Reading Pile Gone Crazy!

I have a confession to make.... I love to read books. Not surprised? Okay well here is the related confession....I have a book pile of books I've started that is so big it's out of control! I really must try to pick only ONE and work my way through it until I've finished it before working through another one. It's making my brain ache with so many thoughts flying around in it!

So, shall I share my current reading list? Why not. It certainly can't hurt and I really am enjoying them ALL! I don't know which is my current favourite either! Starting in the order I've gotten them...


This is a book Matt read earlier in the year and highly recommended I read. It is a very challenging book as its making me realise just how high I put the fear of what other people will think in charge of how I live my life/appear to live my life regardless of whether God would have me live/appear to live that way or not.

Next a female friend who is currently training to become a MD lent me an Australian written book called Defiant Birth: Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics. It has been a very very eye-opening and gut-wrenching look at how our culture has become so obsessed with physical perfection. To sum up the message of this book I am going to quote from an online article about eugenics:

"Eugenic thinking is alive and well today," asserts Stoler-Liss. "It is expressed mainly in the very high rate of pre-natal tests and genetic filtering [of genetically deviant fetuses]. Mothers are very highly motivated to give birth only to healthy children and the attitude toward the exceptional, the different and the handicapped [...] is problematic."

At the library a week or two ago I was browsing the shelves for books. When in the children's section three books jumped out at me and said, "Take me home and read me!" (Seriously they did! ;-))



This one appealed to me as I have been listening to some challening sermons on podcast from Mars Hill about not neglecting to help the poor and as it's not something I've heard a sermon on in my own church for a long time/if ever I wanted to get some facts. This is a junior high level book but since it has pictures and easy to read paragraphs I felt it might be a clear and easier way to learn more about poverty and it's affects around the world.



I am a huge fan of the Anne of Green Gables books and whenever I see another LM Montgomery book I tend to be attracted...and so far the Story Girl is a delightful read!


Is it something I should admit to the blogosphere and fellow Australians that I grew up without experiencing the joy of reading May Gibbs' book Snugglepot and Cuddlepie? Matt thinks that it is a very sad thing in deed and so when I saw the book on the shelf I knew that I really must read it. So, after lunch today Shelby & I started reading it. So far so good! :)

In a recent Christmas order from Amazon mostly to buy presents for Matthew I added 2 books that I've been keen to read for a while now and just this Saturday they finally arrived....and yes I started them both straight away!


Lord, Please Meet Me in the Laundry Room: Heavenly Hep for Earthly Moms by Barbara Curtis is a book written to encourage everyday Mums that God is bigger than any place yous et aside to meet Him and as near as you invite Him to be. It is written by a mum of 12 children and is so far fantastic. Barbara is refreshingly honest and very encouraging.


Grace and parenting? Do they really go together? In a sub-culture that has so many books on how to parent your child that all come across with much the same tone....spank your child firmly and a lot and they will turn out perfect....this is a refreshing book. I am only 1/2 way through but the biggest paradigm shift/challenging thought so far has been:

"Grace-based parents have a keen wareness of their feet of clay. They understand their own propensity toward sin. This make the grace and forgiveness they received from Christ much more appreciated. It stirs them to love and good deeds for the right reasons. They aren't driven by guilt and a need to do penance."

And also, he addresses the fear that grace=permissive parenting:

"Grace does not exclude obedience, respect, boundaries, or discipline, but it does determine the climate in which these important parts of parenting are carried out. You may be weird and quirky, but God loves you through His grace with all of your weirdness and quirkiness. You may feel extremely inadequate and fragile in key areas of your life, but God comes alongside you in those very areas of weakness and carries you through with His grace.....His grace is there for you when you fail, when you fall, and when you make huge mistakes."

And of course there is a whole lot more. I'm looking forward to learning and growing in grace as I seek to parent with both grace AND truth!