“Commit your works to the Lord, and your thoughts will be established.” – Proverbs 16:3
I told myself I would write every day this month. I’ve wanted to challenge myself an stretch my writing capacity for a while, and a monthlong challenge seemed like a good way to do it.
But only for the shortest month of the year. And I have no idea of what to write.
Because, honestly, there’s not a lot going on outside of the day-to-day schedule of maintaining a house and schooling my children. Winter here has had very little snow and also very few sunny days.
So I have gotten really into library books.
I’m cheap and I don’t like to have unlimited choices, so I like libraries! And thrift stores, but that’s another topic.
Currently, I have 26 library books out and only 6 of them are slightly for my children. This is after I returned 9 books last week.
They range in topic from parenting, going without technology, understanding ADHD, minimalism in regards to parenting, stuff in my house, and number of ingredients in recipes. Knitting! Praising God through cleaning my house! A book of essays about slow living and one about “finding the good” which s both have lemons on their covers!
This array of books are in a milk crate behind my couch and I’m enjoying perusing through them. I had 3 books out on the table yesterday all face down in the middle from where I was reading and it was quite enjoyable.
With all of these books in circulation at my home, you might get the picture that I am a voracious reader. Let me tell you: I am not.
I am a curious life-long learner at best, and a hoarder of non-fiction books that I’m too cheap to buy at worst. Hey! That’s not so bad of a worst! Although, I will admit to holding onto books that I have hated until I could no longer renew them just because I didn’t want anyone else reading such horrible literature, but it’s been a while. At least a year, I think. That may be the dark side of my worst…
I remember my boss asking me once what I’d like to be known for. I worked in a bakery and I was really good at my job, so I expected to want to be known for my baking skills and efficiency. I think she was thinking along those lines as well. What I answered surprised us both: I said I wanted to be well-read.
To have books be something I’m known for. For reading for pleasure and learning. To have a book always in process. To know authors by name and style. And maybe to become one myself one day.
At that point, it has been years since I had picked up a book and read it cover-to-cover. Reading wasn’t something I did in those days.
Now I feel itchy when I don’t have something to pick up and read. As if there is an internal piece of wiring that longs for new written information that doesn’t come from a screen. Don’t get me wrong, I still get sucked into screens, but it’s nothing near as good of a feeling as being sucked into a book.
I also enjoy reading to my children and growing our minds together through visiting other worlds where vinegar and mayonnaise make freckles, where squirrels talk and show compassion, and where words are made up and change the characters. The way that stories leap off a page and seep into our own family reality still amazes me. Reading books together has created a bond for my children that I couldn’t have manufactured in any other way.
Books have an amazing capacity to change the way we think, act, process, and behave.
While I’m challenging myself to grow my writing externally this month, I am also gleaning internally from reading. I’m not to my own point of being well-read, but I’d like to think that I’m on my way.