Books Read in 2014 (or at least the ones I remember)

Must-Read

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain—The most enlightening book I’ve read in a long time. It helped me understand the introverts in my family, the extroverts, myself, and the society we live in. So many a-ha moments. Don’t miss this one.

A Wind in the House of Islam by David Garrison—Also exceptionally enlightening. Helped me understand how Islam became so pervasive and what God is doing among Muslims today. We’ll never hear these stories in the news, but they teach us how to pray and remind us that the world is not spinning out of control. If you care at all about this topic, read this one. Today.

Yawning at Tigers: You Can’t Tame God So Stop Trying by Drew Dyck—This book spawned a series on my blog about what it means to fear the Lord. If you ever have the hunch that God is getting too small or too controllable in your mind, this book will correct your perspective.

Runner Up in the Must-Read Category

Rumors of Another World: What on Earth Are We Missing by Philip Yancey—I’d never heard of this 2003 Yancey book but picked it up on a whim. With Yancey, you know you’re going to get good stories and good writing. Here he addresses the visible, material world and the invisible, spiritual world and how the two often collide if we’re paying attention. Thought-provoking and worth reading just for the quotes he uses from other sources.

Technology

It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens by Danah Boyd—An unusual choice for a mom whose teenagers don’t have cell phones, let alone Facebook accounts. But I’m also someone who wonders how all this technology is rewiring our brains and changing our culture. Originally written as a dissertation, this is a current (2014), well researched book. The author is just young enough to think parents are the real problem and blame them for nearly everything. While I didn’t appreciate that tone, I was reassured by her conclusion that teens today use social media not to hide from genuine social interaction, but because they long for it. It makes sense that in a world where fearful parents have made their kids’ worlds smaller, kids attempt to make it bigger from the comfort of their own rooms.

BBB (Bios/Books from Bloggers)

Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption by Katie Davis—Read this on the plane to and from Russia in January. Nothing gets you in the mood for an overseas mission trip quicker than reading about a teenager who gives up her affluent life to feed, nurse, love, and adopt nearly 20 Ugandan girls. Eager to have my kids read this some day.

Carry On, Warrior: The Power of Embracing Your Messy, Beautiful Life by Glennon Doyle Melton—I love it when a blogger gets an easy book deal. I’ve read a few of this writer’s pieces on her blog, Momastery, and she certainly deserves a whole book. Although we come from totally different places, we see the world and faith in a lot of similar ways, and her easy, casual, hilarious style sucked me in and made for a quick read.

Move On: When Mercy Meets Your Mess by Vicki Courtney—Do you see a theme here? Apparently I’m attracted to books for messy people. Didn’t like this one nearly as much as Melton’s, but it did contain some stories that have stuck with me.

Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life—Finally got a Lauren Winner book checked off my list. Glad I read it, but probably don’t need another.   

Bossypants by Tina Fey—A funny weekend-get-away read but a little too raunchy to widely recommend.

Fiction (which I could devour but only allow as an occasional treat)

Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill—This book has been out since 2008, but I just found it this year. Painful to read, almost impossible to imagine, but important to hear how a young life was forever changed by slavery. Highly recommend this one.

The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd—I didn’t set out to read two fiction books about slaves, and probably I should have spaced them out more. They’ve melded a bit in my head. This was my least favorite of the two, but the character development made it worth reading.

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving—This one did little more for me than confirm that the Kindle is good for fiction. I had no idea how long it was when I started it. While it contained some slick writing and a story like no other, it was not worth the time commitment.

Sycamore Row by John Grisham—This was a typical Grisham book, which means you don’t love it, but you don’t put it down, either.

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury—One of the joys of having a high schooler is getting to read his books with him. A product of a rural education, I missed out on a lot of the classics and am looking forward to making up for it through my children. This book is a strange one, and at first I didn’t like it at all. By mid-way through I was starting to get it and realize how prophetic Bradbury was. How could he have known, in 1953, that we would be a culture mesmerized by media and addicted to virtual-world entertainment?  Made for great discussion with my 15-year-old. 

