Read. More. Books.
- Jess Welsh
- Jan 24, 2020
- 7 min read
Happy New Year Friends!
My hope for 2020 is that whatever my hand would find do, that I would do it with all my might, and that each and every endeavor would bring me ever nearer in love to Christ. Perhaps my great resolution this year is that I will expect my own failure. I know the days are near (and some have already passed) when I will not parent my children in grace in truth, but in impatience and selfishness. I know that I will seek my own gain above the good of my family. I know that I will choose lesser things over greater things. I will watch Netflix to escape, rather than read the Word to be filled. I will hide from conviction, when I should run to repentence. I know this as sure as I know the sun will continue to rise and fall until Jesus comes again. But in 2020, I will resolve to expect this, and then when my failure strikes, I will be pulled up by the cross, and keep doing the next things. I will expect failure, but by God's grace, I also expect that failure will not define my days. I will apologize to my kids when my temper is short, and I will start again. I will repent to my husband and to my God when my own ambition seeks to trump humble submission. When earthly things avert my gaze, I will stop, turn, face the Son and walk forward. When self care would bid me come and wallow, I will find the Word which bids me, "Come and Die."
However, there is a part of us all that longs for tangible progress isn't there? There's a thousand pieces of myself that I would love to see grow and change, and progress, and develop this year. Not just internal things, but real things I can hold onto. Inside we all know that things are not as they should be. The battle is not done. We wage war against powers and principalities every single day and sometimes that battle is just plain hard. The thing about the new year is that the battle doesn't restart when the ball drops. We bring all of our struggles, pain, and baggage into this new year. So why the resolve? Because we know. We know that even as wars rage, politics divide, people starve, families struggle, death abides, these things all need fixing. We know that the fixing that needs done in the world around us, needs done inside of us as well. So we plan. We plan to be better parents, wives, family members, community partners, citizens of the world. We want to recycle more, yell less, engage more, care for our bodies and our minds, and on and on. Truthfully it's no wonder we excel at making resolutions and fail miserably at keeping them. Truly it's all done with good intentions. Find something to fix, and get to it.
I've never been much for resolutions for this reason. But this changed ever so slightly in 2019. In 2018 I had a dear friend that read over 200 books. That is not a typo. I know what you're thinking. You are at this very moment trying to discount all the ways this number could not possibly be real. "Were these children's books?" "She probably stays home." "I bet her kids aren't super needy and go to school." "She doesn't have kids probably." You'd be wrong. Some were children's books. But, still chapter books, since she in fact does stay home, with her four kids she homeschools, who are every bit as needy as your kids and as mine. So in 2019 I decided I could read some books. If my best friend could find the time to read hundreds of books. I could find the time to read a few.
I will be honest and say until last year I hadn't read a novel since high school, and even then it was required reading and not for pleasure. I had read a few parenting books probably. And started about a thousand other Christian non fiction books that I didn't finish, or put medium effort into. Did you catch that? I picked books written by people like me, to people like me. I was not a reader, not because of lack of ability. I'm actually a fairly fast reader. Not for lack of time. I had the time. But out of laziness. My friend tells me she reads so that she can live a thousand different lives. And if I'm being honest, I didn't really want to. My life was what I knew, and that was okay with me. I didn't like being uncomfortable in the pages. I didn't like reading different things. And I didn't like sacrificing my alone time, bath time, binge time, me time, to an activity that took effort, effort that may actually make me uncomfortable. But friends, that's why we need books, and all kinds of books.
Spoiler, I didn't make my reading goal last year. I read 36 books. But as I grew in my pleasure reading, I also grew in my Bible reading. Suddenly, I could read the Old Testament as a narrative of our own origin story, my origin story. I could read through the genealogies, and when they felt long and tough, it was okay, because I was there for the epic of it all, not just to check a box off my checklist. I read the New Testament and was able to put faces to the stories, and piece timelines together. This is why we need books. Because they teach us how to see the Bible as more than just a book. But to also see that is certainly no less than a book as well. Through the Bible we learn to love God, to treasure his presence in our daily lives as we see his hand work throughout the centuries. But through books, we learn to love the people that the Word is meant to reach.
