Hedges

i used to have this thing from amazon that let me show you a picture of a book that i was recommending and then you could order it right from my post. but i took it oof and now i can't remember how to put it back... oh well...

today i want to talk about a great book called HEDGES. it's not going to win a pullitzer prize for riveting writing any time soon, mostly because the word 'hedges' appears in every other sentence. kind of annoying. but they are trying to make a point, and the point is: every marriage needs hedges.

i am writing this post cause i love marriages. each one is so special and unique. but the thing that is the same for all marriages is that they are sacred and meant to last FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i am so thankful that God has surrounded me with a plethora of married couples. most of them are great. a good number of them have struggled and come out on the other side stronger and better. and a sad number of them have just straight up dissolved into nothingness. although marriages don't just disappear, do they? when marriages end, there is always baggage. so much frickin baggage. it makes me sad thinking about the marriages i know that are no longer, and all the baggage the no-longer-weds carry around.

back to this book though- it is by Jerry B Jenkins, one of the 'Left Behind' writers. again, do not read this book thinking it's going to be a literary treasure that will rival the likes of Pride and Prejudice. if you want a good read, then read Pride and Prejudice. but if you want to protect your marriage- read this book. it just gives you practical advice on how to keep your marriage safe. the advice might seem a little 'too practical'- like not having private jokes with people of the opposite sex, and not flirting with your coworkers, etc. but i would say that most affairs start off as 'innocent friendships', where one person is unhappy in their marriage, or just unhappy with one aspect of their spouse, but one thing leads to another, and BLAMO! disasterville.

"many a man CLAIMS to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find?"
prov 20:6

and that's not just a dig at men. women suck too. a marriage is composed of two people who made a commitment on their wedding day, and the only way that commitment will stick is if both parties work, daily, to remain faithful with their eyes, their bodies and their hearts.

the rhyme bible

time for another book review! cause it's been awhile. this is a serious favorite in our household. i think i bought this for my girlfriend who was about to have a baby a million years ago when we were both teaching in korea together. does that sound accurate to you janice? i got this for stephen, right? if not... i meant to!...

anyway, when i had lily, janice, my beautiful, thoughtful friend, sent this to me from canada. thanks janice, we read this all the time!

this is the Bible in rhyme and pictures. it's by L.J Sattgast and illustrated by Toni Goffe. it's not the whole bible (otherwise this thing would be a million piages instead of 441). but it's got the important stories like creation, jonah, the birth and death of Christ, the kid who shared his lunch so that Jesus could feed the 5000, and other gems. i have another Bible for kids and they do not talk about the death of Christ at all! what would i read for easter if that were my only kids' Bible? i have to admit that i am disappointed that Sattgast didn't make up any rhymes for any verses or stories from Leviticus or Numbers. it's not hard to find a rhyme for Shupham and the Shuphamite clan. the next line has it for you: "Hupham and the Huphamite clan." oh well, you can't have it all i guess. or maybe i will write a rhyme and picture book of Leviticus and Numbers... hmm... new summer (read: lifelong)  project?...

the pictures in this Bible are just as good as the rhymes. i thought they were by Quentin Blake (the guy who illustrated all those roald dahl books. if you don't know who that is, then i just can't help you.), but apparently Toni Goffe is the genius behind the pencil on this one.

anyway, i'm certain you and your family will love this book as much as me and mine. happy reading!

Not A Stick

i received this book as a gift from one of my wonderful friends, donna, in toronto. she is a great giver of great books, and i really appreciate that about her. thanks for this particular treasure my friend!

this is one of our favorite books right now. it is amazing for any age. there are about 5 words per page, so it's not a long read. but the pictures are INCREDIBLE. very minimalist. very smart. i love it.

my kids really enjoy this book too. mostly cause it's easy to memorize so they like to 'follow along' as i read. but because it's so short, we have to read it twice. sometimes three times.

there is another book called 'not a box'. i can only imagine it is more or less the exact same 'story line', but i am still excited to get my hands on it! i was just at the library today and they did not have it there, so the search continues. if i don't find it soon, i will probably end up buying it.

if you get a chance to read 'not a stick', i hope you enjoy it as much as i do!

If Animals Kissed Good Night

it's been awhile since i have written anything about books. so i thought i would get back on that. especially since i have run into some great books lately, and a few not great ones. you will hear about those too. and the only reason i am able to read so many books- is cause they are books we read going to bed.

my kids do not like reading in general. in the middle of the day, it's usually not going to happen if i try to make it. sometimes i will find them sitting on the living room floor looking at a book. pointing out stuff. so awesome. but if i comment on it, or sit with them, the moment is gone. they obviously would rather be running around naked, making a mess, playing hide and seek, or all the above. but before bed and nap time, because it's something that is keeping them awake for longer- they are pretty excited about story time.

i actually got this precious gem of a book from the library. i might end up buying it cause i love it so much. it's just the sweetest book about how parent animals say good night to their baby animals. a good, healthy mix of daddy animals AND mommy animals with their babies.

it might be a touch long for real squirmy one year olds, cause there are quite a few words on some of the pages. and there are also qiote a few pages. but the rhymes roll off of your tongue, and the pictures really keep the kids interested.

the pictures are probably the best thing about it. they are soft and sweet, the animals are chubby and cute and content, and it just makes you want to kiss and kiss and kiss your sweet little child and say good night.