Making a List, Checking It Twice

At any given time, I have several lists going. This time of year, my lists multiply, until the Post-Its no longer cut it. I recently had to start a dedicated notebook full of lists. (I admire those of you who use phones for such things. As my tech skills are pretty much maxed out with texting, it’s unlikely I will be joining you any time soon.)

There’s one list I’ve never made, though this is the year I’ll start. It was prompted by a question our pastor asked last weekend: “Do you live like you believe in Christmas?” Not that you believe in the holiday and therefore put up a tree and stockings and some lights. Do you—do I—live the rest of the year acting like Christmas matters?

While sort of listening to the rest of the sermon, I started pondering what it would look like to live like I believe in Christmas, like it matters to my life. As is often the case, a list formed in my head. Here’s the check list I came up with to see if Christmas is genuinely affecting the other 363 days of my life each year:

• Am I spending time with Jesus?
• Am I looking for glory for myself, or can I let God have all the glory?
• Do I spend more time trying to control the people and situations around me, or more time actively surrendering them to the Lord?
• Am I looking out for myself, or looking out for ways God wants to use me?
• Do I have hope? Do I talk and act like I have hope?
• Is self-protection my number-one goal in any relationship, or is it being authentic and trying to love the other person well?
• Do I live as one beaten down by the world (i.e., whining and complaining), or as one who believes the battle is won and I’m on the winning side?
• Am I willing to give grace to the people who annoy/confuse/hurt me the most?
• How tightly am I holding onto the things of this world? Would I freely let them go if God asked me to?
• Do I live like I believe that this world is not my home?
• Am I aware of my sin? Do I try to hide it or do I admit it? Do I ask for forgiveness when I need to?
• When’s the last time I loved or served someone well and didn’t tell anyone else about it?
• Am I asking God for big things and keeping my eyes peeled for His response?
• Is my life marked by gratitude? Would the people around me say that it is?

It would be a lot easier just to get to work on my errand list and shove this list in a forgotten drawer somewhere. These are hard, soul-searching questions. They’re harder than some make-believe “naughty or nice” list that causes me to look around and conclude that I’m doing a lot better than some other people. I know I’m not “naughty,” but am I living the way I want to live? Like Christmas affects me every day of the year? Hard questions, but important ones. Christmas, Immanuel, God with us—these things matter. I want to live like they matter to me. 

Preparing Room

Have you ever been mindlessly mumbling along to a Christmas song only to be stopped in your tracks by the words you were saying? I’ve sung Joy to the World hundreds of times. In seventh grade music class, I learned the harmony part, and it became my favorite Christmas carol to sing. In eighth grade my best friend and I changed the lyrics, practiced the cool harmony over and over again, and called all the local radio stations with our new rendition, which touted their awesome music and, we hoped, would get us some free air time. (It didn’t work, but we did sing to a lot of DJs one Friday night. There were worse things we could've been doing.)

But today, I couldn’t get past this line: “Let every heart prepare Him room.” That could be the tagline for advent! Surely some advertiser has thought of that. But what about me? Have I thought about it? Not in a commercial, sell-it-to-a-radio-station sort of way, but in a personal way? I love the idea of preparing room in my heart for Jesus. Of course Jesus is a permanent resident in my heart, but sometimes it surely gets a little crowded in there. Those words give me a much-needed visual: I’m packing up all the unwanted junk in my heart and moving it out. I'm preparing a place for the thing I want most. Just like we cleaned out the guest room in 1999 to make room for our new baby, I’m preparing a place for this Christmas baby, the one who became my Savior and my King.

Advent is a time to dump some of the random things taking up my brain space—Where did I last see that missing library book? Will Braden ever learn to iron? What was the name of that girl who ran away from my fourth-grade slumber party? Do we have enough milk?—and prepare my mind to meditate on Immanuel, God with us, and how spectacularly mind-blowing that is.

Bethlehem was all filled up when Jesus arrived. What about you and me? Have we prepared room for Him?