30 Day Book Challenge! Days 14-15: So Many Books

No, I am not planning for this skip-a-day-double-post thing to become a habit. However, I am having heaps of fun with our beautiful SUMMER!! I know it is really and truly here because (1) my friend and I enjoyed 80 degrees and sunshine at the river yesterday...

 ...and (2) last night we had grilled pizza. Grilled. Pizza. Pretty much my favorite summer food evah. I literally (hmmm...this is an embarrassing piece of information to send out into the world wide web) drooled taking my first bite. It was gross. The drool, that is - but the pizza was to die for.

JT, or "Red" in the blogging world, was our pizza-crust-connoisseur, and has documented more pictures of this delectableness on his blog, The Case of the Red-Head JT. Just in case you too wish to drool.

But enough with the excuses of sunshine and food, and on to our book questions!!

Day 14: What is a book you regret not having read sooner?

This is, I have decided, an impossible question. Hasn't every book you've ever read been finished with the feeling of "I should have read that sooner?" Which story have you fallen in love with and thought, "Well, I'm glad I didn't read that last year"? Which thought-provoking page have you turned and thought "I am so glad I read this...but if I'd read it yesterday, I would have regretted it"? Really? Which book do I regret not having read sooner? Every. Single. One of them.

Day 15: What is a book on your "to read" list?

There are so-so-so many. It's no exaggeration to say I have at least my next 50 books planned out...and those are just ones that are top-priority. The next book on my list (after the present one I'm reading) is Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. I have tried to read this book so many times...checked it out from the library twice. Had to return it before finishing twice. Bought it once, got half-way through again and then left it in an airport. Bought it again, will read it all the way through this time...although I may have to purpose not to let it leave my room until I finish it!

What's the next book on your reading list?

Speech of Sunlight

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No contrast could be greater. Outside, the wind was racing about, shooting forth such icy threats that even the clouds huddled together in dark, frightened mass, shivering off raindrops in their distress. Yet, inside, a sunshine of words permeated the air, warming the soul as the sweet cups of coffee hugged between our fingertips warmed the body. Joy, awe, and praise ~ they darted from her eyes and sparkled out of her voice as she told of Christ's leading in the past year. She marvelled aloud. She testified through doubts. She declared the LORD's works.

Greedy, I hung on every word; her pleasure to speak such praise fuelling my desire to hear. This is the mystery of the LORD's hand: that to glimpse, to share, and to know it consume one's being so fully as to render any other pursuit impossible. *"For we cannot," ejaculated Peter and John, "but speak the things which we have seen and heard." It is addiction in its untarnished state, obsession begging greater capacity, purpose worthy of our passion.

Lewis, in his Reflections on the Psalms, records his wonder at the joint compulsion and responsibility experienced in praise:

"I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberately brought into check. The world rings with praise ~ lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising the countryside....
 

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation. It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are, the delight is incomplete till it is expressed."

Time, coffee ~ all was forgotten as excitement and awe at the ways prepared for us enveloped the room. Declaring the LORD ~ His character, His works ~ is our purpose, our "job." Yet, it is also the key to unequaled joy. What solemn privilege to us granted! What precious duty to us bestowed! Small wonder that to speak and hear of His ways deepens and fulfills every aching void within our soul.


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Yet, somehow, even so, there are rainy days. Icy moments. Weeks when blast after blast of frigid air batters the door, seeking entrance through even the smallest crevice. There are seasons when blue skies disappear. When mornings dawn shivering, and creep away in cold.

Seek sunshine.
 

Ready at every moment, waiting upon a choice, the warmth of spring and summer is always within reach ~ but it is not to be found in the frozen-silent, tight-lipped enjoyment of blessings. Sunshine abounds in the cloud of glorious words surrounding the King's throne: words of praise.

 

**"Oh, magnify the LORD with me,

And let us exalt His name together."

 

Speak sunlight. Speak of the Son!

 

*Acts 4:20
**Psalm 34:3



Some Thoughts on Love

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Sometimes, life seems completely out of balance, with an overload of one idea drowning out all others.

Like a plate piled high with thick and rick chocolate cake and only a sliver of vanilla ice cream.

Irritating, confusing, and sometimes tragic, this state of affairs is not a surprise to the observant Christian, yet even he is susceptible. He is in danger of letting his guard down and failing to recognizing the inconsistencies. He is in danger of swinging far out toward the other extremes, in an attempt to escape the world's. Yet, to my mind, the greatest danger he is in is that of simply accepting the world's view and trying to superimpose God on top.

And when I say "he", I really mean "she."

Why? Because Thursday was Valentine's Day (for those of you living in a windowless hut in the jungle with no calendar), and, as such, I had the opportunity to hear, read, and see the thoughts of many young ladies with regard to the day.

Usually, the February 14th sentiments, conversations, and writings of single young ladies seem to be penned by one of three different authoresses: the historian, the romantic, or the lonely. Which categorizations tend to hold true regardless of the spiritual climate of the writer. Yes, those who are saved may find a different angle by which to travel, a fresh "waiting for my valentine" -type saying to coin, a new discovery to share about what true love is - but the seed of their thoughts often reveals a sad state. The world has brainwashed us to worship romance for a day.

Dear ones, why is this? Why have we, as Christian maidens, bought into the mentality that, for 24 hours a year, suddenly romantic love is god, instead of what we proclaim the other 364 days - that God is love? Why should princesses - chosen by the Father, redeemed by Jesus, sanctified by the Spirit - suddenly have a day dedicated to sighs, moodiness, and fruitless daydreams in the middle of the second month of the year simply because the world has chosen to worship love between two flawed individuals as though it were perfect on that day?

In the introduction to his book, The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis observes:



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Idolatry both of erotic love and of "the domestic affections" was the great error of nineteenth-century literature. Browning, Kingsley, and Patmore sometimes talk as if they thought falling in love was the same thing as sanctification; the novelists habitually oppose the "the World" not the Kingdom of Heaven, but the home.... The human loves can be glorious images of the Divine love. No less than that: but also no more....


Sweet sisters, if one comes to February 14th each year thinking of roses and chocolates and candle-lit dinners, and then attempts to superimpose God on top of that mentality with "Jesus is my Valentine"-type sayings (which, while to a certain extent true, drastically trivialize the magnitude and depth of the Sacrifice by equating it with a pink, lacy card covered in hearts) is this revealing a Christian World View, or a Christianized Worldly View?

It would be silly and illogical to praise and hold as excellent a beginning violinist who can barely scratch out "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" in the presence of Itzhak Perlman. Certainly, one must acknowledge the Twinkler - encourage her, praise her, and admire her effort - but not to the snubbing or ignoring of the Maestro. Christ's love is a beautiful thing. Our love for each other - whether that of sibling, friend, spouse, mentor, or fiancee - is also beautiful. Who would contest these truths? Yet, to celebrate one to the nigh exclusion of the best is not a worthy action. Certainly to sigh over and wish for the lesser, ignoring the greater (except in an attempt to draw parallels between the two) is not worth our time.

Valentine's Day is a day celebrating love, the highest form of which an unsaved world knows being that of romance, but we have known a deeper, more beautiful, more praise-worthy kind. Should we not defer our raptures of greatest wonder and sighs of deepest amazement to this - Christ's love toward, in, and through us? When princesses of a Kingdom Not Seen choose for one day a year to sigh and fantasize for a prince they do not have, ignoring the love of a greater, deeper kind that they wholly possess, I see chocolate cake and wonder where the ice cream is.

Now, I am not calling for the abandonment of bon-bons, flowers, and romantic dinners on February 14th - dear me no! But to again quote the wise Lewis, "When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed, but increased."