Let's talk books

Here I sit in pajama pants that I bought the week I got home from the hospital after having Ada and a t-shirt I earned when I ran the Emerald Nuts Midnight run in Central Park the new year's eve before Scott and I got married. Such contrast--such examples of the two lives I have lived. The pajama pants were purchased because I desperately wanted to wear something not maternity and everything in my closet was obviously too small. I wore them for weeks after Ada was born, even when visitors came by, even to the grocery store. They will always speak of sleepless nights and adjusting to this new tiny person that had entered our lives. And the t-shirt, such a surreal night for me. Running in central park at midnight, knowing that before the year was over I would be a Mrs., and celebrating one last moment of singleness with my college friends. And now, three short years later, I sit in the home I share with my husband, Ada asleep upstairs, and Scott gone to a community group social without me because I cannot leave Ada here alone. And as much as I may want to be selfish, as much as I AM selfish, I know that Ada needs to be in bed, her bed, so I sit here alone. And I am tempted to feel sorry for myself. Perhaps tempted is the wrong word--perhaps I DO feel sorry for myself;)

Because writing has always been a form of therapy for me, I decided the better option, over wallowing in self pity, is to blog.

Amy Rambo is the friend I was running with on that New Year's Eve that now seems so long ago. She has always been my best running partner. Neither of us have a need for speed, and we are both short girls, so our stride is the same, and we like to chat as we run in order to make the miles go by faster. Our best conversations happened as we ran all over Auburn's campus. Tonight, I am reminded of a conversation we had one night as we were running with Laura Galloway. Just as we passed Mamma G's, and needing to make it all the way back to the hill, Laura posed the question, "What books have been most influential in your life?" I love this question because it isn't the typical, what is your favorite book. So tonight, with a need to get my mind on something worthwhile, I return to that question.

That night Rambo and I both agreed that the Christy Miller series was certainly a group of influential books during our middle school years. If you were a typical Jr. High youth grouper, I am guessing that you have heard of these books. To give you an idea, my dad bought us the first one because it was a christian book and it had a picture of a cheerleader on the cover--a combination that clearly made this book a winner:) Though these books may never receive any literary claim, they did shape my views on dating and how to dress and who to be friends with in a way that parents and youth leaders cannot do for a teenage girl. I learned not to be unequally yoked and that tight jeans may send the wrong message:) And of course, I began to actually think about my future husband. There must be at least one reader out there who also crushed hard on Todd Spencer. I made many bad decisions during my teenage years, but I really believe, crazy as it may seem, that I made fewer bad decisions than I would have had I not read the Christy Miller series.

Second on the list for me has to be Hind's Feet on High Places, an allegory in which the character much afraid is taken through much suffering in order to be given a new heart, and therefore, a new name. I first read this book, or was read this book, one summer as a child. My mother wanted us to have structure that summer, and every afternoon we would sit on Ann's bed, and my mom would read a chapter to us. Later, at sixteen years old, after I had experienced an intense break up with my high school boyfriend, I returned to the book in search of anything that might bring comfort or peace. Looking back, I see that it was the sovereignity of God, and His shaping my relationship with Him, that brought me back to the book. As my young heart dealt with the first suffering I had ever known, God began to teach me the privilege of sharing in His suffering. I did not read the book in hopes of growing in my relationship with the Lord, I just wanted anything that would bring some meaning to what was happening to me, but clearly God was shaping my life through the story.

I will end with those two, for now. The two most influential books from high school segment. If I keep going, this post will be much too long. Maybe I will return to the list at a later date with the college influences chapter.

What I would love to know, however, is what books have most influenced you? Mainly because I am only 25. Hopefully I have many more years of reading ahead. And also because I want to get to know you a little better, and don't the books we love serve as a way to reveal who we are?