Category: Books & Reading

Eucharisteo

~ Emily ~ 9 Comments

It’s no coincidence that as rain turned into slush that turned into big flakes of our first snow in Coeur d’Alene, I was stranded in a coffee shop with only a book to keep me occupied.  The book – One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.

Tim and I had waited until the last minute to get our little car fixed up with snow worthy tires. So, it seemed, had most other people.  We were 31st in line and had a projected wait of four hours.  We resigned ourselves to making the coffee shop across the street our home for the evening.

Aside from an hour and a half interlude with some friends who graciously picked us up and fed us dinner, I spent over two hours immersed in Ann’s “list of naming God’s gifts.”  I read how eucharisteo is the fullness of life.  Thanksgiving. Gratitude.  They are inextricable from joy.

“I would never experience the fullness of my salvation until I expressed the fullness of my thanks every day, and eucharisteo is elemental to living the saved life,” Ann whispers in my ear.

The snow begins to fall when we leave our friends’ house and falls faster when we reenter our second home.  Walls shield me from the swiftly swirling snow as I hunker down for another hour of waiting, but coldness still penetrates my heart.

I have been dreading this blanket of white.  Snow means winter.  Winter means cold.  Cold means something dreary in my soul.  I so desperately want sun and warmth and sandals.

Even as I read and agree with Ann’s words that rejecting joy doesn’t rescue suffering, I am obstinate about my current displeasure.  I reject the beauty and the purity and the silence of snow.   It falls and my spirit falls with it.

I do not begin to melt until I hear the simple metaphor in my yearnings for heat and sunshine.  All I want is the sun and I am struck that the only thing that will get me through this season is the Son.  My innards stubbornly refuse to resign their sinking until eucharisteo reminds me again of the Son.

I cannot dwell low when the Son is shining high.

First with intentionality and then in a flood of thanks, I feel rays of His warmth kissing my skin in…

A bouquet of flowers and an ice scraper clutched tightly in my husbands hands.

The flicker of a candle flame reflected in our TV screen filled with fake fire.

Heat-filled cheeks from the steam of a hot bath.

Elegant green boughs heavy with white powder.

The oven timer signaling fresh-baked cookies are ready and warm.

My own list of naming God’s gifts has begun.  It is what propels me out of the cold, into the warmth of the Son.  With thousands of unique pieces of icy lace floating from the heavens, my heart echoes Ann’s prayer, “in the posture of euchariseo, I want to slow down and taste life, give thanks, and see God.”

7 by Jen Hatmaker {a review}

~ Emily ~ 10 Comments

Confronted by the worldly abundance in her life, Jen Hatmaker decided to rebel against cultural norms with an unconventional fast from greed, materialism, and overindulgence.  She identified seven areas of excess and tackled them one month at a time.  The result is recorded in Jen’s thought provoking book, 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess.

The Hatmaker family (along with some friends who were willing to participate in this crazy experiment) would only eat seven foods, wear seven articles of clothing, and spend money in seven places.  They would eliminate use of seven media outlets, give away seven things each day, adopt seven green habits, and observes seven “sacred pauses.”  This mutiny lasted seven months, each practice assigned to a different month.

Jen shares her journey through the 7 experiment in journal style.  She is humorous, honest, and humble about her struggles and successes along the way.

If the state of my paperback copy of this book is any indication of how much I would recommend 7, you should go out and buy it immediately.  The cover is bent from being shoved in my purse so I could read it during any downtime, pages are mussed up and underlined, and water marks belie the truth that it was in the bathroom (a favorite reading spot) a lot.

I’m still not sure whether I read 7 at the perfect time or the worst time.

My heart was primed for talk of purging and simplifying after reading Tsh Oxenreider’s book, Organized Simplicity. I may have freaked The Hubs out with all my talk of family purpose statements, home management, and garage sales (which we did have!).

However, all of this upheaval in my heart about intentional living coincided with upheaval in my day to day life.  Tim and I were newly married, job searching, and didn’t have a permanent place to live.  Major transitions were in motion and I started reading 7 the day we got the keys to our new apartment, 1300 miles away from where we previously called home.

I was ripe for revival in this new season, this new place, but very full with all the changes that had happened and were happening.  Our  move was the perfect opportunity to start fresh, but I was already overwhelmed with adjusting to our new situation let alone adjusting to a new style of living.

We had already reduced our possessions before moving and were beginning to weigh purchases against budget and priorities.  But, I realized this book was prompting an attitude adjustment not just an actions overhaul.

I was especially convicted about my closet.  During high school and college, I built a large part of my identity around the clothes I wore.   I had accumulated quite the clothing collection over those years and continued to purchase without purging.  Not only did I need to purge, I also needed to extricate my value from my apparel.

Month by month, as I laughed, sighed, and agreed with Jen, I became more fired up about simplicity.  But, I also developed a superior attitude about my new found zest for intentional living.  I judged other people’s choices, holding them to my own new standards.

By the time I had gotten to the last couple chapters, I was mentally crafting an S.O.S. to Jen asking how she approached other Christians who were not on the same beam about reducing excess and increasing generosity.

Then I read her conclusion. Screech. Halt. Lightbulb. Humbled.

7 allowed us to slowly break up with some of our ideas, our luxuries. However, even if I had a clear directive, I’m not sure I’d share it here. Whatever God has done or is doing in our family is certainly not a template, and I don’t want it to be.  We live in a certain city with a certain task, we have specific gifts, and we’re horribly deficient in others.  Our life looks like it does because we are the Hatmakers, and God is dealing with us the way He’s dealing with us.  We have a history and sin issues and circumstances and geography that God takes into account as He stakes our place in His kingdom. {218}

My judgment of others was based on a formula – a formula I wasn’t 100% successful at, I might add!  Fasting isn’t really about what you go without, but why you go without.  I realized that 7 wasn’t prescriptive, but descriptive.

The process of lightening our mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional load in order to serve God wholeheartedly looks different for everyone.  It isn’t a formula. Jen’s message isn’t one of judgement for the techno-dependent, hoarders in all of us; it is encouragement to take an honest look at our resources and how we use them.

Each of us is in a different place on the journey. I am responsible for my own journey and to spur others on in their own journey, not to criticize.

When the reading was over, 7 left me meditating on these two verses:

But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. {Matthew 6:20}

He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. {Micah 6:8}

Dear Jane Austen {31 Days of Letters}

~ Emily ~ 7 Comments

Dear Ms. Austen,

You have an uncanny skill – a skill not often replicated among authors.  You  craft words into narrative that speaks volumes about a woman’s heart, no matter what century she lived in.   Simple greetings and common gestures become insightful social commentary with help from your quick wit and expert prose.

Even your earlier work, the juvenilia as scholars now call it, is masterful and engaging.  Your Lady Susan, a work composed solely of letters, rivals the prowess of Frances Burney in Evelina.  Although, I do wish you had finished The Watsons.  What was to become of the love triangle between Lady Osborne, Mr. Howard, and Emma?  I will forever be hanging on Mr. Watson’s fate.

Emma, however, is my favorite of your novels.  It is the perfect example of how you balance social commentary and narrative.  To an unsuspecting reader, your novels are a pleasant look into a place or person.  For those who look deeper, they are a running appraisal of life.  From the surface, Emma seems to revolve around the heroine’s matchmaking skills, but the true meat of your story lies in one person’s preoccupation with the advantages of herself in comparison to others.

I’m particularly drawn to Emma as a character, and a novel, because I share many of the same faults as the heroine.  But, through Emma, you give me hope that my pride and propensity to judge others can be tempered.

You pit Emma’s advantages against Mr. Knightley’s superior, albeit wise and kind, social values.  Mr. Knightley is able to see Emma in a realistic light, exposing her imperfections and loving her in spite of them.  With his consistent love and steady correction, Emma begins to see beyond her own advantages in life.

Mr. Knightley is the perfect foil for Emma’s inherent loftiness.  The spirit of what you’ve created in Mr.Knightley’s character, is echoed in my community – community with Christ and community with friends and family.  It often takes the patient prodding of others to promote candid appraisal of my Emma-like qualities.

After reading all of your novels, your letters and scripts, your unfinished works, I am all the more intrigued by you, Ms. Austen.  Just like I find myself in many of your heroine’s, you must put a bit of yourself in each one as well.  Since I can’t meet you in person, I immerse myself into your world, your life, your mind via the written word.

Every revisiting comes with new discovery.  I keep reading.

Sincerely,

Emily

Below are some photos from my trip to Bath – a prominent setting in Jane Austen’s novels and a vacation spot Austen enjoyed frequently.

At the Roman Baths {Bath, UK}
Assembly rooms and Bath Cathedral

 

You can find all my letters here.

For more information about the 31 Day Challenge, visit The Nester.

Dear Jesus {31 Days of Letters}

~ Emily ~ 9 Comments

Mary DeMuth wrote Everything, a book about letting God be your everything.  In her words:

I’m a mess like you (though you’re probably much less messy!). I truly want Jesus to be my everything, but some days I try to be my own everything. I forget God’s strength shines best when I feel small and weak. And I bootstrap myself more than I’d like to admit. {Mary DeMuth}

Sounds like me!  I don’t own this book yet, but Everything is on my to-buy-ASAP list.  I’m looking forward to reading it, and I’m also kind of nervous.  I fail at making God my everything and know Mary’s book will stretch and challenge my daily walk with God.

In honor of Everything being released this past Tuesday, my letter today is based on The Worrywart Prayer.  Worry is a self-inflicted road block to letting God be everything in your life.  It distracts us, demeans God, and deadens our joy.

Here’s my take on The Worrywart Prayer, which Mary wrote to help us all let go of worry.  I encourage you to fill in the blanks for yourself.  Prayerfully consider what worries are disabling God from being everything in your life.  Pray for God’s freedom from those worries.

Dear Jesus,

You are far greater than anyone or anything I can fathom.  You have been faithful to me – faithful in my doubts, in my worry, in my unbelief – for all my twenty-five years.

You are more than able to handle my burdens.  You are more than capable of caring for my loved ones.  You are more than willing to turn my worries into a thing of the past.

Jesus, I give You my future.  I give You my emotions, my health, my marriage, my family, my writing.

I don’t know what You will do with these things, but I know that You are more loving and more wise than I could be, even about the things that I hold so dear.

I hold on to my life with such a tight grip that I strangle Your plans and purposes.  I am sorry for my obsession with control.

Please give me the strength to let go, to open my hands, and relax my grip.  I want Your will and Your presence.

Jesus, take it all!  Help me to trust You today and forever.  I give up my desires, my plotting and planning.  I humbly ask for Your guidance, for Your will to be done in my life.

I choose not to worry about my future and all that it holds or doesn’t hold.  When I slip and stumble along the way, let Your grace overcome my worry.

Amen.

Emily

You can find all my letters here.

For more information about the 31 Day Challenge, visit The Nester.

Dear Eustace {31 Days of Letters}

~ Emily ~ 8 Comments

Dear Eustace,

After reading about you a few years ago, your story has never left my heart and mind.  I have Eustace moments frequently and wanted you to know that you aren’t alone – you are not the only reformed dragon around.

I’d like to think I started out more likable than your pre-Narnia self, but I am fully capable of acting like a greedy, teetotaling, know-it-all too.  You must agree, it’s pretty amazing how quickly dragon qualities appear.  Just one night “sleeping on a dragon’s hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in your heart and you’d become a dragon yourself.”

My bad attitudes and pride are monstrous and shocking, often appearing overnight after laying dormant for a spell.  The dragon-that-had-been-Emily rises her dark, lumpy self and destroys all in her path with fire.

I know what its like to not recognize yourself.  You wake up one morning and wonder who those claws belong to and why there’s steam coming from your nose.  The moment of truth is agonizing.  Your reflection isn’t pretty and the realization of what you’ve become is disheartening. Will you be like this forever?

And that gold bracelet of yours – I know what its like to be trapped by such finery. I have gold bracelets up the wazoo, things that I value because the world values them or idols I have created. I wear them greedily unaware that they are slowly cutting off feeling.  My finery becomes a tourniquet stemming the flow of the Spirit.  As I become more distracted by the gold bracelets and what they are doing to my arm, I become less sensitive to that still small voice calling me to freedom.

I know what it’s like to have Reepicheeps in your life who come beside you at your worst.  When you realize the errors of your dragon ways and are in the depths of despair, they comfort you, they stand up for you, they point you towards hope.

Most poignantly, I know what it’s like to have your scales ripped off.  I know the desire to de-dragon yourself.  I’ve tried to shed my own skin in hopes of maintaining control, but as you found out, it grows right back again.  It takes the claws of a lion to dig below the surface. There comes a point where you welcome a lion’s claws, willing to endure pain in order to feel the dead weight of thick, dark, knobbly looking layers fall off.

Eustace, you may have began quite dragony, eating raw meat and all, but in the end you were more the knight.  Thank you for reminding me that there is often pain in purification.

Sincerely,

Emily (fellow dragon)

The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart.  And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt.  The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.  You know – if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place.  It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.       {The Voyage of The Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis}

 

You can find all my letters here.

For more information about the 31 Day Challenge, visit The Nester.