Being thankful...for a good book

This is the picture sitting on my desktop this morning. She's a keeper, for sure. :)

Glory to thee for all the grace
I have not tasted yet. --Charles Spurgeon

It's not been a great week. Wow. It's only Tuesday. Well, it's been a rough couple of days. How's that? Not one thing in particular--just a high stress level caused by many different things going on in our lives, both here in Vienna and back home in Florida. We've gotten a diagnosis for my Dad, but the first surgery (for his kidney) is looking like a much more major surgery than we'd originally hoped for because of the position of the tumor on his kidney. So that wasn't a plus. And he still feels so awful, which I cannot stand. Sarah Beth is in the middle of finals. Marc and I are getting ready for our German exam this Saturday, amidst a flood of other deadlines. And I had a little accident on Sunday that is causing pain and even less sleep than usual. (Note to self: sunburn + hot, steamy bath + fainting = large, painful egg on the back of my head.) We'll be fine...just a bit discouraged at the moment. Okay, maybe a lot discouraged at the moment. But we really will be fine. We serve a big God, right? If He is for us, who (or what) can be against us? :)

So I've been thinking about all the things and people God uses to encourage me during times like this--just being thankful and grateful for His new mercies each day. And there are a lot of things I could list here--dear, sweet friends who always are faithful to pray, sweet friendships that are developing with nationals here, the view off my balcony as the sun comes up, an apartment full of sunshine and light, even on cloudy days...you get the idea. Lots of stuff. But one of God's greatest gifts to me, one for which I am SO thankful right now, is my deep love affair with books.

It all started for me in the living room of my Aunt Angie and Uncle Raleigh's house in Doctor's Inlet, Florida, where I would visit in the summer as a child. It was lined on one wall with bookshelves. And I could read anything I wanted. I had books at home, of course, but there was something truly wonderful about a lazy, too-hot-to-be-outside Florida afternoon, sitting in that room and reading for hours. It was there I first discovered the wonder of true crime writing. (Yep, still love them. I have basically read every Ann Rule book in print.) I found that I loved mysteries (I've read every Mary Higgins Clark book) and history (I just finished a great bit of history this morning). In fact, I found that I basically loved everything I could get my hands on. (One thing I don't love--fantasy. Yuck. Not my cup of tea. I've never read all of Lord of the Rings or made it through one of the movies without falling asleep. Sorry. I just don't get it.) What I found during those wonderful summer afternoons spent reading was that books made great, wonderful companions and transported me to places and worlds that I could not have even dreamed of in my wildest fantasy. Pardon the pun, but I was hooked.

I went on, of course, to be an English teacher, spending my days teaching the books I loved so much. One of my favorite book memories is from early in my career, when I was teaching in a rural high school in Georgia. We didn't have enough copies of To Kill a Mockingbird for each student, and we could not ask students to buy them or buy more ourselves, so I ended up reading the whole book aloud to my classes. I even brought in a rocking chair to sit in while I read, and they often ended up sitting at my feet on the floor, just listening to the story. When we got to the part where Tom Robinson has been killed, one of my students yelled, "NO!!" Nobody laughed. Nobody made fun of her. We just kept reading. It was a meaningful moment for me and for the kids--certainly, that particular book made a great deal of sense to them, since it was written about a culture they knew and understood all too well. I went on to have other meaningful moments with books, but that one always sticks out in my mind as a defining moment in my teaching career.

I read constantly. I have at least one book "going" all the time. Sometimes I'm reading an actual book, but more often than not, I'm reading on my Kindle app or my Nook. As I get older, I tend to like nonfiction more than fiction, and I have an ever-growing appreciation for the classics I've loved for most of my adult life. I'm not always reading a classic or something meaningful, though. Sometimes (don't tell anyone, ok?) I just read for fun. I read to escape. I read because it makes me feel better about whatever thing I'm going through at the moment.

So what does that have to do with the discouragement we currently feel? Because books are a way for me to relieve tension and escape, and because they are salve to my introverted soul, they encourage me. They make me laugh or cry. They make me think. They help me to know and understand places and people better. I loved Russian literature long before I dreamed of living in Russia. (Dostoevsky is my favorite, in case you're wondering.) Reading about Austrian history, especially the history of Vienna, has helped me to have an appreciation for this place that God has us for this season. And sometimes, I just need to think about something else. Something that isn't this moment. I believe God created me to love books so that I would always have a way to turn my brain off and do something else, to remove myself from the stress of this moment so that I can refocus somewhere else. And at this moment, when I'm a teeny bit overwhelmed...I'm so, so grateful for that.

Maybe you think this is a crazy post, that I love books because I do. But God's Word clearly says that He is the Giver of all good gifts...and for me, books are a very good gift. So I choose to be thankful for them and for the stress relief they so often provide. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you are grateful for whatever escape God has provided for you, and that your kids have the day off school, too. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye