forgiveness

What I’m reading now…

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ Leave a comment

You don’t really know me if you don’t know I love to read.

My nightstand is stacked with both fiction and non-fiction books along with a couple Bibles. I read each night before I go to sleep. Fiction, memoir, or biography occupy my bedtime reads. In the morning, it’s the Bible before phone. I don’t always succeed, but there’s a clear link to peace, joy, and a rested soul when I do. Right now I’m reading the New International Version of the Bible.

This post is for those who have asked me for some book recommendations recently. To see some of my other reads, I invite you to reference this post or this page. Speaking of which, I probably need to look at it soon and see if there are any new additions!

For now, I’ll let you in on what I’ve read recently, or am currently reading, along with a few thoughts…

Forgive by Tim Keller

Recommending a book before you’re finished with it is risky but I feel safe with this one. In our current cultural landscape, this book highlights why Christian forgiveness continues to shock every epoch of history. It is, in my opinion, a must read.

For one who doesn’t follow Jesus, it will explain what Christian forgiveness is, why it is central to the faith, and how it has influenced the world whether or not the link is known to those affected.

For the Christ follower, digging deeper into this central topic will strengthen your faith and help engage the world around you with greater humility and love while not leaving justice as some vague, confusing specter in the corner.

Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus

I read this a good year ago and am about to begin it again in preparation for my book club discussion. What an entertaining read that captures the realities of living as a woman in a man’s world in the 50’s. What sticks with me most about the story is the way the main character elevated the vision of other women to greater purpose in the midst of what can be mundane tasks. Read this before watching the miniseries because that’s just the morally correct way with all good books!

The Maid by Nita Prose

This is a pretty twisty murder mystery told from the perspective of a maid who has a rather limited ability to read people. I really enjoyed engaging the story from her perspective and the way I, as a reader, knew more than the narrator. It did provoke quite a bit of discussion in book club which elevated it to a much chewier bit of fiction than I anticipated!

I recently read the second in the series and it was enjoyable but The Maid was superior.

Trust by Herman Diaz

Here’s another book I am currently reading but still recommending! I bought it at Target and then realized it is a Pulitzer Prize winner. I felt quite elevated to be reading a Pulitzer Prize winning book.

Finance is a subject that is a little fascinating and also obscure to me. The world of markets and finance, booms and crashes, market manipulation and economic depression is at the center of this story. This story has three sections following two fictional financial wizards of the early to mid- 1900’s. The first story is that of an almost heartless financial wunderkind. The second is the self-defense of a second financially successful man told almost as a draft. The third section, where I am currently, is the story of an employee of one of them who comes from a family highly critical of free market economies.

The characters in the book are wrestling in different degrees with the morality of Wall Street finance. How do some know how to maneuver and manipulate and profit? Is it moral? What does one do when one amasses wealth beyond anything imaginable? Is it ok to be skilled at playing the market purely for personal gain?

I’m eager to see how the story progresses and what the implications are for our time.

What are you reading these days? I’m always looking for recommendations!

The Sting of Death

~ eternalwaitofglory ~ 7 Comments

Time is a gift. I know that today more than ever. My father’s tumor spreads as I write, moving us closer and closer to the end of his earthly, physical days. There are few treatments and they only promise an extension of days. Apart from miraculous healing, we know the end is coming. It always was, death comes for us all, but knowing a time frame brings life into focus.

This is the time under heaven and each moment swells with importance. A time to weep over the missing and laugh over memories past and the foibles of the present. To uproot from life as we knew it. A time to embrace what matters and avoid what doesn’t. A time to search out disconnected family members and reconcile those we can’t find. Times of silence together and times we speak.

Sacred time is what I call it. Not everyone experiences these moments. There are things worse than death. Things that make death a jagged sword that rips out flesh after it pierces the heart.

It’s inescapable. Death does pierce the heart with grief. It keeps me up at night, it makes my heart pound. I physically hurt. But, death doesn’t have to sting the way it can.  It doesn’t have to drag a pound of my soul on the way out.

The red trees are called poison wood trees. The red trees are called poison wood trees.

Some things are worse than death. I’d take a brain tumor over my parents divorcing any day. I’d take this over parents with a contentious marriage fraught with selfishness. Unreconciled relationships and unforgiveness are sins that infuse death with a harsh sting. Before that, unforgiveness kills the soul and binds the heart tight and small. Those that encounter such hearts sustain injury to the deepest places in their soul. We’ve all met them and we’ve all been them, too.

I see my parents holding nothing against each other, though I’m sure they could find something. They spent the fall looking deeply into their relationship in a small group. It was painful at times, but I see that it washed their relationship from resentments. They feel closer than ever.

My parents and I sure have our moments we’ve needed to forgive, too, but this time together assures me we hold nothing against each other. And, lest you think we don’t have opportunities, you are wrong.

The freedom this brings to my soul is unspeakable. The freedom this brings to my father is beautiful. Though I see his sadness, I see that death has lost its sting. He says it himself. He woke my mother up one night to tell her. He is forgiven, and he has forgiven. He experiences freedom from fear and crushing regret and flaming anger.

I want this for myself. I want this for others too. The sting of death is sin (I Corinthians 15:56-57). Victory is through Jesus Christ.

Be reconciled, my friends. To God first, then to parents, spouses, children, friends, and co-workers. Even the person on the road that cuts you off in a blatantly offensive way. The politicians that get under your skin. The doctor that does the paperwork too slow.

Sow the seeds of forgiveness and uproot the weeds of resentment and bitterness. Let it not be on our shoulders, the crushing burden we do not have to carry. I long for the freedom that comes through receiving forgiveness and extending forgiveness.

Day after day, as long as it is still called today, don’t be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13).