Reading List for Homeschool High Schoolers

If you're being homeschooled through high school, one of your greatest anxieties (fears? terrors?) might be college. Sure, it sounds exciting, but it's also intimidating, isn't it? After all, universities are designed for kids who have been in public schools their entire lives, and it's possible that what we've learned at home just won't cut it in the "real world."

Well, as a homeschool graduate who has also earned a bachelor's degree in English, I'm here to give you some solid advice that should make you feel a lot better.

Student, a photo by CollegeDegrees360 on Flickr.

First, breathe. 

It's OK, you can have confidence in your parents, your curriculum, and your own abilities, and of course God. It's natural to be nervous about transitioning from home education to a public or private college, but it doesn't have to be a bumpy ride.

One thing that will help enormously is to be familiar with the books that you will be studying in-depth once you get to college. Since my major was in English I spent a lot of time reading and analyzing Non-Western literature, British literature, and American literature—a lot of books in other words. Though there were many that I had never read before, it helped that I was familiar with the classics and had been exposed to many of those works.

Though there can be no complete reading list for the college-bound student, here are some titles that I think you'll find very helpful to read (or at least get the CliffsNotes on) before striking out into the stormy waters of higher education. Even if you're not going to college, these are some of the most well-known books in the Western world and can broaden your horizons, deepening your insight and giving you some common ground with your public schooled friends. 

Disclaimer: Not all of these books have a Christian worldview, or are even very pleasant to read, but they offer valuable opportunities for testing your faith and applying what you have learned. If your parents don't want you to read some of them, by all means don't. There are many other valuable reads that I have left out, but this should get you started. 

How many of these have you already read?

• The Norton Anthologies: These collections of excerpts and whole works are invaluable to the serious student. Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction, stories from the Middle East, Latino or Australian literature—you could spend decades reading these anthologies alone. Old editions can be bought fairly cheaply on sites like eBay and Amazon. 
• Aldous Huxley: Brave New World
• Amy Tan: The Joy Luck Club
• Angelou, Maya: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings 
• Arthur Miller: Death of a Salesman
• Benjamin Franklin: The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
• Charles Dickens: Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield
• Charlotte Brontë: Jane Eyre
• Chinua Achebe: Things Fall Apart
• Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth, The Age of Innocence
• Ernest Hemingway: A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea and perhaps The Sun Also Rises
• F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby and perhaps Tender is the Night
• Franz Kafka: Metamorphosis 
• Frederick Douglass: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
• George Orwell: Animal Farm, 1984
• Harriet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Tom's Cabin 
• Henry James: Daisy Miller: A Study.
• Herman Melville: Moby Dick and "Bartleby the Scrivener"
• James Fenimore Cooper: The Last of the Mohicans, The Pioneers, The Deerslayer (then read Mark Twain's "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses")
• Jane Austen: Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and perhaps Sense and Sensibility and Persuasion
• John Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, and perhaps The Pearl
• Joseph Conrad: Heart of Darkness
• Kate Chopin: The Awakening 
• Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina. War and Peace
• Mark Twain: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and perhaps A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court and Innocents Abroad
• Mary Shelley: Frankenstein
• Nathaniel Hawthorne: The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables
• Ralph Ellison: The Invisible Man
• Richard Wright: Native Son
• Robert Frost,        Ezra Pound, Carl Sandburg, William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes: Selected poems
• Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Macbeth, Twelfth Night, and others
• T.S. Eliot: "The Waste Land"
• Tennessee Williams: A Streetcar named Desire, Glass Menagerie 
• Upton Sinclair: The Jungle 
• Virginia Woolf: To the Lighthouse
• Walt Whitman: Leaves of Grass
• Washington Irving: "Rip Van Winkle"
• Willa Cather: My Ántonia
• William Faulkner: As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury
• Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God

Besides my personal college experience, these are some helpful resources I referenced:

• thehomescholar.com
• goodreads.com
• homeschool-rewards.com
• homeschool-rewards.com
• homeworktips.about.com
• als.lib.wi.us

Living Above Worry and Stress

Worry and stress both sink their roots into one thing. Fear. Will I get there in time? What will others think? How will this ever work? The questions that plague us day in and day out, worrying at our hearts until they're frayed and desperate, are not the kind of questions that Jesus asked. "Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin.... If then God so clothes the grass...how much more will He clothe you, O you of little faith" (Luke 12:27-28).


