The Shack

So, I just finished reading The Shack by William Young this past weekend. Have any of you read it? It will definitely make you think and I recommend it...just be prepared to keep an open mind and let it challenge you. The section of the book that hit closest to home was this part where Jesus and Mack were conversing:

"When I dwell with you, I do so in the present - I live in the present. Not the past, although much can be remembered and learned by looking back, but only for a visit, not an extended stay. And for sure, I do not dwell in the future you visualize or imagine. Mack, do you realize that your imagination of the future, which is almost always dictated by fear of some kind, rarely, if ever, pictures me there with you?"

"...You try and play God, imagining the evil that you fear becoming reality, and then you try and make plans and contingencies to avoid what you fear."

Boy, is that me!! For the most part, I live my life in the future and am fearful. It's true...when I think about the things that I fear the most, I do not picture Jesus there with me. I only picture me, failing at whatever life throws my way. Whenever I am not focused on the future, I am dwelling in the past and thinking about the person I used to be, the accomplishments that I had, and how I lived my life before the anxiety attacks came. I'm still me, I just can't do all that I once did and that makes me sad. I miss that version of me and I hope I'm that person again one day. Back to The Shack...

When Mack asked why he had so much fear in his life, Jesus replied, "Because you don't believe. You don't know that we love you. The person who lives by their fears will not find freedom in my love. I am not talking about rational fears regarding legitimate dangers, but imagined fears, and especially the projection of those into the future. To the degree that those fears have a place in your life, you neither believe I am good nor know deep in your heart that I love you. You sing about it, you talk about it, but you don't know it."

Ouch! He got me there. I don't think it occurred to me that all of this boils down to the fact that I don't truly know how much He loves me and that he will protect me. It's not all up to me. I don't have to do this by myself, but it's so hard to just turn it over to Him...fully. Ok, there's a lot more sections that I liked, but I think I'll stop here for now. Let me know your thoughts if you read it too!

What books have you read?

I got this list from Margie and Shayna. I think I've read 12 of them.

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed. Bold the ones that you have read.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible (I'm not sure I've read every word.)

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (I wrote a paper on this, but read the Cliff's Notes!)

19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (LOVE this book!)

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe
- CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini (I am just borrowing this one from my mom.)

38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (great memories from my childhood!)

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte's Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Velvet Elvis

I just finished reading Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell this week. I highly recommend it to everyone!! I got so much out of this book that I know it will be one that I will continue to reread from time to time. Below are several of my favorite quotes from the book. Obviously, they are taken out of the book, so they make much more sense when read in context. Just another reason you need to go out and buy it :)! I have highlighted the ones that really speak to my life in so many ways.

"Doctrine is a wonderful servant and a horrible master."

"A question by its very nature acknowledges that the person asking the question does not have all of the answers. And because the person does not have all of the answers, they are looking outside of themselves for guidance. Questions bring freedom. Freedom that I don't have to be God and I don't have to pretend that I have it all figured out. I can let God be God."

"The idea that everybody else approaches the Bible with baggage and agendas and lenses and I don't is the ultimate of arrogance."

"The goal is not to be a 'New Testament church.' That makes the New Testament church the authority. The authority is God who is acting in and through those people at that time and now these people at this time."

"If you come across truth in any form, it isn't outside your faith as a Christian. Your faith just got bigger. To be a Christian is to claim truth wherever you find it."

"The point of the cross isn't forgiveness. Forgiveness leads to something much bigger: restoration. God isn't just interested in the covering over of our sins; God wants to make us into the people we were originally created to be. It is not just the removal of what's being held against us; it is God pulling us into the people he originally had in mind when he made us."

"'Your job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made you to be. And anything else you do is sin and you need to repent of it.'"

"What happens in our lives becomes so heavily oriented around the expectations of others that we become more and more like them and less and less like ourselves. We become split."

"I have been told that I need to believe in Jesus. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that Jesus believes in me. I have been told that I need to have faith in God. Which is a good thing. But what I am learning is that God has faith in me."

"It is trusting that I am loved. That I always have been. That I always will be. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to prove anything or achieve anything or accomplish one more thing. That exactly as I am, I am totally accepted, forgiven, and there is nothing I could ever do to lose this acceptance."

"God has no boundaries. God blesses everybody. People who don't believe in God. People who are opposed to God. People who do violent, evil things. God's intentions are to bless everybody."

"Most of the messages we receive are about how to make life easier. The call of Jesus goes the other direction. It's about making our lives more difficult. It is going out of our way to be more generous and disciplined and loving and free. It is refusing to escape and become numb to and check out of this broken, fractured world."

Just as an FYI...I was accepted into the alternative certification program and I started my classes yesterday. I will be in class until mid-July, but should take my state test and get my probationary certification in June. Please keep me in your prayers as I continue to fight the battle with my anxiety and am scared to make this transition into a new career.

Also, I was thinking that I need to change the name of my blog since I'm technically not a newlywed anymore. Any ideas for names? I have limited creativity :)!

For the Book Lovers Out There...

This one's from Jacque only I decided to organize it differently so it made sense to me :). You can click on her blog if you'd like to do it the original way!

Books I've Read (I promise I've read a lot more than what's on this list!)
I can't say enough about these!!

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) - Couldn't put it down.
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)- Excellent!!
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) - A classic!! I grew up on the miniseries!
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) - Perhaps my all-time favorite book that I read in school...also love the movie!
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough) - SO GOOD!
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck) - Another incredible book
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd) - Very good

Books I Want to Read
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) - I wrote a paper on this once, but somehow never actually read the book :). I think I own it, though!
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) - I own this.
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) - I own this one too.
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
45. Bible - Although I've read a lot of the Bible, I've never been able to sit down and read it cover to cover...a goal of mine that I'm working on.
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) - For the same reason as Jacque!
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)


Books I Probably Won't Read
Let me preface this by saying that I love the Lord of the Rings movies and Harry Potter, but I've never joined the craze in reading the books. I'd be much more inclined to read Harry Potter than LOTR, though.

5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
18. The Stand (Stephen King) - I love Stephen King movies, but not sure about reading his books.
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban(Rowling)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) - Seems too intimidating!
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy) - Too intimidating!
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares) - Loved the movie, but doubt I will read this.
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo) - Again, LOVE the broadway production, but not sure I want to read the book.
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) - Have seen the movie numerous times, so probably won't read it.
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) - Hated this movie!
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) - I probably have read this, but can't remember. Don't really want to read it now.
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding) - Has never interested me.
93. The Good Earth(Pearl S. Buck)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

Books I've Never Heard Of
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True(Wally Lamb)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)

A Must Read!

On Monday I wasn't feeling well, so I stayed in and read a book that my brother encouraged me to read. It is called Sex God by Rob Bell. I know you are probably thinking, "What? What kind of book would be called that?" At least that's what I thought when I first saw the book. Well, it is an amazing book about the connections between sexuality and spirituality. Rob Bell is a superb writer and he forces you to think of sexuality from a much broader point of view. A lot of it is about how we relate to other people...truly fascinating (and a quick read)! I've already ordered his first book, Velvet Elvis, which you may have heard of before and I just started reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. I'll let you know if they are as good. Happy reading!