We live close to train tracks that carry freight cars all day, all night. Frequently - especially on weekends - you will find trainspotters standing around, camp chairs set up, binoculars, old style video recorders in hand, phones at the ready as they wait for the scheduled engine to pass by. I can't relate to this passion, but I can appreciate how this is fun for them.
To me, watching someone enjoy a niche interest, or seeing someone with a unique talent points to a Creator who wasn't happy with keeping us all the same ol', same ol'. In other words, it's the Creator being creative. With an eye to faith, I believe He can use our interests, personalities, "leanings" to reach us where we are. To me, it's a proof of how BIG He is, how He encompasses all things. It makes me believe in Him even more.
It's a reason I love hearing testimonies. How did He reach you? What small, seemingly incidental twist in your life's plotline led you to Him? {If you haven't asked your friends - or enemies! wink- how they came to the Lord, do it soon. You will be encouraged.}
As I continue to build my virtual bookshelf of Bible Literacy, I thought it would be interesting to share 5 books that shaped my faith. Here are 5 of "my niche" books that somehow reached the intersection of me and my faith testimony! {Although I hope it goes without saying that the Bible is number one and the only one I'd want if all else was destroyed.} You might drive by me with my stack of books wondering WHY like I drive past the trainspotters, but in my own little life they spoke to my personality, my experiences in the church, and they pointed me to Him. I'd say they reached my soul, as compared to others that have reached my rational, just the facts! side. Does that make sense?
Why We Love the Church by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck: I understand that my viewpoint on church is a bit loaded - you can't escape that growing up as a daughter, granddaughter and sister of pastors. Often the stories that catch attention are the stories of the bad pastors, the bad leadership in churches. Which - totally not denying. Tragically, it is true.
However, to ignore the fact that just as there are sinful people in leadership, there are sinful people in the congregation as well is ignorant. For me, it has been a struggle to not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. After my dad died (at that time he was our pastor as well), I wanted to quit the church. I saw how it had hurt him. I felt how it had hurt me. I saw how it was being/had been used against me and my family, and I wanted out. I was tired. Discouraged. Going through grief of losing my dad and my pastor - a man who greatly encouraged my own faith. The depth (or reasons) to which I wanted out is probably not totally understandable unless you have been IN a pastor's family watching/listening/processing the absolute cruelty of people. People who are IN the church. Your story might look different, but maybe you can relate. We're all dealing with other humans, right?
DeYoung and Kluck's book pushed me back in. I am eternally thankful for their words of encouragement, their openness in feeling frustrations as well, but pointing me back to the words of Scriptures in needing to be in a church. Yes, the Bible tells us this, but I do truly believe the Lord used the words of these men to encourage me. I have picked this book back up over the years to remind myself to stay, and to find the "church within the church."
East of Eden by John Steinbeck. As a lifelong avid reader, I love Steinbeck's writing. His style is one of my favorites.
In addition, as a person of faith, I love his story of the Trask and Hamilton families who mirror the family of Adam and Eve and their sons, Cain and Abel. The story focuses on Adam Trask, who moves to California to farm. "But the birth of his twins, Cal and Aron, brings his wife to the brink of madness, and Adam is left alone to raise his boys to manhood. One boy thrives...the other grows up in loneliness, enveloped by a mysterious darkness." When I reached the end of the book, I cried. I don't think I've ever cried harder at a made up story {except for the movie Benji, which we would watch as a family and my dad said we couldn't watch it again if I was going to keep crying.} {Spoiler: I think he was covering up his own tears at the time. A dog story always got his heart.}. The idea that we all have a choice between - to put it succinctly - good and evil and daily it is on me to choose was impactful. {Timshel!}To me, it was a gift - as a reader all my life - to have the Lord use a story to reach my heart.
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. This book. I don't know how to describe how it reached my heart at a moment I needed it. The main plot centers around an older pastor who is writing to his young son describing his faith, life and surrounding issues of his time. Not only is Robinson's writing deep, atmospheric, full of weighty truths, but it also was a message that went straight to my heart. The words of this dying pastor who wondered if it was all worth it. There is a scene talking about the boxes of sermons up in his attic and his awareness that his words fell short: Well, perhaps I can get a box of them down here somehow and do a little sorting. It would put my mind at ease to feel I was leaving a better impression. So often I have known, right here in the pulpit, even as I read these words, how far they fell short of any hopes I had for them. And they were the major work of my life, from a certain point of view. I have to wonder how I have lived with that.
To me, coming from a family who put faith into words (writing books, articles, or speaking), and wondering if it is all worth it becomes so heavy it keeps me from putting my faith into words. I struggle with this and feel myself working through it often. I still haven't resolved it in my own heart, but in Robinson's words, I find understanding.
John Donne's poetry. Especially Sonnet 14 (Batter my heart three-person'd God) and Death Be Not Proud. Straight to the heart. Amen.
The Summer of the Great-Grandmother by Madeleine L'Engle. What do I believe, this summer, about death and the human being? I'm not sure. But I know that it is in the language of the fugue, not the language of intellectual certainty. And I know that I could not survive this summer if I could not hope for meaning, meaning to my mother's life, to Hugh's and mine, to our children's, to all the larger family, to everybody, to all things, including the rock at the brook and the small frog. What that ultimate meaning may be I do not know, because I am finite, and the meaning I hope for is not. But God, if he is God, if he is worth believing in, is a loving God who will not abandon or forget the smallest atom of his creation.
Madeleine writes about the final summer of her mother's life and how she processes faith, family, the difficulty of watching her mother descend into death. While her story is different than mine, there were facets I could relate to and overall, to share a story in which I can find myself is a gift. Love this book.
Those are the five books that have affected my faith greatly. I realize they're all a bit heavy, and (some would say) so SAD! So forgive that, but in a unique way I think it points to something we all may deal with, and is a bit of a theme in my experiences of life: Namely how we fit into the world, whether what we do and how we minister has any meaning or lasting impact and whether, in the end, it is all worth it. I'm not sure you're human if you haven't thought this in some manner! Maybe if you choose to pick up one of these titles, it can encourage you and enable you to know that you are not alone in your deepest wonderings! And push you toward the answer: Which is a resounding YES!
Honorable Mention: If you want something a bit lighter, try Brant Hansen's Blessed are the Misfits. Great. Perfect. Lighthearted, but touching the deeper questions of whether we - all misfits in our own way - belong in the faith. Love this book! His chapter on spirituality and being serious... never felt a Brother in Christ (ha!) had gotten it so right and so relatably in my life.
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