I have struggled with stress for a very long time. I'm a perfectionist at heart, so when anything goes wrong, or it just looks like it might go wrong, I become a basket case. Yet I know that a life of tension is not what God wants for us! So when I saw this Bible study guide by Women of Faith, Living Above Worry and Stress, I knew that it was the right thing to get.

I love the format of the WoF study guides. Engaging stories and personal narratives are sprinkled through clusters of thought-provoking questions, with plenty of blank space to scribble down your thoughts and ideas. At the end of every chapter there is a little "trinket to treasure," a picture of an item that is supposed to help you remember the lesson. The leader's guide at the back of the book contains extra information and clarity for nearly every question.

I just finished the guide this morning, and it has given me so many insights that I would love to share with all of you! If you deal with worry or stress at all then I highly recommend getting this book for yourself, but here is a "tasting dish" of insights I gleaned from my studies.

• So many times we lose our perspective and get caught up in 1,000,001 things, most of which are not vitally important. Make a catalog of your duties and responsibilities (regular events which must be planned, church involvement, work, homemaking, etc.). Put the world back in focus and get a grip on your schedule. 
• Fear is universal. When you're distracted by "what-ifs" and find no rest in your pillow, remember that some of the greatest heroes of the Bible (Jacob, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Peter) were all afraid of something. The Lord is our strength in these times, and He longs to take away our fears! What is your greatest fear and how can God dispel it?
• Do a character study on Mary and Martha in the Bible. They are mentioned in Luke 10:38-42, John 11 and John 12:1-8. Learn from these two women and record your insights.
• Feel like you need more joy? Worry throttles joy. Humility and thankfulness banish worry.
• This illustration put things in such clear and relatable terms for me, "Many of us scoop more onto our plates than we can handle in a day. It all looks good. A little more couldn't hurt. But pretty soon we realize our ambitions were bigger than our time. That's when stress begins to weigh us down. Do you have too much on your plate?"  
• Living in the moment. That's where the secret lies. If I'm concentrating on right now, I can see God's grace covering it. Move away from that towards stressing about the past or worrying about the future, and I'm disobeying God; I'm moving out from His protection. 
• When you feel the urge to frown, raise your eyebrows! It works wonders.

Flower for a Friend, a photo by Pink Sherbet Photography on Flickr. 

I won't say that this study guide has solved all of my stress and worry problems, but the scriptures I have studied and the stories I've read have emphasized three important things:

1. Stress and worry are not God's plan for me.
2. God is bigger than my stress and worry and wants to overcome them.
3. I must hand my fears over to the Prince of Peace every single day.

As homeschooled girls, we can take an awful lot on ourselves. The important thing is that we give it all to God. I hope that you will be able to conquer your worry and stress, through Christ who strengthens you!

Choosing Gratitude

Quiet time.  Devotions. Time with God.  A very important and special part of the day.

What do you use in your devotions?  Do you have a favorite book that you go back to all the time?  Is there a special book in the Bible that you love to study?

The girls of Altogether Seperate will be writing reviews on books that we are currently reading in our devotions.  Will it be a book of the Bible we are studying or a devotional that we use using or a book that we are reading through during our devotional time?  Well, that will depend on the authoress for that blog post =)

I chose to do a review on a book that I am reading through during my devotional time.  This book was truly a God-send as I had been looking for books on gratitude, but had yet to find one that I was sure would be doctrinally sound.  I've been casually looking for the past couple months at different ones and then I came across a giveaway of the book "Choosing Gratitude" by Nancy Leigh DeMoss.   I've read a few of her books/devotionals and really enjoyed them so I thought I would enter just for fun as there were several entries.  Well, it was the one God wanted me to be reading, as I ended up winning the book!!  I've only gotten into it a few chapters, but it has been so convicting and yet encouraging as well - after all, it is a book on gratitude, which brings to mind things to be thankful for.

