Books I love

If you checked my profile, you noticed that in the lists of interests, 'books' is the number one. I love reading. I have always been a reader. I learned to read before I turned 5. I remember the summer holiday between the 5th and 6th grade when I wrote down the name of every book I read during those three months. The list was over 100 books long!

5, or almoust 6 years ago my life changed. We had our first baby, and we moved to Central Asia. Both of those things can destroy a woman's dream of reading for hours at the time. I was a regular visitor in our library, and well, we do not have a library in our city in Central Asia. And those darn airline companies keep on tightening their overweight rules and fines...

Despite all of this, we have gathered a pile of books...we carried some in, or they have been donated by people who leave the country and don't want to carry the weight, we bought some from yard sales here, whenever we are out of country we check the book shops and fill our bags, we ask visitors to carry books in for us, we even used amazon.com to deliver us some books (they arrived just fine)!

I hope to introduce some of my favourite books for you here in my blog every now and then. Just so that you get a one more little window into my life.

The first book to introduce I have been reading on and off for couple of years. It is written by Elisabeth Elliot. If I remember right, the first book I read by her in my teens was 'Shadow of the Almighty' where she tells the story of her first husband, Jim Elliot. Since that book I have read several of her books, and I truly enjoy her writing and am challenged by her spiritual wisdom. The book I want to show you today is called 'Keep a Quiet Heart'.

It is a devotional collection of some of Elisabeth's best work from her newsletter. I ordered it because I wanted to have a devotional and I knew I would not be disappointed by EE's work. And I have not been disappointed with this one!

It is divided into five different sections:

1. Faith for the Unexplained
2. God's Curriculum
3. Called and Committed
4. Our Culture in Controversy
5. The Christian Home

The opening page has following words on it:

Do Not Rush.
Trust.
And Keep a Quiet Heart.

I like that.

It is sometimes so, so hard to keep a quiet heart. Three noisy and lively kids. People in the house almoust daily. Mix of languages. Cooking. Laundry (I like doing laundry, but does take time). Needy people. Not enough time, energy, skill, love, peace, patience... Just add to the list...

But then I read something like "The worst pains we experience are not those of the suffering itself but of our stubborn resistance to it, our resolute insistence on our independence." (pg.51)

Wow.

This feel like a great spiritual truth coming trough! And this book is full of those. I love it.

Just relax. Nothing will come to my path that I could not do "through Christ who strengthens me".

I like the challenging but at the same time uplifting words of EE throughout this book.

I am no martyr. I do not want to suffer. But because, as a follower of Jesus, suffering is inevitable, I want to go through it in a way that pleases God. After all, my one and only New Year resolution for this year is to learn "To Be Satisfied in God".

And I want to trust and have a quiet heart,
just like our cutie in this picture: