My new favorite homeschool book

We finished The Jesus Storybook Bible in school earlier this year, and I wanted something else to follow it up with that my five year old could relate to. 

On Black Friday, thanks to one of my favorite blogs, I found some amazing Black Friday deals, including one on something called The Gospel Story Bible. 

I wasn't sure it was going to be a wise purchase, but it was such a good deal, I decided to give it a chance. 

I love this book. 

I like it even more than The Jesus Storybook Bible. There are more stories from the Bible, and I love how the author weaves the gospel through each of these stories. I love that it has questions at the end of each story to remind me to ask to see if the story resonated with the kids. Or if they heard it. Not that this ever happens here. They listen with bated breath to everything I say in school. 

Anyway. 

The artsy part of me is in love with the illustrations in this book. I am not fond of illustrations of Jesus at all, but these illustrations are on the more abstract side of things and don't appear to be attempting to depict an accurate image of Christ. This makes me happy. Or at least happier than I would be with other typical illustrations.

But that's a pet peeve of mine, so we can probably ignore that all together. 

The point is that this is a wonderful addition to our homeschool library, but I would buy it even if I didn't homeschool. 

Elisabeth Elliot

My friend Elizabeth walked in the door with a bag full of books one night early in October. My eyes grew big as she sat the bag down, and I wondered what collection of books was in that bag. To a book lover, there is no better thought than the chance to read a new book. She sat on the couch and grinned at me.

"Those are all of my Elisabeth Elliot books."

"Oh really?" I was intrigued. I was familiar with Jim Elliot, after hearing him referenced in church and then studying him with the kids in school. Elizabeth had mentioned Elisabeth Elliot to me several times throughout our friendship. Elisabeth has been a hero of hers, so to speak, and she had been reading and loving her books for years.

And now she had brought them to me.

"I can't get to them right now," I said sadly. "I have too much other stuff going on."

I did take 45 seconds to dream about a weekend getaway with just me, a pile of books and a good stock of hot tea. But I had to be honest -I had no idea when I'd get to read just one of those books, much less the whole bag.

"It's okay," she grinned. "No rush."

It felt like she knew a secret.

Our conversation turned to other things, but I kept my eye on that bag of books.

It would be the middle of November before I could even think of that bag of books again. A rough couple of weeks stretched out before me, and for some strange reason, I went to that pile of books. I had a vague idea of what kind of books were in there, based on what Elizabeth had told me, but how I ended up digging a book out of that bag was providential.

I won't soon forget exactly where I was, sitting in the kitchen, stool pushed against the cabinets to create a makeshift desk for me.

I took a moment to savor the weight of the book in my hand. It was a hardback book, my favorite. I smoothed the book open to the first page, and soon the words were blurred by my tears as a coolness filled my body and I found it hard to breathe.

It was the difficulty and the sweetness of seeing my own feelings written by someone else's hand. Then I laughed through the tears in thankfulness to a God to brought this stack of books to my house and let them sit, unattended, until just the moment that He intended for this book to be in my hands. For this time.

I wiped away the tears and read more. Then a thought sent me off my stool in search of my journal, where familiar words had been written months and months before.

Early in the year, I had read a book that changed things for me. In it I had read this quote:

I had repeated this quote to myself a hundred times in the days after reading it.

It was an easy quote to read, but exactly how did one trust God with the "next thing"? The unknown next thing was a large part of my anxiety.

Slowly God and I worked it out. For me, in this stage, the next thing was the tangible thing right in front of me. (Ignoring, of course, the looming and unknown larger next thing) So how did I trust God and do the next thing?

It usually began when my eyes opened in the morning and I thought, "I really don't want to do this day."

I would remember this mantra. God would whisper, "All you have to do is trust Me and get out of bed."

I could do that. Nothing more. But I could physically push back the covers and stand up.

Then He would say, "Trust me and walk down the stairs."

I could do that.

Then I would repeat to myself, "Trust God and make the coffee."