So, here is the review:

Choosing Gratitude: Your Journey to Joy

By Nancy Leigh DeMoss

    Gratitude is not a distinctive Christian character quality.  Although we live in a culture that is rampant with ingratitude, you will find that amongst most families, the words "thank you" are among the first words learned by a young child.  It is not uncommon to hear an unsaved person express the words "thank you" when they find a parking space in an overflowing parking lot, or when a family member comes out of surgery successfully.

However, when these people say "thank you" the "you" means nothing to them.  To us Christians, that little word "You" should mean everything.  When each of us realized our need of a Savior and asked the Lord into our hearts, our lives radically changed.  No longer are we bound by the chains of our sins, living for ourselves (or in reality, serving Satan), living without a purpose and headed for an eternity in hell without our Lord.  That gift of Salvation we accepted did not bring a life of ease without pain, suffering and trials, but rather, it brought the God of the universe, who loves us more than we can imagine, right to our side to guide and help us through each step along the way.  It brought purpose to our life and assurance that our future would not be spent in hell, but rather in heaven with our Lord for eternity!!

The gift of Salvation is free for all who would receive it.  However, someone had to pay for it and that is where our gratitude starts.  Remembering who sacrificed EVERYTHING for you and me.

Here are some excerpts from the book:

"Undeniable guilt, plus undeserved grace, should equal unbridled gratitude."

"Being humbly thankful to God for our salvation - the most undeserved transaction in our personal history - is the starting point for the purest form of gratitude: God-ward, Christ-centered gratitude.  True gratitude, Christian gratitude, doesn't exist in a vacum; it has an object."

And that is what this book is about.  Choosing Christian gratitude.

"Where does gratitude rank on your list of Christian virtues?

In an arsenal that's supposed to include things like mountain-moving faith, radical obedience, patient long-suffering, and second-mile self denial, for many, gratitude feels like an optional add-on."

"The issue of gratitude is far more significant than its lightweight reputation would suggest......Try, for example, to sustain persevering faith - without gratitude - and your faith will eventually forget the whole point of its faithfulness, hardening into a practice of religion that's hollow and ineffective.

Try being a person who exudes and exhibits Christian love - without gratitude - and over time your love will crash hard on the sharp rocks of disappointment and disillusionment.

Try being a person who sacrificially gives of yourself - without the offering being accompanied by gratitude - and you'll find every ounce of joy drained by a martyr complex......gratitude has a big job to do in us and in our hearts.  And it is one of the chief ways that God infuses joy and resilience into the daily struggle of life."

There is no limit to the amount of grace, love, forgiveness etc. that God gives us. 

"Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.  Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgements are like the great deep" Psalm 36:5-6

"His grace super-abounding from the far reaches of His dominion, filling the depths of our needy lives."

"The beauty of Christian gratitude is that one little act of thanks  - giving on our part - when directed toward or inspired by its rightful Recipient - can abound and rebound from one end of the kingdom to the other, not only blessing God, not only benefiting us, but even lodging itself in places and in people where God's love might never have been received any other way."

"Gratitude is a lifestyle.  A hard-fought, grace infused, biblical lifestyle."

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I've only gotten into the first few chapters, but there is so much to chew on in those first few!

I enthusiastically recommend this book!  It's pages are filled with life-changing material on how to draw from the limitless amount of grace God has given us and use it to share with others in our gratitude.

A Controversy

The bloggirls here at Altogether Separate recently posted a review and hosted a giveaway of Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are. A couple of us were in the middle of reading it and really loved what we were getting: encouragement, wisdom, and beautiful writing.

