero, my go-out-in-public-so-no-one-else-in-the-house-has-to sweetheart couldn’t find any at the store, shelves still being a tad sparse at times, so I ordered some from Amazon.  I now have plenty to last for the long haul, and I’m enjoying it. My sweet husband is retaining his awesome sense of humor in all of this.  I got this text before he came home from the store that night, “We apologize as we may have had to substitute a few items….”  Haha.  I’m still laughing from that.  Remember he’s always been so good about not taking things too seriously.  His favorite phrase when we were dating and early married was, “Lighten up, Beck.”  Hopefully I’ve gotten a little better through the years, as he hasn’t had to say that as often in recent years.  

Reading….Behold the King of Glory: A Narrative of the Life, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Russ Ramsey. I am usually a little wary of books that make a narrative of scripture, but Tim Challies recommended this and several people I respect and trust endorsed it so I thought I’d try it.  I’m liking it so far - he does a good job with scripture references and adding historical details about the time period without too much iffy speculation, and I’m enjoying reading it. I’m also reading The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis with my daughter as we continue our journey together through The Chronicles of Narnia.  We’re having a great time reading them together, and I continually get choked up as I read them, no matter that I’ve read them uncountable times before. The end of The Silver Chair really gets to me when Caspian dies just as his son is reunited with him, then we get to see the other side in Aslan’s country.  And I’m planning to start The Secret of the Wild Wood by Tonke Dragt, which is the sequel to The Letter for the King pretty soon also.

Scripture Memory….since last post when I mentioned what I’m going to be working on, I have worked some on it, but I need to focus more intensely.  I’m working on Romans 8:37-39, and I have gotten up to Colossians 2:3.  Once I get that firmed up this week, my hope is to continue to the next set of verses, Colossians 2:4-7 next week.  

Feeling….a little distracted and still having a hard time sitting still to concentrate.  Granted, I’m getting a lot of reading done, but I find that I allow social media to drain away more of my time and mental and emotional energy than I should.  I’ve always struggled with that temptation, and it seems even harder now with all the general anxiety around us not to scroll, scroll, scroll looking for different news.  I will say, I have discovered what a good thing the snooze function on Facebook is.  You can snooze certain people for 30 days, and that allows you not to see their posts for that long but still remain connected.  If a friend is on a tear about some conspiracy theory….snooze. If a friend is constantly sharing all the anxiety riddled click bait….snooze.   If a friend is finding new and ever increasingly petty things to lecture us about and take offense about….snooze. If a friend is being the neighborhood police and lecturing us on why we need to be as anxious as they are….snooze. If a friend is constantly sharing scripture out of context and twisting it to share bad doctrine….snooze.  After a while, it’s not quite as anxious a place to visit anymore until the snooze wears off.  

Encouraged….my daughter and I have been taking long walks around the neighborhood together and it’s been a sweet time to talk with her and listen to what’s on her heart.  I just so much enjoy her.  Not only do I love her, I like her, too. Same with all my children.  They are just pleasant people to know, and how kind God has been to allow me to be their mom and redeem the mistakes and sin and flaws in my parenting as He has graciously drawn them to Himself. My daughter shared with me how during their Sunday night online youth meeting, the middle school youth director talked to them about not letting entertainment become an idol and how subtle a thing that can be.  He encouraged them to think about their habits and sources of entertainment and take one day this week and turn off one distracting source of entertainment, and every time they thought about turning it on or clicking on it to take time to pray.  I think maybe I need to do that with Facebook and Twitter - my two biggest time wasters. 

Thinking (get ready for a bit of a rant, and you may think I’m earning a, “lighten up, Beck”)….about something we saw on our walk today that disturbed me and I’m probably reading too much into.  Someone had written what I’m sure they meant to be encouraging messages in chalk on the sidewalk.  One said, “Trust in Jesus & in science & in the doctors and nurses.”  Um.  No.  I can’t read the heart of the person who wrote it, and I’ll assume the best, but part of me reads it as a criticism of people of Christian faith.  I will listen to the scientists and medical professionals and follow their educated advice, sure.  But for all that, science is fallible.  We’re seeing even in the six weeks this thing has been going strong here how often models and scientific data are revised and shift.  Sure, I will follow reasonable physical distancing and guidance and listen to advice, but trust in them?  Trust IN scientists and doctors and nurses? No.  To phrase it the way that message is phrased? No.  I think my problem was the word “in” and the implication that trusting in human wisdom is equal weight to trusting in Jesus.  To me, to say to trust in something implies putting the weight of my hope in that thing I trust in.  I can trust THAT what someone like a scientist or doctor says is as true as they’re able to be and helpful and worth listening to, but trusting IN them for my ultimate well-being?  No.  My trust in Jesus is ultimate.  Only He is sovereign.  He is the Creator, the very Word of God.  He alone is infallible.  He alone can save my soul.  And, get this, He alone can determine whether someone will contract this virus or anything else and what the effect will be.  We are not to be foolish and should listen to wise counsel and do our part to love others and protect where we can, but trust in science as I trust in Jesus?  Absolutely not.  I trust Him to grant wisdom to those who are studying this disease, and for those who are on the front lines to combat it and help those who are afflicted, and for our government officials who have very difficult decisions to make, whether they are trusting Him or not.  Ultimately all of life is under the Providence of God who cares for His creation and loves His people. THAT is what I put my trust IN. I’m probably asking too much from a sidewalk chalk message, but that was what struck me in my gut as I walked by, feeling kind of offended by what I’m sure was meant as an encouraging message, but felt more like one of those lectures I’m getting oh, so tired of hearing from people who seem to think we should all be living more in fear of this virus than in fear of the One who controls even this virus.  

Weight Loss Journey….and now for a lighter note, this is a new category for the status update, but I decided to use this stay-at-home time to try to lose some of the pesky pounds I’ve wanted to shed for quite some time now.  In addition to taking walks with my daughter, we got out the old Wii Fitness Plus and we’ve been having fun with that - not intensive exercise, of course, but fun. I did find it annoying today, though when my Fitbit app needed an update and required me to sign in and then proceeded to completely erase the over 5000 steps I got on my walk this morning.  Grrr. Anyway….. I’m also paying attention to what I eat and trying to make wiser choices, limiting sugar and lowering carbs and monitoring snacking.  So far I’m down 2.5 pounds.  Not much, but trending the right direction, and that was on a Monday morning after a weekend, so I’m encouraged.  

And that’s probably enough for today. Happy Tuesday!