A Word for Wednesday

"The mould in which a key is made would be a strange thing, if you had never seen a key:
and the key itself a strange thing if you had never seen a lock.
Your soul has a curious shape because it is a hollow made to fit
a particular swelling in the infinite contours of the Divine substance,
or a key to unlock one of the doors in the house with many mansions.
For it is not humanity in the abstract that is to be saved,
but you—you, the individual reader, John Stubbs or Janet Smith.
Blessed and fortunate creature, your eyes shall behold Him and not another's.
All that you are, sins apart, is destined, if you will let God have His good way, to utter satisfaction.
The Brocken spectre 'looked to every man like his first love', because she was a cheat.
But God will look to every soul like its first love because He is its first love.
Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it—made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand."

~from The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis~

A Word for Wednesday

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: 

it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

~from The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis~

Let's Bust a Recap : My Bedtime Anytime Storybook

My Bedtime Anytime Storybook is a collection of short stories for children written by V. Gilbert Beers that was published in 1992 and gifted to my siblings and me back in 1995. As the self-proclaimed book hoarder collector of the family, I claimed this book for my personal library after we all grew up, and this summer I read the whole thing out loud to the almost-three-year-old that haunts this place. Each day before naptime, we'd visit our colorful friends to supposedly be entertained and learn valuable moral lessons about forgiveness, helpfulness, working together, sharing, pride, etcetera etcetera. 

The stories feature the little adventures and scuffles of six animal friends: McWhiskers the mouse (quite obviously the author's favorite character and the most virtuous of the bunch), Bru the bruin bear (the one who has the most lessons to learn but never seems to actually learn them), Puddles the blue hippo, Tux the penguin, KaWally the koala bear, and PJ the zebra (all of whom are definitely secondary characters to McWhiskers and Bru). While the book is well-intentioned and the stories have the potential to teach good lessons, the moral is often vague and overshadowed by other bad characteristics displayed by the characters in the story. For example, we may be reading a story about Bru and his pridefulness, and in the process of Bru learning how wrong it is to be proud, all the other characters get angry, yell at him, even call him names. While we get the hazy impression that pridefulness is wrong, we never read anything about anger or unkindness or see Bru's friends apologize to him for their own moral missteps. The endings are extremely weak and fail to drive the moral lesson home, and on top of that, the stories are largely forgettable. 

The biggest selling point is definitely the colorful, cartoonish illustrations by Tim O'Connor that draw the eye on every page and is what I remember being attracted to as a child flipping through this book. But that hardly makes up for the poor content of the stories. While this book wasn't terrible and there were a few stories that I liked, overall I'd recommend skipping My Bedtime Anytime Storybook. There is certainly better material out there particularly if you're looking for something to help teach your children Christian values. 

What's your favorite read-aloud storybook?

A Word for Wednesday

"We imply, and often believe, that habitual vices are exceptional single acts,
and make the opposite mistake about our virtues—like the bad tennis player who calls his normal form his 'bad days' and mistakes his rare successes for his normal."

~from The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis~

Let's Bust a Recap : The Problem of Pain

The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis was first published in 1940 and in it, Lewis argues that pain, hell, and the existence of evil are not sufficient reasons to reject belief in a good and powerful God. Reading this book killed two birds with one stone for me (if I may borrow the colloquialism) in that 1) I try to read something by C.S. Lewis every year, and 2) I chose to read The Problem of Pain to fill the  "book about a topic that fascinates you" category for Modern Mrs Darcy's 2019 Reading Challenge. 

First, let me explain why this book fits that category for me. It's not that pain in and of itself fascinates me—I'm not a sadist—but that the problem of pain is fascinating. As a Christian, I have had to grapple with this problem myself, and the problem of pain seems to be one of the biggest reasons people reject God. If there is a God and He is good and He is all-powerful, how can He allow such horrible pain to exist on such a global scale? Why are children starving? Why do people die of cancer? Why are wars and genocide and terrorism part of life on this earth?

In this slim volume, Lewis sets out to address these tough questions stating:

'If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both.' This is the problem of pain, in its simplest form. The possibility of answering it depends on showing that the terms 'good' and 'almighty', and perhaps also the term 'happy', are equivocal: for it must be admitted from the outset that if the popular meanings attached to these words are the best, or the only possible, meanings, then the argument is unanswerable.

So here's the thing about C.S. Lewis. Every time I read something he's written, I find that my mind has been stimulated and my faith has been encouraged. He always makes me think. I appreciate his unwavering honesty. Throughout The Problem of Pain, he never claims to have the solution. He makes it clear that as humans who can't see the big picture from God's perspective we shouldn't expect to fully understand all the aspects and nuances of human suffering and the presence of evil and how it all fits into God's purpose and plan for humanity. And I love that about him and his writing.