However, it has come to our attention that this book is actually rather controversial, and in the interest of our readers we wanted to make sure all of you knew that we were featuring this book in a good light because of the points emphasized in this post: seeing beauty in even the most mundane and painful of circumstances, praising God every day, living in the fullness of joy.

Ann's writing is ambiguous in many places, and has been interpreted by some as panentheistic (for more on this, you can read this in-depth examination of the book); the romanticism and sensual terms that Ann uses to describe her relationship with God are offensive to some.

Every popular author is going to have his/her naysayers, and in a work that puts forth some theological views there is bound to be a lot of discussion in Christian circles, on both sides of the issue. If you are a new Christian, or if you have not had much experience in reading the scriptures or studying apologetics, then it may be best for you to steer clear of this book entirely.

For all of the theologically questionable bits in OTG, there are some wonderful messages (for one writer's commentary, see this article), but here is a question that we should all consider: how can we discern spiritual truth when there are so many sides to so many issues? I have heard great praise for OTG from sources I know and trust, and yet there are also articles and blogs which say potential readers should "run for their lives."

How do you decide which books to read, which movies to watch, which sources to trust? How can you know when to keep the baby and throw out the bathwater, and when to stay away from something altogether? 

Life Purpose Planning

College?
Online College?

CLEP Studies?

No College?
Do I need a college degree to fulfill God's desire for my life?
What is God's desire for my life?
Am I pursuing God's desire's or the worlds?
What is my God given life purpose?
Am I living a vibrant, set-on-fire for Christ life?
What in my innermost being do I love so much that I want to spend the rest of my life doing?
Do I have plans and goals set in place to accomplish and fulfill my life purpose?
...................................................................................

When you read the above questions, did they fill you with dread because the answers are elusive to you, or did they fill you with excitement because you could answer them?

As the time for my graduation drew near these questions (and so many others) were flying and whizzing around in my head constantly and I didn't have an answer to any of them.

As I look back over four years since that day of graduation, I can see how God has taught me many things and I'm glad that I waited on Him for direction rather that plowing ahead in my impatience and fustration at not knowing what to do.  As I mentioned above, I didn't have the answers to all the questions when I graduated.  I wanted to have them, but they weren't there.  I learned that sometimes God just needs us to prepare our fields (lives) in faith, trusting that He will bring the rain (purpose).  And He did, just not in ways I would ever have expected.

If I could give one piece of advice to each young person preparing for graduation or planning their future, I would tell them to seek God and His direction and to ask yourselves, "Am I planning or pursuing something because God desires it of me or am I doing it because the world expects me to?"

I would also suggest a very special tool that I wish I had known about earlier in life.  This tool helps you to find your life purpose and helps you prepare for your journey to fulfilling it.

The Tool:  "Life Purpose Planning Workbook" by Dewey Novotny.

If you have never heard of this book I would highly recommend visiting their website http://www.lifepurposeplanning.org/  Our family listened to two seminars by Mr. Novotny on Embassy Institute  (I wrote about Embassy on my personal blog) about a month and a half ago and soon after ordered the book.  We have just recently started working on it, but it has bee great!

The book encourages you to get your focus on God and find out what gifts, interests, traits, personality and circumstances He has given you to fulfill the purpose He made you for.

It helps teaches you how to become a better:
1. Person (a disciple)  "Living in uninterrupted fellowship with God and showing genuine love to others."
2. Provider (a servant) "Combining skill and vision to meet the needs of those whom God has called me to serve."
3. Proclaimer (a communicator) "Communicating Biblical truth to fulfill the Great Commission and live out a vital life message."
4. Partner (a teamate) "Honoring the marriage covenant in all my relationships."
5. Parent (a discipler) " Training those God entrusts to my care and rasing up many Godly generations."

For most of us the Partner and Parent title doesn't apply to us, but if we view those roles from the perspective of teamate and discipler then they do apply. 

This book helps you to find out what people group(s) God designed you to serve.  What ministries He can use you mightily in and so much more.

As I said above, our family just recently found this book and started working on it, (It's key that your parents be involved with this planning) and it's going on four years since I've graduated! So this book is fantastic for any age - even my parents want to do if for themselves =)

Finding the purpose to why God created you is key to unlocking the door to a vibrant, God filled, future.  There may be many doors in the future that you will have to find the right key to get through, but having a peace in knowing your life purpose will point you in the right direction.

Is this book a fix-all, find-all? No, the book itself will not point you in the right direction, but much prayer, direction from God and wisdom from your parents will help you find that special and unique key to your life purpose

One Thousand Gifts Giveaway

Sorry, this giveaway is now closed!

Hello! This is Abigail, speaking for the bloggirls, and we've got something very special for you today: we're giving away 1,000 gifts, all bundled up in one gorgeous hardback book!


One Thousand Gifts is a New York Times Bestselling book written by Ann Voskamp. Its purpose? Daring you to live fully right where you are by giving thanks in all things. It's something that every Christian should be doing, but how often do we forget to be filled with the joy of the Lord?

“I want to see beauty. In the ugly, in the sink, in the suffering, in the daily, in all the days before I die, the moments before I sleep.”

Ann is really a poet masquerading as a prose-writer. Her words sing off the page as she carries the reader through a journey from brokenness to absolute joy! Ann's search for beauty is not the result of a perfect life that's brought her breakfast in bed from the day she was born; it's a search that was bled out of a horrific wound—many wounds—some that I can't imagine, and some that I can identify with perfectly.  


Her challenge to herself was to find 1,000 gifts in the world around her. They weren't the kind of gifts that we usually thank God for, they were bubbles, and warm sunlight, and weathered wood, and the curl of a child's hair, and her little boy's injured hand, and tulips in a bucket with wooden candlesticks, and her scarred past, and a white fleece shirt, and what the scale read. Ann says, “How my eyes see, perspective, is my key to enter into His gates. I can only do so with thanksgiving. If my inner eye has God seeping up through all things, then can't I give thanks for anything? And if I can give thanks for the good things, the hard things, the absolute everything, I can enter the gates to glory. Living in His presence is fullness of joy—and seeing shows the way in.” This book is where Ann shows us the key to entering those gates to glory.



I know that this is a powerful book, even though I have yet to finish reading it myself. I joined Ann on her quest to find 1,000 gifts in a year (you can read some of the gifts I've tallied on my personal blog), and it's changing the way I see the world.

So, about that giveaway. If you want to be part of this amazing experience as well, then we want to send you a free copy of One Thousand Gifts! Here are the rules:

1. This contest has 1 winner, who will be chosen at random.
2. The contest will end at 11:59 PM (CST), on Saturday March 3, 2012. 
3. Due to shipping costs, all entrants must live within the contiguous (48) states of America. 
4. For every entry you must post 1 comment in the comment section of this post. For example, if you followed the blog and registered for the discussion forum then you would post 2 separate comments.
5. Be sure to leave contact information in the form of an email address or blog URL so that we can tell you if you won!
6. You can have up to 6 different entries (If you've already done some of these things, just mention it in your comments):

• Follow the blog via Google Friend Connect 
• Join the Facebook group
• Register for and post something in the discussion forum
• Post about this giveaway on your own blog
• Tweet about it
• Share this post on Facebook

Spread the word! We want to see many more homeschool girls joining this community, getting active in the discussions, sharing their hopes, dreams, reviews, fears, recipes, joys, struggles, prayers and everything in-between.


P.S. Since writing this post we bloggirls have come across some controversy regarding One Thousand Gifts. Please check out this blog post for more information.

Grace for the Good Girl

I was born a Good Girl. I was raised in a Christian household, the oldest child, academically inclined, a dedicated Christian, never went through that "teenage rebellion" stage, worked with the family, getting a college education--that's me. I'm always striving for perfection, to do everything "right". What does "right" mean, exactly? It means the absolute best I can do, and more than that. All my life I've gone through a punishing cycle of longing to be good enough and then failing my own wildly outrageous expectations. If my essay is given a grade of 97% I tend to think, what about the other 3%? If I pray for 5 minutes I tend to think, shouldn't I pray for 10? My life is dominated by ratios and statistics and scores and rates. I'm not really negative, just driven. And I always thought that was a good thing.

Are you like a Good Girl?

Emily P. Freeman, author of Grace for the Good Girl, opened my eyes to a world where I don't have to strive for Jesus' approval, or my family's and friends' approval, or my own approval. I am a Good Girl because of Christ's redeeming blood, not because I earn high grades, or pray a lot, or witness to thousands, or always wear a smile. I am a daughter of the King because of who He is, not because of who I am.

It's such a simple concept--one that I've heard in a variety of contexts for years--but Emily brings it all home with stories and examples from her own life and the lives of other women that make me cry tears of identification and beautiful relief. I'm not alone! I'm not the only girl who's longed to be good enough and can never, never, never be good enough. I'm only halfway through Grace for the Good Girl right now, but I'm consuming every page with avid eagerness, waiting to discover more secrets about myself that I never guessed (and there are many), learning from the mistakes and heartaches of women who have walked the path I'm walking to its bitter, galling end.

It's a book that might very well change my life.

The life of a Good Girl is all about her Mask: the thing that hides all of her insecurities and guilt and substitutes a lovely facade which everyone looks at and says, "Wow, what a beautiful girl!" We love our Masks because they protect us, but they scare us because we know what will happen if they drop away--everyone will see us for what we truly are. 

There are many different flavors of Good Girl. Maybe you don't strive for academic perfection, but your Mask is a good reputation that you would do anything to protect. Are you always hiding behind the "I'm fine" response, constantly wearing a smile and hoping that no one realizes that you're being ripped apart inside? Perhaps you're like the biblical Martha, hiding behind your acts of service, working and working and working for acceptance. Perhaps you're a rule follower who hides behind spiritual disciplines, doing all the right things in the right order and coming up empty from the well of eternal life. Do you hide behind a Mask of strength and responsibility? Perhaps you would do anything to please the people you love--even deny yourself an opinion and personality of your own--or you might identify with the older brother in the story of the prodigal son (that's me!) and feel sharp, grating anger when you don't get rewarded for your hard work and the undeserving get their socks blessed off.

These are just a few symptoms of "Good Girl-ness". They will eventually lead you and me to a place of self-sufficient hardness, pride, ingratitude, and crushing inadequacy. Can it be cured? Emily is teaching me how to receive, remain, respond, and remember the amazing grace of Christ. He does have grace--even for Good Girls. 

I can't wait to finish this book, and I hope that if you see any resemblance to yourself in the descriptions above that you will snap it up as soon as possible (it's $11.19 on Amazon). Watch the video below and hear from other women who have realized the pitfalls of their Good Girl-ness...and lived to tell about it.

For a more complete review, see parchmentgirl.com

My name is Abigail Rogers, and I'm a good girl.

Just Jane: {a book review}

{via}

Recently, I borrowed a book from my friend's dear library

called Just Jane: A Novel of Jane Austen's Life by the talented Nancy Moser. 

{To learn more about the author's books visit her website, here!}

::Summary::

Jane Austen lives simply in the English countryside with her beloved family, entertaining them with her stories and seeking romance.  She never ventures far from her own corner of the world and struggles to find her place in it.  Growing up in a clergyman's home gives Jane opportunities to observe human nature at its best--and worst.

Vivid and delightful characters pour from her pen--Elizabeth Bennet, Fitzwilliam Darcy, Emma Woodhouse, Fanny Price, John Willoughby...Jane dreams of publishing her stories and sharing them with the world, but she's just Jane from Steventon, isn't she?  Will anyone ever read her novels?

