Tag Archive | Voice

Books That Changed My Life #4

Oct12

I stumbled upon this book while looking at research on Asperger Syndrome. The name caught my attention, as I was looking for ways to understand and connect with my grandchild, who has the syndrome. Asperkid

I did not want to do anything that would make their situation worse, so a full understanding of what their life was like was in order. Little did I know just how well suited I was to understand!

As I was reading, I began to see a little familiarity. Some of the things listed in this book, I understood all too well. As the author first states in the first pages of the book ; ” Where was this book when I, like, needed it?”

Growing up, I always felt like the square peg in the round hole. The one who was always a bit too loud, a bit too kinetic, a bit too spacey, a bit too dreamy. These were the nice things I was called. I was constantly breaking many social rules that I never knew existed.

Now, more than ever I needed to be able to understand my grand child, by doing so, would also understand myself as well. After all these years. Years of ruminating over the smallest inflections of disapproval from other people, the lights began to brighten.

I was not defective. I was wired differently. My curvy way of thinking didn’t mesh well with the linear, stand in a straight line kind of thinking of organized school, and now I knew why. Indeed I was a square peg, but it was OK.

Enter Psalm 139: 1-4, 13-16, 23-24 (ESV). It reads as follows;

Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart

139 O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

13 For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a]
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts![c]
24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting![d]

 

He knew me all along, and created me just the way I was supposed to be!

 

 

Books That Changed My Life #2

Oct5

Part of Mary’s description on the back cover of her book says this; “Thin places are snatches of holy ground, tucked into a corner of our world, where we might just catch a glimpse of eternity. They are aha moments of beautiful realizations.”

Thin Places
For me, the book began stirring my heart on the very first page. I recognize this little one as a kindred spirit. A little girl in love with her Daddy. With his death at an early age, her life is changed forever. My heart is stirred.

The abuse begins early. She is threatened into silence. She is under the control of the choices of others. I understand, all too well. My heart is stirred. She learned to protect herself. Silence to the world, walls building on the inside, turning her pain into numbness. I know how to do that. My heart is stirred. 

The protection she gave herself, became a thin place for her, a place where she could “be somewhere else”. A place of knowing that people fail people, and that people take what they want at any cost. So she learned to hide. And I am stirred. But truly not gently stirred, but (violently) shaken.

In her book, Mary speaks of the longings we have as children. The ones that are very strong. The ones we cannot understand. The ones that make us doubt out worth. Longing for things that symbolize something we lack. Envying what others have, and thinking what they have will satisfy. I understand her very well. I don’t want to, but I do.

Throughout her memoir, Mary speaks of all the hidden emotions, locked inside. With searing accuracy she speaks of recognizing each one, as a Thin Place, and the healing that comes from that recognition.

I can only wonder, how many others like me there are out there. Like Mary. Those are the ones I long to be with, helping them to find and explore those Thin Places.

For me, This book was a Thin Place. Another place to see all that was hidden, and to make sense of it. A place to begin to heal.

Please feel free to comment, or message me.

 

 

Books That Changed My Life #1

Sep23

What can I say about this book?

Captivating

 

I place it on a list I call my “Pre” list.

Pre – Awareness.

Pre – Connectedness

Pre – Not knowing who I am

Pre – Knowing who I am

 

 

I was lost and broken, and the worst part, I didn’t even know it!

Isn’t it just the way it is , to long for someone to think you are worth the fight?

Isn’t it just the way  it is, to keep looking for something, not knowing what is is?

Isn’t it just the way it is to retain the hard outer shell to keep from feeling the hurt and loneliness?

Are you normal for wanting anything else?

Before the “Pre” days before the knowing, before the longing, before connecting the dots, I came across a book called “Wild at Heart” by John Eldredge. It was a book about men. Who they are. What they are. What they need and what they were created to be. For the first time I began to understand my husband, my brothers, and even the guy who changed my oil.  So imagine my surprise when John and his wife Stasi wrote a book, about me.

This book, one I believe every young lady, woman and grandma should read showed me so much.

Mostly it showed me that those longings were normal. That they weren’t meant to be hidden away, but fully explored. Fully felt. It was normal to want someone in my life who thought I was worth the fight.

God wanted me to know exactly how He made me. The longings and desires He has put in me, were to be fully discovered. He wanted them to bring joy and peace to my heart, and if I did it right, I would bring glory to my Father in Heaven as well.

Isn’t wanting anything else being selfish? Isn’t it self serving? I learned that neither of those were true. But I digress.

In the book John and Stasi take the reader one step at a time into the intricate and intimate way that God created a woman.

A truth so hidden by the world we live in, that it can be impossible to find it without God’s help. This is the help I needed. Delivered in a delightful read.

I first found this book in 2005.

I read it, and stewed in it for a long time. Marinated in it if you will. Tenderizing my heart for what was to come.

Click here to find “Captivating” anywhere you buy books.

In reviewing the book for this post, I realized how much I have forgotten in those pages read so long ago. I do believe it’s time to read it again. Anyone want to join me? You can contact me on Twitter @DeborahSPC.

 

 

 

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