My Addiction

I don't remember life without books, in someways they've always been around me, making life more, deeper and magical. The facts are that my parents are bookworms and before I could even speak they were being read to me in droves, but that's so basic and incomplete compared to the real truth of this. Books aren't just a hobby, they are my friends, in my blood, a compulsion I couldn't break if I tried, they're a part of me somehow... more than just an activity, an experience, or even a flash of purest memory. All I can really express is that they are full of God, and at least for me, an experience of something beyond this world and seeing a piece of His world instead of mine. Story shines through with His greater meaning and His Story even when it's not the earthly author's goal, He's in there still waiting for me to find Him.

I love a lot of things, Onions and Shih-Tzus, Star Wars and sitting among the trees in the mountains, and God made reading so much a part of me that  it can(and often does when I'm intentional about it) speak His truth to me through them. There's something different about experiencing who you are and feeling something God made you to be (called you for somehow) rather than just a simple enjoyment. Stories and Words have that pull for me, the way His presence makes me want to throw myself into God's world, be totally emerged and submerged and it's not just a glimpse of Him through something else, it's a call on my life in the same way He calls me to care for my family or live my life focused on His face.

I couldn't tell you why this is. Why God has given me this gift, obsession, call, or curse. It may be for my pleasure, or something to pull me closer to him, or a purpose I can't see with human eyes. We so often discount the 'inconsequential' things we love so deeply that we miss the opportunity to experience our Creator in them. Like Eric Liddell's sister who thought he was wasting his life to run races instead of more productive actions we miss chances to "..feel God's pleasure when I run" I want God to be fully in my life and that means being fully involved in who he made me and the passions he gave me. All I can do is except it, use it with the wisdom He's given me for discretion and choice of material, and search for Him in it.

And I read. I love to read. I need to read. And God is pleased when I read.