One of my favorite things about summer break (and Christmas break) is the chance to read… for pleasure… for hours on end.
Sylvie and Bruno — Lewis Carroll
A story beginning with two story lines that merge into one. The first story line is in the world of fairy children, Sylvie and Bruno. The second is in the world with an old friend, Arthur, and Lady Muriel. Both stories focus on love, lessons, and the dozens of little moments that are to be captured in a day… or a dream.
“Wouldn’t it be better to tell me after the lessons are over?” I suggested.
“Very well,” Bruno said with a resigned air: “only she wo’n’t be cross then.”
“There’s only three lessons to do,” said Sylvie. “Spelling, and Geography, and Singing.”
“Not Arithmetic?” I asked.
“No, he hasn’t a head for Arithmetic — ”
“Course I haven’t!” said Bruno. “Mine head’s for hair. I haven’t got a lot of heads!”
” — and he ca’n’t learn his Multiplication-table –”
“I like History ever so much better,” Bruno remarked. “Oo has to repeat the Muddlecome table –”
“Well, and you have to repeat –”
“No, oo hasn’t!” Bruno interrupted. “History repeats itself. The Professor said so!”
Keep a Quiet Heart — Elizabeth Elliot
This book could be used for daily readings. Each chapter is short — 2-4 pages — and focuses on how we have peace through Christ.
“One day recently something lit a fuse of anger in someone who then burned me with hot words. I felt sure I didn’t deserve this response, but when I ran to God about it, He reminded me of part of a prayer I’d been using lately: “Teach me to treat all that comes to me with a peace of soul and with firm conviction that Your will governs all.”
…Mercifully, God does not leave us to choose our own curriculum. His wisdom is perfect, His knowledge embraces not only all worlds but the individual hearts and minds of each of His loved children. With intimate understanding of our deepest needs and individual capacities, He chooses our curriculum. We need only ask, “Give us this day our daily bread, our daily lessons, our homework.” An angry retort from someone may be just the occasion we need in which to learn not only longsuffering and forgiveness, but meekness and gentleness; fruits not born in us but borne only by the Spirit.”
Isaiah — The Bible
Poetry punctuated with narrative tells the story of a nation who had forsaken their God, a man called by Grace and commissioned to preach, the fall of arrogant nations, the judgment of sin, the coming Messiah, and the salvation of God’s people, not just in Israel, but in all the nations of the earth.
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, his has toughed your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” Isaiah 6:5-7
Yesterday I came acrossA Divine Call for Missionaries, a sermon by Charles Spurgeon on Isaiah 6. Reading that sermon made me want to add this book to my reading list.
thoughts and songs 