"Trust God and make breakfast"

"Trust God and spend time in His Word"

"Trust God and pour out your heart in trust and faith while you pound the pavement under the sky"
     (that was the hardest and yet my favorite)

"Trust God and make lunch..."

"...and pay bills, do laundry, clean the kitchen, go to the bank, do school, return emails, cook..."

"Trust God and breathe..."

and go to bed and trust that He will help you do it all again tomorrow.

That's how I learned to trust Him and do the next thing.

{the big stuff would come when and how He intended. it always does. He's in charge of that. not me, thankfully}

As these memories fell back over me, I turned my attention back to the book face down still opened to that first chapter and knew that Elisabeth Elliot and I were going to spend some precious time together in the near future.

And we really did.

I poured over this book with tears and hope. I scribbled reflection after reflection in my journal. I serendipitously found another copy of that book at the thrift store, just by chance of course, and poured over it with a friend, then another friend and then another.

And then the day came when I read the background to the quote that taught me how to trust God more:

From an old English parsonage down by the sea
There came in the twilight a message to me;
Its quaint Saxon legend, deeply engraven,
Hath, it seems to me, teaching from Heaven.
And on through the doors the quiet words ring
Like a low inspiration: “DOE THE NEXTE THYNGE.”

Many a questioning, many a fear,
Many a doubt, hath its quieting here.
Moment by moment, let down from Heaven,
Time, opportunity, and guidance are given.
Fear not tomorrows, child of the King,
Thrust them with Jesus, doe the nexte thynge.

Do it immediately, do it with prayer;
Do it reliantly, casting all care;
Do it with reverence, tracing His hand
Who placed it before thee with earnest command.
Stayed on Omnipotence, safe ‘neath His wing,
Leave all results, doe the nexte thynge

Looking for Jesus, ever serener,
Working or suffering, be thy demeanor;
In His dear presence, the rest of His calm,
The light of His countenance be thy psalm,
Strong in His faithfulness, praise and sing.
Then, as He beckons thee, doe the nexte thynge.

--Anonymous


The more I read of Elisabeth's book, and the Word that it pointed me to, the more I felt that calm and peace and reassurance that I knew could only come from Him. That hard period of time I had dreaded faded into the rear view mirror, colored again by all the shades of His faithfulness made tangible by the gift of this book and the ones to follow.

And of course, as things seem to go in my world, things seem to appear in "random" places. Things that made me smile. Things the proved that this amazing woman's walk and subsequent ministry would touch more people than perhaps she ever dared hope:


There was this post  and this this one and this one. I read them and smiled, thankful for her love for Christ and dedication to serving Him.

And then I began to read more about her first husband, Jim. My thoughts about him will probably have to wait until another day. Suffice it to say that his passion and dedication to Christ and His mission occupy my thoughts frequently.

I think about them throughout my day, my new friends Jim and "Bet." And now that my world has once again gotten busier, I don't have the chance to read these books daily. I find myself missing this couple. I look longingly again at this stack of books which once again sit, abandoned by other more urgent studies. I'm happy to know that they are there, waiting for me. {and i sneak peeks here and there. I miss them too much to leave them alone for long} I'm thankful for what they have taught me. I'm thankful for how they have strengthened my own faith, my walk, my love for Christ and for His Word. I am thankful that they provide comfort in a world that sometimes, oftentimes, feels completely foreign to me, even though it's my own.

Blue like what?

The dork in me wanted to type this post in blue, but I'd like to let you know I resisted.

My foray back into the church is already partially documented, somewhere on this blog. It was fairly uneventful, marked mainly by my own insecurities based on where I had spent the previous decade. Things were different in the church when I returned though, for sure. A thing called "contemporary" had invaded churches. People wore jeans-weird. They drank coffee in church-weird. The hymnals were gone-weird. Even more weird to me were the ministers of music-no longer were they decked out in suits and conducting with imaginary wands hymns that included all but the 3rd stanza. What had replaced them were (sometimes) hairy guys wearing "stylish" jeans and playing guitars. I sort of missed the well educated (most of the time) music ministers, and wondered when being able to sort of play the guitar qualified you to be a minister of music. But then I decided that maybe that didn't matter. Maybe. In the end, I was good with most of this, because maybe none of that stuff mattered in the first place. Perhaps?