But, once again, in The Problem of Pain as in The Great Divorce (which I read earlier this year), I found myself disagreeing with Lewis on certain points of doctrine. For example, in The Problem of Pain Lewis naturally dives into Creation and the Fall of Man in talking about the origin of evil. I personally believe that God created the world and everything in it in six literal days. Lewis does not. What was so interesting to me in reading The Problem of Pain is that even though certain points of our doctrinal beliefs may differ, Lewis and I usually come to the same conclusions. In reading Lewis, Augustine's maxim "in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity" often comes to mind. His writing embodies that so well. 

And this is why I keep reading Lewis. His writing helps to challenge my long-held (and sometimes taken-for-granted) beliefs and cement them even more firmly in my heart. I appreciate the respectful tone of his writing. Other Christian writers can come off as know-it-alls at times which is a big turnoff, and Lewis isn't that way.

As with The Great Divorce, I wouldn't necessarily recommend The Problem of Pain to a C.S. Lewis newbie, but overall, as with everything I've read by Lewis so far, I thought The Problem of Pain was excellent and worth your time if it's something you're even mildly interested in reading. 

What are your thoughts on the problem of pain, the coexistence of a loving God and human suffering?

A Word for Wednesday

"...when pain is to be borne, 

a little courage helps more than much knowledge, 

a little human sympathy more than much courage, 

and the least tincture of the love of God more than all."

~from The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis~

Birthday Love

Happy Birthday, my man! You make my dreams come true!

And Happy Birthday to our Najati! We love you forever.

If you've been following this blog for any length of time, you know that my husband and I are passionate about the Compassion program and releasing children from poverty in Jesus' name. Our girl Najati turns 16 today. Just a few weeks ago, we learned that Najati is no longer in the Compassion program and as a result of that, we are no longer able to communicate with her. We're not sure of all the details about why she has stopped coming to the center, but we know we will always love her and continue to pray for her. Please pray for her and her family. 

These are Cody's new birthday buddies! Ahishakiye turns 4 today and Andredson turns 6! We're looking forward to building a relationship with them and loving on them for years to come. If you're interested in sponsoring a child through Compassion, please don't hesitate to contact me. 

Let's Bust a Recap : The Art of Racing in the Rain

Ugh. Y'all. This has been kindof a rough year for my reading life. With the exception of the Sisterchicks book I read by Robin Jones Gunn (who never lets me down, thank goodness!), everything I've read has been slow and/or had depressing elements, and some of it was just plain bad (looking at you Harlow Giles Unger). This isn't to say I haven't read some great books this year—I have—but overall I'm about ready to throw in the towel on my 2019 list and re-read the entire Christy Miller series.

And speaking of the great books I've read this year: The Art of Racing in the Rain wasn't one of them. After seeing this trailer for the upcoming film adaptation, reading nothing but positive reviews on the internet, and learning that the novel had held a steady spot on the New York Times Bestseller list for 156 weeks, I ordered the book and took it with me on our little weekend getaway to North Carolina last week thinking I'd fly through it, probably cry a lot, and be even more pumped to see the movie. 

Moral of the story: bad books sell and you can't trust the opinions of strangers on the internet. 

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein was published in 2008. In this novel, Enzo the dog who believes he will be reincarnated as a human in his next life tells us the story of his master Denny Swift, an aspiring Formula One driver, husband to Eve, and father to Zoë. We learn at the beginning of the book that Denny has already lost his wife Eve to brain cancer, and as Enzo looks back on their life together and recounts their struggles after Eve is diagnosed, we see that Denny's life goes from bad to worse to freaking miserable. 

The tone of the book was crass overall. The story was littered with profanity and certain adult situations that I have no idea how they will make palatable for a PG movie from Disney. And while I understand that Enzo the dog is looking forward to being reincarnated as a human being, his voice in this book was too human. While there were moments of brilliance throughout the book, I wasn't convinced that a dog was telling me his story. 

I understand that not every book is for every person. There are people out there who don't care about profanity or rude humor, and there are obviously a LOT of people who loved this book. I'm just not one of them. This book didn't work for me, and I personally wouldn't recommend it. I still may end up seeing the movie, and this may possibly be the first time I watch a movie and declare its superiority over the book that inspired it. But I won't be revisiting the novel.

Have you read this book? Did you enjoy it? What popular books have you wanted to like but just couldn't get into?