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

i finished my first book of the new year! sure i started it at the end of november, but i finished it in january!

my girlfriend kendra recommended this book on her blog, so i had to read it. it's by donald miller, a christian guy. he is a lot like francis chan- discontent with america's view of Christianity and the church. but that's not what this book is about. this book is about stories. his story. the stories people he knows are living. the stories he knows God wants us to be living.

this book is written because one of his other books is being turned into a movie. but you can't just turn a book into a movie. lots of changes need to be made so that there's action. something to propel the story forward. even though donald miller was a successful author before this book, in the midst of it he goes to a seminar to learn about story. what is a story? how do you tell one? how do you live one?

basically a story is a character who wants something and has to overcome something to get it. very simply put. and that's what life is about. or it should be. but there are lots of people, characters who don't know what they want. and their stories suck. so they might go and join someone else's story because they are overcoming an obstacle to get what they want.

miller talks about this 16 year old girl who gets caught by her parents with some pot. it's from her boyfriend. her boyfriend sucks. but he is a character overcoming obstacles to get what he wants. he is living a story, but it's a bad one, cause the thing he wants is drugs. this 16 year old girl doesn't have a story, so she joins her boyfriend's terrible story. miller tells his friend, the dad of the 16 year old, all this. and the dad realizes it's his fault. he hasn't created a story that's interesting for his daughter. so he tells his family one day that they are going to buy an orphange. crazy. but it works. his daughter, and his wife, get caught up in their new family story. they want something and overcome obstacles to get it. before this, they were just a dad, a mom, and a teenage girl. no story. no desires. just 3 people living together in the same house. the marriage was dry. the family life was the same.

chris and i are on the prowl for our family story. it's probably not going to involve buying an orphange. at least not in the foreseeable (sp?...) future. but what does God want for us watsons? i don't know. but i am looking forward to finding out what that is, so that we can start overcoming some obstacles to get it!

God wants us all to have great stories. something more than just raising our kids, making sure they do well in school, have friends, and eventually get married. when we get to heaven, God is not going to care whether my kids went to harvard, (cause i am really counting on Him not caring that i didn't go to harvard.) He is not going to care whether or not my shoes matched my outfit every day. He is not even going to care what age lily and topher got potty trained. God cares a bit about the 'what'- seeking Him, not drugs; wanting more for others, not ourselves. but He really cares about the 'how'. how did we live our lives, how did we love His people.

this is a really great book with lots of different stories that challenged me, and in turn my family. i still don't know the big 'what' of our story, but i know the 'who', and that's chris, lils, toto and i. and that already makes this story pretty dang special for me.

Crazy Love

I finished my second book since living in the apartment a few weeks ago. Truth be told, it's also the second book I have finished for 2009. I am trying to fit in a third before the year is out!

So the book is called 'Crazy love' and it is by a pastor from California, and his name is Francis Chan. Francis is Chinese, he is married and has four kids. He talks about his past a little bit in the book- his mother died giving birth to him, his step-mother died when he was 9, and his father was a hard and emotionless man, who died when Francis was 12. Francis has always been, and continues to be around death in a very real way, performing funerals almost every week. We could go at any moment and find ourselves in front of the judgment seat. What will that look like? What will you say to the Creator of the Universe when you are face to face with Him? We should all have a sense of fear of that day, but also a sense of longing and excitement for that day. But that's all 'shoulds'. Do we? Do you? Do I?

A few days ago I was downloading something to my computer. It said I had 2 minutes till the download would be complete. So I thought that would be a GREAT time to have my quiet time. For two minutes. I actually sat in front of my computer, where I am right now, and I closed my eyes and clasped my hands together and started to pray. I am so grateful that God did not shoot me down with lightning at that very moment. He should have. But He didn't. And that's grace for ya. I had to stop because I felt so disgusting. Chan talks about giving a Holy God our leftovers. He who gave me life, an amazing husband who loves me, 2 healthy and wonderfully crazy kids, a handful of friends, and a gigantic family that loves me; He also happened to create the universe and sent His only Son to die for me on the cross so that I wouldn't have to spend my eternal life in hell, or my earthly life in misery, hopelessness, and meaninglessness. And I was going to give Him as much time as it took to download a program to my computer. And that's it.

The Christian life is not about minutes spent with God however, and I know this. And I am thankful for it. The point of this book is to get to Christians to wake up to the fact that Jesus truly loves us. It's a crazy love, and yet our response to that unconditional and undying love is so- normal. Pathetically so. We, myself very much included, try to appease the Lord our God with a few quick minutes of 'quiet time', read a chapter of the Bible, say a prayer or two, and then we get to check off the 'Did Christianly things today' box on our long list of things to do- which also happens to include 'check e-mail, blog, facebook, watch tv, eat, shower, sleep.'

One of the most memorable things that Chan says in this book is when he talks about the Marine Corps. And why he didn't join it. Because in the commercials for 'The few, the proud, the Marines', they were always running. And Chan hates running. "I didn't bother to ask if they would modify the rules for me so I could run less, and maybe also do fewer push-ups. Tha would have been pointless and stupid, and I knew it. Everyone knows that if you sign up for the Marines, you have to do whatever they tell you. They own you." (p.80)

God tells us to do one thing- to Love. Not to run 3 miles a day. Not to sit and spend 20 minutes with him every day. Or even to read the Bible in a year. Every year. No. God tells us to love Him, with all our heart, soul, and mind. (Matt 22:37) Him. Not money, not acceptance of others, not the internet, etc, etc. Him. Then he tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves. People! Not things! (thanks for the extra reminder in your post Cindy) He calls us to love Him, and to love each other. This translates into being a good and dependable friend, a loving mother, a responsible father, a respectable husband, a kind stranger, a generous human being.

God's love is crazy, and it takes a lot of courage and wisdom to even try to almost fathom what that means. "I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:16-19.

This is my prayer for myself, and I encourage you to pray this for yourself. I think we all know that God loves us. When will we wholeheartedly respond to that love? HOpefully sooner than later. What will our lives, and the lives of those around us, look like when we respond to that love? I guarantee it will look better than it does now.