My top books

I've already said I'm a book junkie. I love books! But there are some books that are total winners and others that I could live without. Here's my list of books I couldn't live without (like, if my house were burning down and I could only save a few books, these would be those) and that I think everyone should take the time to read....but first, a caveat: we can totally still be friends if you don't like my favorite books! I know that if you tell me you hate Sherlock Holmes, I'll tell you that you're crazy and ask why we're friends, but in all seriousness I know that people have different tastes in books. Some people don't like books at all. Some people love poetry. Some people are really into romance novels. We can still be friends, we just can't be in book club together.
Also, this list isn't complete. It will grow as I read more great books.

1. The Bible -- cliche, I know, but without it I'd be lost

2. The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis -- how old are you? It doesn't matter! I can't imagine my bookshelf without these gems. And they're just as good in Spanish as they are in English.

3. The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas -- you've seen the movies (so many bad renditions!) and you probably had a mini heart attack when you first saw how big the book is, but in my book (pun intended) it's totally worth the read.

4. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas -- again, you've seen the movie (excellent!!!) and you've choked upon seeing the size of the book. But let me just tell you that the book is very different from the movie, you get to see a darker side of Dantes' revenge plot and with so much more detail.

5. The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- I mean all of his adventures and all 4 novels! Every time I'd read a new short story I'd be baffled at how Conan Doyle could imagine up such intricate mysteries.

6. Persuasion by Jane Austen -- girly, I know, but in my opinion it's Austen's best book. Here's the thing with her books though: I always have to see her books on screen before I can read them. Normally I'm not a fan of movies made from books I love, but Austen always has so many characters and all of the houses have names and it's really hard to keep everything straight in my head. But seriously, the letter. If you've read it, you know exactly what I'm talking about, if you haven't, it's something to look forward to. ;)

7. One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp -- her writing style is really hard to get used to at first, but I love her message in this book. I highlighted, underlined, copied into my journal, and committed to memory so many of the things she says in this book.

8. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis -- wow. Sometimes I don't know what he's saying, but most of the time I'm stunned by the simplicity of his words and how they blow my mind. Only problem is I can't highlight every other sentence because then it'll seem like nothing was all that special, or in the words of the great super villain, Syndrome: "when everyone's special, no one will be."

9. Out of the Silent Planet trilogy by C.S. Lewis -- not nearly as popular as the Chronicles of Narnia (by which I mean, most people probably haven't heard of this trilogy), but such a great little sci-fi story. Let me just warn you now: the bulk of the third book (That Hideous Strength) is BORING!! But the ending is sooooo good that it makes it all worth it. But seriously, it's just academics talking and talking and talking the way that academics do, but if you do choose to pick up this trio, please don't be discouraged by that, you can totally make it to the end!

10. A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett -- my favorite movie before The Princess Bride took its spot. I didn't know it was a book until about a year ago when I found it at a used bookstore in Guatemala. I loved it so much because it was like reading along as the movie played in my head. I could picture everything so vividly, yet the book still had a few curve balls to throw my way.

11. The Princess Bride by William Goldman -- If you love the movie, you'll love the book even more because you can almost watch the movie playing in your head as you read (Goldman also wrote the screenplay for the movie) and yet there are back stories and some events that never made it to the movie....so it's like everything you loved from the movie, plus some.

12. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini -- This is the most heartbreaking book I've ever read. It made me cry more than any other book has, but I couldn't bear to put it down. The way that Hosseini paints a picture with words it's like you're watching the story happen as you read. It's a beautiful book and it will break your heart and put it back together, only to break it again. I never want to see the movie based on this book, but the story is so beautiful and feels so real.

13. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini -- Again, heartbreaking, yet so incredibly beautiful. Hosseini may be one of my new favorite authors. His style is perfection.

The Word of the Lord (Thanks be to God!!)

I've been having a really tough time getting back into the habit of daily quiet times with God. I'll be honest: I'm doing well if I've done 2 or 3 in a week...some weeks I'm stoked if I get 1. The worst part is that there is absolutely NOTHING stopping me from doing it every single day. I'm just really good at completely forgetting to do it, or remembering to do it but only once I'm really cozy watching something on Netflix and I convince myself that I'll be no good to God in my current lazy state....like He won't be able to speak anything into my heart because I'm too pooped to hear it. Or sometimes I just don't want to do it because I know there's gunk in my heart and I tell myself that if I don't come before God, I won't have to face it and maybe He won't even notice. Or sometimes I feel like I have to do it, not like I want to, because I'm a youth group leader, I attend Bible study and church every week, and if I'm going to label myself as "Christian" I'd better be doing something differently. But here's the thing about things I have to do.....I don't want to do them. It's like cleaning my room: I don't want to because I have to. But if I'm at my brother's house and see that he has a lot of dirty dishes and I don't foresee him having sufficient time or energy to get them clean, I'm more than happy to wash them for him. I guess I'm weird that way.
So here's how I've (hopefully) tricked myself into getting back into the swing of things: I love books! Really, you should see my bookshelf. It's not that I have millions of books, it's just that I have such a wide selection....and that I haven't read a lot of them. I haven't read them because I buy them faster than I can read them and then just when I'm about to get to one that I bought, someone buys me one that sounds more interesting so I start on that one, or I get a good one from the library and tell myself that I can read the ones I own anytime and I only have the one from the library for 3 weeks. So basically, new books = new excitement. So this morning I marched myself over to the Bible bookstore and bought a new devotional. It's by Beth Moore (I always hear great things about her), and I'm excited. It's a year long one about breaking free. I told myself I'd start tomorrow morning, but we all know what that means, so I started today while I had some cookies in the oven. Here's today's devo:

I will say to the Lord, "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." Psalm 91:2

Life's way of reacting to a crushed, broken heart is to wrap tough

sinews of flesh around it and tempt us to promise we'll never

let ourselves get hurt again.

But that's not God's way. Self-made fortresses not only keep love from going out;

they keep love from coming in. And He knows we risk becoming captives

in our own protective fortresses.

Only God can put the pieces of our heart back together again,

close up all the wounds, and bind it with a 

porous bandage that protects the heart from infection

but keeps it free to inhale and exhale love.

Ha! I read that and can only think that Beth Moore has been spying on me for the past 8 years of my life. In fact, I remember a conversation I had with a good friend a few years ago where I said something like, "people in my life kept letting me down, so I learned to stop expecting anything from anyone, that way I'm not disappointed when they don't come through." I can't imagine what I would say if a 16 year-old girl told me that now. My heart would break for her, I think....but I wouldn't know how to give her advice because I'm still not completely out of that boat. This is why daily devos are hard for me to stick with: they don't usually give me warm-fuzzies about God and His plan for me, they usually show me some yucky part of my heart that I haven't fully given over to God yet. I don't like yucky parts of my heart. 

So that's my plan to get myself to start spending time with God everyday again: I bought a new book, I had a love/hate relationship with the first page I read, and now I'm putting it out in public that this is my goal. I think we're more likely to follow through with things if people know our goals....that's why I don't really tell people about my goals, because then it means I either have to do something or I'm full of empty words.