What We’re Reading Lately (WWRL)

Do you have a stack of unread books, staring at you, mocking you? ‘¦just reminds me of piles of laundry, dishes in the sink, and paperwork on the counter. Sometimes all of this unfinished business starts. to. make. me. crazy! Don’t get me wrong I love books! So we’ve begun to play nice with that snarky stack of books again. The words here have connected with our hearts, and so we share just a few of them now, with you:

Jodi

From Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination by Vigen Guroian: he is quoting G.K. Chesterton…

“A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have unbounding vitality, because they are spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, ‘˜Do it again’ ” because there is such delight in that thing or activity. “It may be,” Chesterton concludes, “that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy, for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence, it may be a theatrical encore.”

Cati

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us. – Alexander Graham Bell

Choosing Contentment by David Zerfoss from Stress Less and Enjoy Each Day

Britta

There is a common belief in today’s Church that Judaism ‘“ whether in Paul’s day or our own ‘“ teaches salvation by works of the Law, whereas Christianity is a religion of grace‘¦[this is] far more a caricature or misrepresentation of the truth‘¦The common teaching of first-century Judaism [was] that salvation could be attained “only through God’s gracious love.”

Our Father Abraham: Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith by Marvin Wilson

Tracy

Many of our struggles about faith have to do with timing. We believe, at least in theory , that God will keep His promises–but when?
Fresh Faith: What happens when Real Faith Ignites God’s People by Jim Cymbala