its strange, or maybe it isn't, maybe its God, how the timing clicks into place, the seemingly random mysteries of interlibrary loan brought me such good things, soul-nourishing things, in a month my soul needed (needs) nourishing.
i read this first and came up for air from the seemingly unending onslaught of overwhelmedness. i was so focused on how things most certainly would become too much in the future that i was missing the hear-and-now.
and then i read this and remembered oh how He loves me, something my puritanical upbringing never focused on, not in a real sense. i know in my bones that God is GOOD and that God is Just and that God has chosen me as one of his, but so much of my life..my faith has been about obedience mainly and....when i read a verse, i see the "you shall do this" and miss the "because you are so loved"--and the shalls don't matter at all without the so-loveds! i'm trying to connect this to my everyday life; i have trouble with negative thinking about myself sometimes and i try to remember now, to stop, that He loves Me, he loves me... and this has been revolutionary for me.
now i've just picked up this book. and the first chapter, on the death of the author's babysister, witnessed when the author herself was a little girl, the lyric emotive memory pulled me in and i cried all the way through it. on the wake of my friend losing her child... she writes "Can there be a good God? A God who graces with good gifts when a crib lies empty through long nights, and bugs burrow through coffins? Where is God really?" and she writes, and i feel it too, "if it were me, i would've written this story differently"
and the echos of what i just learned, or maybe what was just drawn up from the deep first-meeting with God in my early memories, that he loves us, he loves us..those are there too, colliding with these thoughts..
"his secret purpose framed from the very beginning is to bring us to our full glory" { 1 corinthians 2:7 }
i don't see the whole story, the secret purpose. i believe in the glory though, and that he can fill us with his grace. and that this all somehow works together from his Love for us...
Oh, I would LOVE to hear what you think about One Thousand Gifts after you've finished. I read her blog and love it (mostly), but I've read mixed things about the book and the theology it contains, so I haven't yet read it.
ReplyDeleteOh, and the first two links go the same book (Because He Loves Me).
ReplyDeleteoops! updated the link (loving the little years is the book, i've already written my odes to it lol)
ReplyDeletei'm only a chapter in. the chapter was incredibly moving to me---she can WRITE, i mean really write--and reading of the death of a child after my friend's death of a child brought me to tears, and i try not to be the crying type (but i am).
the theology in the first chapter is that God is in control, that everything (and every bad thing) he allows is for our sanctification and his greater glory, and that we can't see the whole picture so we can't always understand why bad things happen.
i'll let you know how the rest of it goes! i'll have to check out her blog sometime, i'd never heard of her until a friend recommended this book to me.
I've really been wanting to read Ann Voskamp; I'll have to see if our library has that book!
ReplyDeletejulie shared this review of the book with me:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.challies.com/book-reviews/one-thousand-gifts
you might want to read that before reading 1000gifts. i'm planning to finish reading it for myself, but i am glad that i have read this review so that i know to keep my eyes open
Oh wow. That's some terrible theology. It's always the best writers that have the worst theology (Madeleine L'Engle, Anne Lamott, etc.). Sad. Guess I'll have to add Ann Voskamp to that list.
ReplyDeleteI will write my own review when I finish and let you know what I think
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to hearing your review of the book. I read 1,000 Gifts last year and really enjoyed it although I did have some slight reservations about a couple of the things that she said. I did start a journal from the idea given in the book that has been incredibly helpful to me. I hope you do the same. I also read Choosing Gratitude by Nancy Leigh DeMoss which is incredibly solid theologically but not quite as beautiful to read. Voskamp writes absolutely beautiful!
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