August 28, 2008

Good morning! Goodness, with this weather I would think everyone could easily, without coercion of any sort, become a book reader! Foggy, still, peaceful. Can I call in sick to my own shop!??!? I see a stack of books calling out my name............maybe tonight...at least for ten minutes, I always can have that hope! I want to give you a chance to look at all I've done on our web site this week with past newsletters and note back from you that I've put on the site, so I'm going to just put a short note of something I read out of a friend's journal of favorite thoughts from her reading. I don't usually tend to covet my friends. Houses, cars, clothes, time...doesn't usually fade me...but goodness, a probably sinful trait showed itself this week when I asked to borrow two notebooks full of hand-written excerpts from books read by my friend over the past years. Why haven't I done that?!? I have the perfect journal I brought home to fill up, but was intimidated by all that I wanted to add from books I've read in the past. This week I am motivated to start now, not try to catch up, and fill a beautiful journal over the next 70 years (hopefully I'll live to 110) with lines and quotes from authors that affect me. No personal thoughts, only thoughts that help make me think the way that I do. Here is one of her entries, an excerpt from a letter that Jim Elliot sent to his parents before leaving after college as a missionary to work with the Inca Indians in South America. His comparison of our children as arrows that we eventually release has replayed itself in my mind...Here were his words...

I do not wonder that you were saddened at the word of my going to South America...
Grieve not, then, if your sons seem to desert you, but rejoice, rather, seeing the will of God done gladly. Remember how the Psalmist described children? He said that they were as an heritage from the Lord, and that every man should be happy who had his quiver full of them. And what is a quiver full of but arrows? And what are arrows for but to shoot? So, with the strong arms of prayer, draw the bowstring back and let the arrows fly - all of them, straight at the enemy's hosts. (Psalm 127:4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth.)

Isn't that picture of prayer being the energy that sends our arrows off a beautiful analogy? I am going to have that be the first entry in my own journal, my own book of quotes. Forever releasing Camden as an arrow, releasing him with the force of my prayers. I know that so many of you that come in the store have extremes on where your children are, but each of us are still releasing them...weaning, preschool, kindergarten, middle school, high school, college, graduate school, to other towns, states, countries...or maybe releasing them in illness, or to marriages, or to anything that is no longer in our control as parents. Prayer. Once again the most peaceful word, for all is taken out of our hands into the hands of our God. The hands that welcome our gift. Would I even be able to shoot him with prayer in illness or an accident back to heaven? As in Stepping Heavenward when Elizabeth Prentiss states after the sickness and death of her son, "Oh, Lord, what a precious gift you asked from me." But she was able to release her gift back because the father who took back her little boy did so with gentle, open hands, ready to bless the little boy even greater by letting him live his life directly in his presence. How far am I able to take the analogy? I pray that at any time I will have stepped close enough to God's presence in daily prayer that I am able to shoot off my arrow no matter the circumstance. Did I go too far with that? How far am I willing to take my faith? Well, this moment I do know, and I do know it is quiet, still, foggy, and beautiful. I will thank God for the arrow that is still not ready to fly...that I still have in my quiver. I will pray for wisdom as I daily pull the bowstring back a little tighter. Go today, making decisions that only you know you made. Praying all day in your mind. Do what is in your control with excellence. And whatever is in your own life that is not in your control, may you remember the promise - that if you look to the hills (or over the cornfields!) in prayer, and if you fall to your knees (literally in your own living room)...your help is there. God. Our promise. Thank you for letting me come into your morning. I hope you have time for yourself today, even if only two minutes of stillness. Thank you for coming into our store for what you need. We love being here and can't wait to keep on adding more and more books that have the capability of changing our lives. Susan

Works Cited:
Elliot, Elizabeth. Shadow of the Almighty: The Life and Testament of Jim Elliot. New York. Harper Collins. 1989.
Prentiss, Elizabeth. Stepping Heavenward : One Woman's Journey to Godliness. Ed. Ellyn Sanna. Grand Rapids: Barbour, Incorporated, 1998.