The first Christian "best seller" I picked up after this re-entry into the Christian atmosphere was a book about a painting and a guy named Elvis. I honestly don't remember much about the book, but I do remember the guy that wrote the book being pretty sure that the church was getting it all wrong. Or that the way we did church was wrong. Or the reasons we did church were wrong. Or maybe it was the fact that we "did" church in the first place that made things wrong.

I don't remember exactly, because I gave the book away. See, it raised a huge stink with some people I knew. I'm sure I totally had something to do with that. I hope to my dear Lord above that I've matured and grown in the past 5ish years. I don't actually remember a whole lot of how or what went down - just that a lot of people didn't like the book and things got a little personal and weird about the book. And me. Because I sort of agreed with the author. About church. Or something.

And I do recall rather vocal Christians making fun of the author. I mean like really rude stuff about his appearance and related stuff. That made me sick. Literally. I'm struggling to think of an instance where it's ever okay to attack someone over... anything, although I'm sure I can think of ten times I've done that, and probably recently.

Anyway. 

Right after this whole instance, another book was floating around that everyone called a "must read." I politely refused to read it. I had been down that road before, and I decided to forgo any other dalliances with Christan... literature. I decided to stick with Beth Moore for awhile. I was pretty sure Beth Moore was okay, although she does get in trouble too for not really preaching the Word and/or teaching to men.

Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe once you write a book, people decide that this gives them a free pass to criticize the book, you, your way of life, what kind of spectacles you wear, your faith, and a few other things thrown in for good measure. 

I'm pretty sure that's not what this is about, but it still bugs me. A lot. 

Anyway. (again)

 

What I did take away from that Elvis book was that it was okay to acknowledge that you weren't comfortable with the church. I was already feeling that way, but didn't really know what to do about it. It was just nice to see that someone else thought that same thing. It drove me to a study of Acts, and the more I read that, the more I realized that things were, um, not good.  


That's the short version of that. 

So, I didn't read this other book, which was titled something about blue being like jazz, because I was like, "Um, no thanks."

I didn't think much more about it. 

So fast forward 5ish years, to recently, and my friend writes a blog post about this Blue and Jazz book. Basically what my friend said was that years ago he read this Blue book and then wrote a pretty harsh critique about it. Over the years, he felt badly about that critique, so he wrote a retraction. He put it on Twitter, and then the Jazz author read the blog post, and wrote my friend back, saying that it was really kind of my friend to do that.

It was pretty neat to watch. I was impressed by my friend's ability to publicly admit he was wrong, impressed by the graciousness of the author,  and then promptly forgot about it.

A couple of days later, I was at my favorite place on earth. Well, sort of. The thrift store. There I found a copy of this Blue book for $1.38. My curiosity was piqued, since I had seen all of this play out just a couple of days before, so I bought it, figuring that if it was a bad book, I could just re-donate it.

And can I say that although I haven't ever written a book (and I'm biting my lip in order to not say "yet" because that seems a little ridiculous) if I did write a book, and it ended up in a thrift store, I would be sad. That's really dumb too, because unless it's like your favorite book ever, who holds on to books for a really long time? Okay fine, I would, but my small, cheap book shelf won't hold too many books, so I'm forced to donate them on a regular basis. 

(While I  admit that my dream house is a mud hut in Sudan, would it be wrong to wish it had this? Of course, if it did, I'd need a nanny to take care of all my kids so I could just read all the time. And  housekeeper so I wouldn't have to clean. And a cook, so I wouldn't have to, you know, cook. I could just read all the time, right there in that chair. This isn't exactly what this post was supposed to be about, now that I think about it...)




