Books, Faith, and the Ordinary

Books often have a way of speaking into my soul. It's not unusual for the Holy Spirit to nudge me about a certain book that ends up being timely in my life. Recently I had one of those times... I was cleaning our bedroom when I glimpsed a letter our daughter Jamie had sent us eight summers ago while living in Denver just after she completed high school. Months before, when getting the house ready for sale, I had sorted through sentimental boxes filled with cards, notes, and letters from Dennis, with an occasional card or note from one of the kids. I pulled Jamie's letter from the box and laid it on the bottom shelf of a small table in our room. For some reason it sparked my interest and I had hoped to get to it sooner than later.... but with a busy summer, the "later" won out... in the middle of a cleaning day.

I turned off the vacuum and sat down to read again what Jamie had written on the back of a few copied pages from Elisabeth Elliot's, These Strange Ashes - a book instrumental in her life during a summer that she describes as a time of "brokenness." Finishing the letter, I turned the copied pages over to read portions from a chapter in the book that were particularly meaningful to Jamie. Elliot's words drew me in. I wanted to read more. Thankfully I discovered These Strange Ashes occupied space on my book shelf.

I turned the pages to the chapter that Jamie was referring to in her letter. I could resonate with Elliott's words, the questions she pondered. She wrote, "Faith's most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain."

Before I went back to my cleaning, I knelt by my bed, and as E.E. in her transparency shares, I "bowed down before that which I could not possibly explain."

Her words encouraged me, but more than that, the divine exchange in my room that day was a turning point for me - surrendering that which I could not explain and accepting what is given. In so doing, God gives Himself - His cleansing, peace, and joy for the unexplainable... the essence of Isaiah 61:3. It is only when I allow this divine exchange to take place that I have something to offer to others.

Elliot finishes the chapter with this: "I saw that to God nothing is finally lost. All the scriptural metaphors about the death of the seed that falls into the ground, about losing one's life... all these go on to something unspeakably better and more glorious. Loss and death are only the preludes to gain and life."

And so, I'm thankful for books that feed the soul,
a faith that is living and real,
and days like this where God meets me in the middle of the ordinary.