My BFFs

I love books. The best present I have received in a while was another bookcase for my office. About every six months, I have to go through my books and reluctantly divest myself of books I no longer have room to shelve. My overload spilled on the floor for a few weeks (ok...so it was months) until I got this new shelf. I have a red Kindle. I love it, loaded up with fascinating reading material. But dead truth, I love the feel of a "real" book in my hands, delight in leafing through the pages, marking it up, making it mine.

Books have long been some of my best friends ever. They have taken me around the world and into the far reaches of the universe. They have escorted me into military strategy rooms and the Oval Office, palaces and shanties, into the mind of a child and the wonderings of a sailor lost at sea. Books have counseled me, guided me, encouraged me, corrected me, taught me. Books have urged me to dream bigger, believe longer, try harder. When I was alone, books kept me company. On sleepless nights, books stayed up with me. When I needed to laugh or cry, books knew how to bring it out of me.  Many times I started a relationship with a book and its characters reluctantly because it was not a book I had chosen. But before the read was finished, I was hooked.

Books are potent because they are collections of finely chosen and well-arranged words. That combination speaks life and understanding. My daughter Rachel is an aficionado of finely chosen words. (See what I mean? Aficionado means "a person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about an activity, subject, or pastime". Isn't that more lively than saying "Rachel is good with words"?  She doesn't find something to be really hard--it is daunting.  That situation wasn't simply a mess. It was a fiasco. Words add color and life to our worlds. It is no small thing that Jesus Christ is called "the Word" in John 1. Every marvelous miracle of understanding, inspiration, and more that words can do, He does...to infinity.

This month of Thanksgiving I am thankful for Jesus, the Word. For my Bible, the first and most important book I ever read. For my parents, who encouraged me to read at four years, and immediately put the biographies of Joan of Arc, George Mueller, John Knox, Albert Schweitzer, and more in my hands . For my teachers who exposed me to hundreds of authors who would expand my world. For Barbour Publishing who gave me a chance to arrange finely-chosen words myself. For every person who has ever shared that something I wrote helped them on the journey.

I love words. I love books.