Books for Challenging Times
Back when my kids were younger, I read a lot more than I do now. I don't know why that is; you'd think with fewer kids still at home I'd read more. But I seem to have too many other things to do these days.
That said, I did find time to read four very good books this past year, and I want to share them with you. All of them provided real encouragement related to the situation my family has found itself in.
Since we have quite a few new subscribers this month (Welcome, btw!), here's a bit of background. In 2007, my husband's 12-year-old manufacturing-related business went under due to the economy, forcing us to downsize from a five-bedroom home in the Chicago area to a smaller rental home in Wisconsin. We're not in dire straits because God led us to become completely debt-free in 2002. But my husband has had very little income over the past few years; he needs to reinvent himself because his past career now thrives in China instead of the U.S. We're now getting used to the irregular income I earn as a writer instead of the weekly paychecks my husband earned in his business.
That's why one book in particular has been so helpful to us (yes, my husband read it, too). George Muller: Man of Faith and Miracles by Basil Miller has been such an encouragement! After a rocky start in his youth, Muller became convinced that God wanted him to be a missionary. But God had other plans. He led Muller to build orphanages, which were completely financed by Muller's fervent and very regular prayers. He literally prayed in food for the children on a daily basis. His excellent record-keeping of every penny of income and expense related to his ministry lends the weight of facts to this true story. Those who are learning, as we are, to trust God for every bit of money that comes in will find it inspiring.
Our dilemma in our family's current situation is, what to do next? We've been praying about it for quite a while. A book that helped us understand how to look for God's answers to prayer is Elisabeth Elliot's God's Guidance: Finding His Will for Your Life. It's just a little book, but in it Mrs. Elliot offers a detailed explanation of the Lord's Prayer, followed by a specific list of all the ways God answers prayer and how to recognize them. I'd describe her book as lots of important information in a small package.
It's amazing how the loss of my husband's daily work-at-home routine seems to have thrown us all off course. Once our house finally sold (after ten months on the market and barely a month after our son's wedding), the buyer's demand for possession in less than four weeks left us scurrying to get everything done, and exhausted once we got here. We then fell into bad habits (staying up late, sleeping in) which resulted in me homeschooling in my pajamas more often than I care to admit!
A book that helped me change my outlook was another by Mrs. Elliot: Discipline, the Glad Surrender. Not only did it make me see that I needed to get back to a regular routine, but it reminded me that our circumstances are not only known by God but allowed by Him. I particularly appreciated the chapter, "The Discipline of Work," with its explanation that no work is beneath the Christian. That's a concept many people are grappling with these days, I think.
We lived in our old house for nearly 20 years. The time involved in raising and homeschooling four kids was my excuse for not going through our packed basement as often as I should have. As a result, we arrived here with enough stuff to fill two storage units, and I spent a good deal of each day searching for things. With so much disorganization, I soon lost any semblance of a work routine and missed a book deadline.
Living the 80/20 Way by Richard Koch is helping me get my act together again. It's a conversational explanation of the late Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto's 80/20 theory (80% of results come from 20% of what we do.) The question, of course, is how to find the right 20% on which to concentrate our efforts. There's a lot of food for thought in this book! (Just blow past the few New Age-y comments if, like me, you're not into that stuff.)
These four books were very helpful to me in 2008. As 2009 proceeds, I hope we will all find books to encourage us in these changing and sometimes scary times. Got a book you'd like to recommend for my reading list this year? I'd love to hear about it! Just drop me a line at cardamompublishers(at)sbcglobal(dot)net.
Copyright 2009 Barbara Frank/Cardamom Publishers