But still, my having my feeling hurt by this would be silly. Who cares if your book ends up at the thrift store? 


My brain is hard to handle today.

 Back to the point. I read the Blue book and it really did make me think. A lot. I liked reading the way he writes, if that makes sense. I appreciated the honesty of how he wrote too. Then the book became sort of an inspiration for me, not for what he said, but how he said it. He was so unapologetic. I apologize too much. (or not enough, depending on the situation) But usually I apologize too much. I'm sure there is some deep seeded, really bad reason I do that. I'm not in the mood to drum up those reasons, but I do realize that it's annoying. Maybe that's why I loved his honesty of writing about his journey. He didn't bathe the story in all these regrets of doubting and testing and trying and searching. He just lays it all out and lets the story do what it's going to do or not going to do to the reader.


That was refreshing. 


For me, the apologizer. 


I tend to do this especially in my own spiritual journey. I've spent almost as much time getting over the decade of debauchery as I did IN the decade. And there were stages. First the guilt. Then the guilt mixed with apologies. Then the sweeping it under the rug stage. Then back to guilt.

So I like the way this guy just lays it out there. And I think I kept waiting for him to apologize. You know, tell us all he was so sorry for searching and wandering so long. I was wanting him to long for all the days and years he wasted while he was searching. 


And he doesn't.


Huh.


It's almost like he told God he was sorry, maybe, and then just accepted the forgiveness and.... moved on?


What a novel concept. 


And maybe he didn't, but that's what I pondered. 


And it kinda changed the way I thought about my own journey. "Well, that's how I got here and so now I'm here."


The end.


And honestly I thought this guy was like 60. I have no idea why. I knew nothing about him. I thought he was writing all this from some wise place he arrived-maybe like a huge mountain where he looked down and saw the path that took him to God. Maybe that's why he was so okay with it all.


Nope. We're the same age, I recently learned.


That was almost as amazing to me as this guy's story was. Just so simple and clean.


I have no idea if he is sorry about it all. I don't know if he feels badly about anything he did.  But that's not the point really. He just kinda continued to encourage me to share me and my store unashamedly. Because maybe when you show guilt about something even thought you don't feel the guilt anymore, it casts a shadow on what you share. I mean, I do feel badly that I grieved my Savior for so long, but we're over that now. And this guy just showed me that the way you approach your story might make a huge difference too. Not proud of what you did, but also feeling the beauty and grace that washed that story from your eternal record.


And I'm not endorsing this book, before anyone gets their Holy underpants in a wad.  I'm not going down that road again. A lot of people don't like this book, and seem to need to tell others they didn't like it. Fine. If sharing your unsolicited opinion makes you feel better, have at it. I'm a little tired of hearing about what people don't like or don't agree with, but that's just me. Read the Word and agree with that and be done with it. 


This guy also raised money to make his book into a movie. I don't know how I feel about that, since people are dying of hunger and thirst and lack of medical care. But maybe if this movie saves one person, it would be worth it? I don't know. That's not the point either. 


I hope I remember what the point was.

Bane of my existence

 

These books mock me. They sit, on my bedside table, and they actually taunt me. I want to read until my eyeballs fall out. I need to be challenged. I want to learn. And I do make the most of my time, really. As I sit here blogging, I feel a twinge of guilt. I also took a look back at my blog the other day, and I rarely post anymore. I miss it, but I just have other things I want to do. There probably is a way to fit it all in, but I haven't figured that out yet.

So I thought I'd blog about my books, since I don't seem to be able to *read* them.

The Best Laney Ever

We're going to see the "Best Christmas Pageant Ever" next week at Children's Theater, so I wanted to read Laney the book before we got there. I had forgotten HOW much I love love love this book. We laughed our way through the first chapter. As I was closing the book, I noticed that the girl on the front looked a lot like Laney. She got a kick out of that! We can't wait for the play.