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.

The Rambling Meeting of Girl, Pen, and Prayer

Where next? What Now? Possibilities float around my head, but which are Yours? What dreams am I meant to dream fully and completely because You placed them there and which are the wonderings of the imagination you placed within me? It makes things complicated, the way you built my mind. Pictures, potential, stories: all around me, begging for my attention...

What is Peabody* and Georgette's story? Is it short or long, meaningful for their entire lives or simply a glimpse into who they are in themselves without each other, that brings this 'what if' that hangs around them? I try without even realizing to piece together the puzzles of who these people around me are, but like an author's characters rather than a detective deducing... I want to play with their live, figure out their past, presents, and determine the way their lives will likely go. This is Your story though. Am I meant to learn then, about life, about the people you have placed around me, or simply the nature of this divine Author that haunts me, makes me wonder, want to question about every little detail?

One of my all time favorite quotes from Aslan is about how 'we are only told our own stories not others' It gives so vivid a picture of the private, precious, and miraculous relationship of the creator and the beloved creation. So I have also a sacred warning about taking this game too far, but even if I tone down the busybody potential, what about my own story? Which of these possibilities are for me? What prodding are you sending me? To step out into one of these things? Blessings that are already planned for my life if I just step through the right door of possibilities? A lesson I'll find suddenly thrust into my lap after a few days of mulling over these experiences?

I want more. Every time you give a gift like this I soak it up, relishing the feelings of overwhelming YOU-ness, wanting to rolling the experience like a pig after rain, but then all to soon... "Thanks so much Lord, but.... cant I have another does now?" I want everything: specifics, explanations, more, more, more!!! "Please Daddy, PLEASE? Can't I have what I want?" Being a father must be such a conflicting feeling (much less being the ultimate father) pride as the child connects to where they were led, pleasure at the reaching longing for the dad's presence, and frustration and disappointment at the small and selfish actions that result from such good initial discoveries.

So give me more, more of your parenting, more grace for my mistakes, and more of what You want me to have rather than what I wish for. Fulfill me, make the potentials in my being into the reality of who I was meant to be. Open the doors to the paths you place in front of my as options blessed for my choice of actions, and shout unignorably the calls you have for my life.Use me, who you made me, to bless the other somehow, even if I never see the fruit.

But most of all, bring me back to this place of wonder and wonderings again and envelope me into your world once more!


*none of my friends are actually named Peabody or anything like that. Although that would be really cool, now that I think about it.