Last year I read the book "A Woman is No Man" based on a recommendation from my friend. It was a breakout novel for this author who bases many of the events in the book on her personal story of her family. The protagonist grows up in a very traditional and conservative muslim family in Pakistan. Eventually a fellow Pakistani family travels from their immigrant community in Brooklyn to Pakistan to find a wife for their son. Eventually she marries this man, and they begin their life together in Brooklyn where she comments on the looks she gets while wearing her full hijab on subways. She talks about her fear of riding public transportation, and what the airplane is like. There is hopefulness about a free life where a woman can be—more. She dreams of a loving marriage where their home is full of love, instead of violence. She explores the heartbreak of bearing her husband daughter after daughter, with no son in sight. I may never have a traditional Pakistani neighbor who can tell me what life is like in Pakistan. I may not ever have a close friend who knows what it is like to be an immigrant, especially a middle eastern immigrant. And I certainly don't know what it is to give birth to a baby I already love and adore, to have my husband meet my eyes with contempt and rage, because I'm holding a girl, and not a boy. But I lived this life in these pages. I was a friend to her. I traveled the streets of Brooklyn for her. I rooted for her. And I cried for her. Her story is fictionalized, but it is rooted in real culture and in real stories of families and women who know a world and a life that I do not. I do not avert my eyes anymore at the woman on the street wearing a hijab, now I meet her gaze with as much kindness as I can muster. Now, I pray for our missionaries in North Africa and other hard and hostile countries with fervency that these women would know that although they are not men, they are loved.
This is why we need books, so we can live the lives we never will, and love the people represented in the pages. We need books so we can see the ways that we are different, and the ways that we are the same. I read the Great Alone, and while I didn't grow up in Alaska, I know what harsh winters and small communities are like. I know about splitting wood, and I saw myself in those pages. I grew up with those characters, and it made me feel seen by all the other people who would turn its pages. We need books so that the people who feel unknown and misunderstood, know that they have a voice, a place, that they are seen. This is the human story. We long to be fully known and fully loved. We can't fully know or love just through pages, but it gives us a head start. We need books so we can take stories of unknown cultures into our workplace and talk with the people in our cubicles who resemble the characters in our novels. We need nonfiction to tell us histories that would otherwise be forgotten, and names from biographies that should not ever be forgotten. We need psychology to tell us that people are not all one thing. We are complicated and nuanced and loving our neighbors takes care, gentleness, and open minds and hearts. We need to cringe reading the words of Elie Wiesel as he recounts a hanging during the Nazi regime as a prisoner asks "Where is God?" and he says "He is here. He is here on these gallows." We need books. Maybe it's because our entertainment is virtually limitless and the western world is busy trying to find things to do and be. But I've found that one of the best things we can do, to be the best we can be to our neighbors and to our God is to read.
Start anywhere. Visit your church library. Read a well known children's book. Pick up a book that was made into a movie you love. Read about an event that interests you. But do it. I'm doing the Tim Challies 2020 reading challenge and if you need a guide, this is a good one. It can be as intense or as modest as you'd like. But with all my heart I hope that in 2020, books are just one of the many ways that your Savior and His creatures become more and more precious to you.
Here are some reading resources for you!
—Tim Challies 2020 Reading Challenge
—Christian Book recommendations by topic
—Hoopla App is where I find most of my non fiction/christian literature books. These I typically listen to on audio.
—Overdrive/Libby is what I use for fiction reads on audio or Ebook/Kindle.
—Thriftbooks is a great resource to finding cheap books not available on hoopla or overdrive for great prices.
—Goodreads app is how I track my reads, see what other people are reading, read reviews, and talk about what I loved in books, or hated in books.
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