{click here to read an excerpt from the first chapter.}

::My thoughts::

With rich characters and an intriguing story you will immediately be drawn into the world of Jane and the everyday happenings of her life {what a pleasure this is!}.  The thing that inspired me most about Jane was her firm trust in the Lord throughout her trials--as well as her love for writing!  She never gave up hope that her works would become published someday. 

My rating of this book = 5 out of 5 stars.

::Favorite quotes from Just Jane::

Cassandra {Jane's devoted sister} to Jane:  "Instincts are given to us by God to guide us. It takes a strong woman to listen to those instincts and ignore what the world says to do."

Jane:  "I opened the trunk and gazed upon the work of my life; pages and pages of words carefully chosen, drawing images of people who were as real to me as flesh and blood, who lived lives that had been put on hold while I muddled through my own struggles and disappointments."

Jane: "I do not wish to write a story where all is completely as it should be.  At least not without a good bit of trials, travails, and travels along the way."

  

Jane:  "All things happen for a reason--but that does not mean all things succeed as we hope."

Jane:  "Now that my writing has its own solid place within the moments of my life, I am free to enjoy all the moments more fully." 

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

I am always intrigued by anything having to do with Jane Austen, so this book has been splendid to read!  Have you read Just Jane? 

{If not, please add it to your wishlist--I hope you will fall in love with it as much as I did.  *winks*} 

If so, what were your thoughts about it?   

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

Also, for those of you who are Jane Austen fans,

I encourage you to join these fun blog events here & here!

Blessings,

Les Miserables

I went back and forth for quite awhile on what to write for my review. So finally, staring up at my bookshelf (it's a very pretty bookshelf, if I can just brag on my daddy and my book-collecting ability for a moment), I decided I'd just write about a recent book I read and really loved, Les Miserables.

Les Mis is one of those huge books that people are afraid of--and for good reason, I have to admit. The copy I read was over 1200 pages long, full of weighty discourses on religion, philosophy, politics, and the nature of man. It's not an easy, fluffy sort of read that you just curl up with and heartily enjoy in an few weeks. It took me over a month to read, and that's saying something since usually I can blow through books in a matter of days, even relatively long books (as a point of comparison, I read Brisingr in a little under a week and book 7 of the Harry Potter series in three days). Hence, Les Mis was a book I went into with some trepidation, just because it really is so huge and has a reputation for being rather dry.

I did find parts of it dull. Hugo's retelling of the Battle of Waterloo is notoriously, ramblingly boring by times, despite the occasionally important details contained within it. Some of his inward discourses on religion and the reasons thereof also got to be a bit too much, but were enjoyable nonetheless.

And so, despite the many cons that could be lodged against this book, I heartily enjoyed it. The characters were beautifully engaging, even Cosette, who occasionally felt too much like a Mary Sue to my writer's mind. Fantine's story is so beautifully sad, so utterly moving on such a primal way--and I have to confess something. I wish she had lived, because she and Jean Valjean would have gotten married and been very happy. Perhaps that's not what would have happened, you say. But you are wrong, and I am right, and don't you disturb my "shipper's" heart.

Marius is easily one of my favorite male characters of all time. He ranks just slightly lower than Mr. Bingley, actually, who's a close second to Mr. Knightley, who just scrapes below Aragorn who's about five slots below Mr. Darcy, who's pretty much perfection. Don't judge me. I have lots of favorites. Anyway, even though Marius occasionally seems like a rather weak sort of fellow (for instance--what sort of man determines to kill himself because his girl is moving away?), he's still adorably sweet and his general state of distraction is so hilarious to read.

And then there's Jean Valjean himself, the central thread that binds Les Mis together into one cohesive whole. At times, I found him frightening. I found some of his actions detestable. I thought him the worst sort. But then, as the reader was taken into his mind and shown the torture and yet beautiful simplicity of his soul, you came to realize that he's really one of the most amazing people to ever walk the planet. His intentions pure, albeit twisted occasionally, he always ends up doing the right thing, even when it is difficult and you wonder why he did it. In the end, I believe he is possibly one of the most human (complicated, contradictory, yet beautiful) characters I've ever gotten to know.

