With four kids, homeschooling, and a slew of other real life things, I don't have a lot of time to read. I LOVE to read, but I don't do well with reading for five minutes at a time and then setting it down. And so, the only time I really have to read is at night once the kids have gone to bed. However, that is usually when I do my Bible reading and so there is not much time (or brain power) to read anything afterward.
That said, I have been trying to sneak in some more reading time. I am part way through about ten books right now, but these are three that I have been focusing on the most recently:
I finished this book a few weeks ago and then promptly started again. For the past year or so some pretty big things have been rolling around in my head and heart and this book helped put words and perspective to what I have been feeling. The book is a call to believers to realize that God demands and expects that we care for the poor and needy. We are not just to preach the good news, we are to embody the good news. This books does an amazing job of bringing to light the plight of the poor and needy...the millions of people living in poverty (and not the $30,000 or so "poverty" guidelines of the US, but rather, the BILLION+ people living on less than $1 a day. ) He talks openly of hunger and disease and how it affects millions every day. Interwoven into the book is the author's own story of how he went from being CEO of Lennox China to being president of World Vision, an organization "dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their fullest potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice."
This book, coupled with my reading through the Old Testament the last two months, has shown me so clearly that God demands that we care for the poor, the needy, the widow, and the orphan. It is not optional. "Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father
is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep
oneself unstained by the world." James
James 1:26-27. "If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,' and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that?"And there is that little passage in Matthew 25:31-46 where you see an astounding method that God uses to eternally separate the sheep and the goats. And the passages in Isaiah (chapter 1 and 58 come to mind) where God talks openly of Israel's sin. He tells them how much he HATES their worthless "religion" while poverty and injustice abound.
So much more to say on this book...maybe another time.
I don't have a hard copy of this book so I downloaded the audio book and listened to a lot of it on my trip last weekend. It is the story of a middle class Ethiopian woman who out of her own grief opened up her home to orphans, most of which were infected or affected by the AIDS pandemic. The story is inspiring, but surprisingly, the part I have liked best is the fairly in-depth history of HIV/AIDS and the medications that can save lives. I humbly admit to being completely ignorant to how much HIV/AIDS has changed in the last decade and how incredibly powerful the medications are. I did not know that while not curable, HIV is a totally treatable disease and when administered properly, the medicines allow those who have the disease to live normal, long lives. I did not how many millions of lives have been lost and many more millions of children orphaned due to the fact that even after HIV/AIDS medications were discovered, the pharmaceutical patents denied this treatment to poor nations. I did not realize the fact that so many millions of kids are now left as orphans, trying to make sense of a world that doesn't make sense.
I've been wanting to read this book for about two years. I finally got a copy of it in September and although I started right away, I misplaced it and am now finally finishing the book. "Good" is an understatement. I usually don't like parenting books -- I find them either totally ridiculous and damaging to children or I find them so common-sense that I am not challenged. This book is neither of those. This book is our parenting method on paper. It has been so incredibly refreshing to hear that others see the high calling of parenting in the same light that we do. The manifestations of this approach look a tiny bit different in our family than they do here, but I imagine that due to the uniqueness of each family and circumstances (number of children, age range of children, etc) that no family will exactly reproduce the author's methods. However, what we believe and do and the reasons behind it are stated so well in these pages. The book has encouraged me in what we are doing and challenged me on the whys.
The book talks about our duty as parents to guide and grow the heart of our children. We can't be permissive and lazy babysitters nor can we demand obedience for obedience's sake. We are called to be God's agents to these children...teaching them and guiding their hearts based on biblical standards. He calls parents to take their job seriously. He implores parents to guide their children's' hearts to God's agenda rather than their own. He shows through simple and careful language that with a delicate and intricate balance of communication and discipline, children can be raised to love God and others and have that love manifested in their every day words and actions.
I can't recommend this book highly enough. If you are really curious about what our family believes about parenting, this books pretty much sums it up. It talks of what we are doing and what we want to strive to do more of.
In addition, it speaks strongly to the two parenting extremes:
1) Those parents who are inconsistent and unconcerned with the heart of their kids and therefore raise kids with low expectations, little discipline (of heart, mind, and action), and a blazingly selfish view of the world around them. The discipline that is given is due to the parents' annoyance and inconvenience rather than the heart issues at stake.
2) Those parents (who I see few of but I know at least one friend who sees a lot more of this in her geographical area) that are so intent on "getting the kids to obey me" that they lose the heart of the children. These parents want control and want to be in charge. They want to be the authority in their kids' lives rather than showing the kids that GOD is the one to be obeyed...both by parents and children. These parents may produce well-mannered children, but they have not produced children with a heart turned to God and His word. They obey out of fear. And the parents demand the obedience in selfish and arrogant pride.
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So there you have it...a few things that have been taking up time in my heart and life right now.
