{"id":574,"date":"2016-11-11T17:39:29","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T17:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=574"},"modified":"2016-11-11T17:39:29","modified_gmt":"2016-11-11T17:39:29","slug":"books-books-and-more-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/?p=574","title":{"rendered":"Books, Books, and More Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

I love books.\u00a0 I like the way they feel in my hands.\u00a0 I like turning the pages.\u00a0 I like underlining and making notes in the margins.\u00a0 I like filling shelves to\"img_1359\"<\/a>\u00a0overflowing with them.\u00a0 I enjoy walking through book\u00a0stores row\u00a0by row, stopping to thumb through pages.\u00a0 Just thinking about it calms my heart and makes me smile.<\/p>\n

As a result, I have several boxes of books from our recent move.\u00a0 By several, I mean 50 or so; many of which\u00a0I’m still in the process of unpacking.\u00a0\u00a0 We don’t have the space to continue to house all of these wonderful items so I’m trying to fill new\u00a0boxes with books to donate.\u00a0 It’s a time consuming process because as I unpack each book, I can’t help but\u00a0thumb\u00a0through it, remembering, smiling, cherishing.<\/p>\n

Most of the books fall into either faith based writings or parenting or a combination of both.\u00a0 Each of them are a reminder of all that God has done and His faithfulness to me over the years.<\/p>\n

When I found out that we were going to have our oldest child, I knew that I wasn’t well equipped.\u00a0 I had brokenness from my own childhood that I didn’t want to repeat;\u00a0I didn’t want to mess up the beautiful gift that God was giving.\u00a0\u00a0I knew some of the basics of keeping her alive, I just wasn’t sure about nurturing or loving her well.\u00a0 So I did what I knew to do…I researched.\u00a0 I watched other moms.\u00a0 I asked questions.\u00a0 I reached out\u00a0for help.\u00a0 I prayed.\u00a0 And I read a lot.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many of the faith based books were about growing closer to God, praying, healing, how to study the bible, and bible study tools.\u00a0 I knew that I needed God if I was going\u00a0to be the kind of mom I wanted to be, which meant I needed a lot of healing and truth.\u00a0 I’m in awe today of all that He has done to sooth and\u00a0bring\u00a0wholeness\u00a0in my heart.<\/p>\n

The parenting books were what you would expect; how to talk to your kids, how to listen to your kids, when to start having them do chores, how to get them to work together, how to raise emotionally intelligent kids, how to teach kids about God,\u00a0how to raise a child with disabilities, and the list goes on..<\/p>\n

As the kids got older, I read books about helping children resolve conflicts.\u00a0\u00a0One book recommended that I empathize with my child when he\/she was mad with a sibling.\u00a0 I jumped at the chance to try it out the next time a fight erupted.<\/p>\n

I could tell one child was mad at another so I asked her, per the books instructions, “Are you mad?\u00a0 Do you feel like hitting your brother?”\u00a0 The book said that at this point the child would reply yes, and I was to empathize by saying something about how I understood her desire, but hitting was not appropriate.\u00a0 But before I could say anything, she hauled off and hit him!\u00a0 I was stunned!\u00a0 This was not how it was supposed to\u00a0go!\u00a0<\/strong> Thankfully, my laughter diffused the situation (maybe not the best reaction, but I couldn’t help myself!)\u00a0and I was able to make a teaching point out of the failed experiment.\u00a0 We still talk and laugh about\u00a0that incident when we\u00a0reminisce about the kids’\u00a0childhood.\u00a0 It certainly made a lasting impression!<\/p>\n

\u2044\u2044 \u2044\u2044 \u2044\u2044<\/p>\n

So as I unpack each one of these books, I think about how each one came into my possession.\u00a0 Some came by way of loving, caring friends who knew I was looking for answers.\u00a0 Some came from spending time in the book shelves of libraries and bookstores.\u00a0 All came through the loving hands of God who heard my plea for help.<\/p>\n

I thumb through each\u00a0book, looking for things I’ve bookmarked, highlighted, or starred.\u00a0 The memories come flooding back.<\/em>\u00a0 Each mark reveals my thoughts, struggles, and desires during that time.\u00a0 It’s hard for me to believe that those intense, fun, stretching, joy-filled, and sometimes difficult years are behind me.\u00a0\"image\"<\/a> I’m still a mom, and I have other things to pour into and walk through with my children, but\u00a0those years of purposeful,\u00a0daily parenting are gone.<\/p>\n

My heart is full and grateful\u00a0as I now enjoy\u00a0the\u00a0harvest of those planting years.\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m thankful for the wisdom I gleaned from each one of those books.\u00a0 They offered encouragement, insight, and understanding.\u00a0 They all became a part of my arsenal as I grew as a mom.<\/p>\n

I smile as I lovingly put books on my shelves\u00a0to remind me of all that has passed.\u00a0 And I pray\u00a0as I put some of those precious books in new boxes; hoping that they bless and encourage their new owners…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love books.\u00a0 I like the way they feel in my hands.\u00a0 I like turning the pages.\u00a0 I like underlining and making notes in the margins.\u00a0 I like filling shelves to\u00a0overflowing with them.\u00a0 I enjoy walking through book\u00a0stores row\u00a0by row, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,5,6],"class_list":["post-574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-books","tag-faith","tag-parenting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/IMG_1359.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=574"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":580,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574\/revisions\/580"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.karen-gustafson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}