These characters are put into a world of such beautiful complexity. I've read French literature, or literature set in France, before--The Three Musketeers, The Scarlet Pimpernel, things like that--but never one like Les Mis. Les Mis isn't afraid to deal with the most dark, horrible bits of humanity. Prostitution, murder, revenge, greed, all of these have a place within the story. Hugo takes a long, hard look at it what is darkest and most reprehensible in human nature. And then into that he weaves redemption: love, honor, order, honesty.

And so he wove one of the most amazing stories ever.

Guilty Prayers

Every night, before I lay my head on my pillow, I say the Lord's Prayer. I'm usually tired from a night spent cleaning offices with my family; it's probably 11:30 PM or 1:00 AM, and even if I was wide awake a few minutes ago, my eyes will start to droop as soon as I get underneath those warm covers and start "My Father who is in Heaven...." Many, many nights, I realize with a pang that this is the first time that I've talked to the Lord all day long. That morning I woke up late, read a little, jumped on the treadmill, and kickstarted a day of running and doing and talking and running and working, without taking even a few moments to speak with the one who is responsible for every breath I take. And do I feel like plunging into a lengthy bout of intersession at this time of night? No, I want to turn off the lamp and wrap myself in homemade quilts, rolling around until I'm comfortable and drifting off to sleep.

Oh, the guilt. It's all-too-familiar. Sometimes I feel it after sitting down to pray for a relatively long period of time; when I'm finished I usually think, "Isn't there someone else I can pray for? Shouldn't I do this for a few more minutes?" That is why I paid attention to this passage when I ran across it this morning. It's from Emily Freeman's book Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life (which I am absolutely loving, by the way), and it shone a light on the way prayer might look under the old Law, and how it looks under Jesus' grace.

...there is a difference between the discipline of sitting down with God and the pleasure of knowing his voice. It is one thing to make yourself do something. It is entirely another to find pleasure in relationship. 'The former regulation is set aside because it was weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced, by which we draw near to God' (Heb. 7:18-19 NIV). 

Let's stop for a moment and concentrate on what we just read, "the pleasure of knowing his voice," and "pleasure in relationship." When was the last time I felt real pleasure in my relationship with God? When was the last time you did? Every now and then I feel satisfied after praying, but that is probably a) because I'm proud of myself for actually dedicating time to prayer, and/or b) it's still accompanied by that sense of guilt and an I-should-do-this-more-often feeling that niggles at the back of my head like a greasy worm. But this kind of thinking is "weak and useless," a theology of burdens which no one can bear. How much prayer is "enough", anyway? If I spent 24 hours on my knees, maybe someone could find fault with me for not fasting as well! The Bible does not give us a detailed road-map for prayer, complete with on-ramps and rest stops.

Emily goes on to say this:

To wear the mask of the spiritual disciplines is to turn back to the old way. I could pray for five minutes or for two days and I would still be as righteous as I would be had I not prayed at all. But the amazing reality is that now I know I am righteous in Christ, there is new motivation to spend time in intimate communion. You and I can now go to him in freedom and joy, not to gain favor but because we already have it. 

"Intimate communion" in "freedom and joy," what a blissful thought! This is the kind of prayer like that I would like to have. What about you? Do you ever feel guilty because you "miss" your prayer time? Are you trying to earn your own righteousness by adhering to a law of your own making that stipulates how much quality time you should spend with God, or are you cultivating a vibrant relationship with him by speaking little things to him throughout the day, punctuated with longer sessions of intercession and digging deep into his Word? Structure and schedules are great things, and following Moriah's tip to set aside 10 minutes a day is a wonderful idea, but I'm learning that guilt is not bringing me any closer to my Father. I need to set aside what is "weak and useless" and pursue a relationship with the one who longs for my words and my listening ear. 

The Bottom of the Bed, a photo by Alyssa L. Miller on Flickr.