All About Books....

I love to read. I always have. When I was a child I almost always had a book with me. There were times I was in my bedroom after school. Instead of doing my homework I was reading a book. I taught myself to read in Kindergarten and was at a 6th grade reading level by the end of first grade. Books were an escape for me when I was unhappy. Books were also a way to learn and I loved to be exposed to new things. My dream one day is to have a house with at least one room filled with books - I'm talking floor to ceiling bookshelves along all four walls! I probably should have been a librarian! Or a book store owner! I have ebooks books on my iPad and laptop, but there is nothing like holding a real book! Especially a new one!!! :)

This past month I read 10 books.

• Lundy Bancroft - Why Does He Do That?
• Lundy Bancroft - When Dad Hurts Mom
• Paul Hegstrom - Angry Men and the Women Who Love Them
• Patricia Evans - The Verbally Abusive Relationship
• Barbara Roberts - Not Under Bondage: Biblical Divorce For Abuse, Adultery and Desertion
• Dan McCartney - Why Does it Have to Hurt?
• Paul Tripp - A Shelter in the Time of the Storm
• Nancy Leigh DeMoss - Choosing Forgiveness
• Leslie Vernick - The Emotionally Destructive Relationship
• Brian Crosby - Giving Up Gimmicks: Reclaiming Youth Ministry From An Entertainment Culture

The first 5 books are ones dealing with abuse (one of the later ones is at well). I'd read all of them before - but wanted to re-read them to be able to accurately quote from them in some of the previous posts and hope to quote more in future posts. If you keep up with literature on abuse there is a lot of common knowledge up to a certain point. There isn't as much literature on abuse when it comes to spiritual matters, though recently there has been more attention brought to how abuse devastates a person's faith. I'm confident there will be more resources and help available in the future.

The next 2 are on suffering. I marked many pages that bring up things I want to blog about. It's going to be hard to figure out what post to write on next! 

The next 2 books are about relationships, the first centering on forgiving those who've hurt us and the next another book talking about destructive patterns in relationships (some of which are abusive). Very many good things in these books as well.

The last book is on ministry, specifically around ministry to youth. It has some great thoughts on the current culture of youth groups and how it's lacking in fulfilling a biblical model of teaching children. I really liked this book! 

There were other books I started but didn't get finished before the month ends...so those will be added on to my list for next month. I may take a month off of reading in December to write my thoughts on these all these books!