So Many Books

Moments before running back downstairs to make tea (yes, the meal) and then go to my sister's to read the Bible together, I take time to stop and briefly write my joy.
Mom and I just pulled three boxes out of the garage, as I start moving onto my books after sorting my clothes.

How can I tell you of my joy at seeing my treasures? For the first time in six months, I pulled my books out and caressed each cover - hardback, softback, shiny, smooth, rough, plain, decorated, cloth, plastic, laminate...

You who love books! My fellow writers and book lovers. Can you imagine what it is to have the sounds of the Tudors, the echoes of the World Wars, surround you after six months absence from almost any literature? One of the hardest things of this enforced absence has to be the zero access to my books.

With delight, I open a cover and inhale the scents...musky, dusty, old, new, inky...how familiar, and how long it has been.

Some of you will remember that I had two wall length shelves, two bookcases, one more bookshelf, two boxes full and my bed packed with books. And also, I possess over thirty books on WWII and the Holocaust alone - as further proof of my obsession. It has been so hard to be without them, and God has graciously restored them!

Thank You for this time, during which the only Book I could read has been Your Word. Thank You for having installed a desperate hunger for Your Word in my heart during this. And thank You - THANK YOU - for giving me back my books!

In Christ,
~Jane

Comments

Post a Comment

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. :)

Popular posts from this blog

Outta 'Arm's Way

Image
It's painful. And it's sore. It's so sore I spend washtime dabbing water on portions of my skin because if I shower properly, I end up crying with pain. It's inherited genetically. I remember Daddy telling me his started when he was 19. It went all over his entire body - including his face. He had the wet kind - weeping, they call it - on his face. He had to go to work every day like that. And he said he felt disgusting, like a leper. Until he took aloe vera tablets, which reduced his eczema to some kind of controllable level. It started when I was a kid. Behind the backs of my knees and in the crooks of my arms. Then it faded until I only had it occasionally on the elbow of my right arm. Last year, it flared up again. REALLY bad. On my arms. Then I went to America. It was bad when I arrived. Came back a little in Oregon due to the dryness of the air. But otherwise, it was cleared. I forgot I had ever had eczema. Then I came home. And started work. ...
Read more

My Battle with Modesty

WARNING: I'm not sure about the appropriateness of this for guys...so if you think it's bad, stop reading. Okay? I read Jay Lauser’s excellent post on A New Kind of Modesty (which you really, really, really should read, though I won’t post it up seven times like my big sister C’rissie :P) yesterday, and thought I would like to blog my struggle and weakness in that area for...encouragement? General opinion? Not quite sure, although it certainly wasn’t out of self consideration. :P Then I read C’rissie’s post connected with Jay’s, A Rant on Modesty ;), which you can read here . And decided that I felt too embarrassed after reading that, because they were both so good and covered the ground enough, so I wouldn’t. Well, this morning, I changed my mind. (Although after rereading it again just, with all the comments, I feel quite small about posting this...*hits send before I rethink*) It’s not too often that I gain a victory over my worldliness to be happy in the clothes I’m weari...
Read more

Best Time of My Life ~ Now

You know those points in life where things just hit you? It came to me as I was washing up in the kitchen, snuggled in my fluffy grey dressing gown, the electric light off and the warm glow of the sunset fading in through the window, Michael Card's Celtic music playing in the background. I'm 21. And finally life seems to be coming, in a way. So many plans and hopes and dreams buzzing through my head, so much that is likely to and so easily can be smashed. "I'm fine on my own," I said aloud, laughed, looked up and sighed. These moments where I'm the only one in the house and can talk out loud on everything with God - cause He already knows it - and know the intimate closeness of Him in my spirit. "No, I'm not. But I'm okay with that. You're here, and You'll be with me until the time is right." Marriages are sprouting up all around me as my friends begin to pair off, and the middle-aged-21 crisis struck me. Not so much because...
Read more