In the meantime

Yes, you read that right: Tom Sawyer has had a definite impact on my life.  Let me explain. Before I went to college, I read alot. It was primarily fiction, and romance fiction at that. Nonetheless, I was reading. However, when I got to college and had to read hundreds and hundreds of pages for homework, by the time I graduated, I had lost the joy of reading simply for the sake of reading.  Years passed, and I can probably count on my fingers how many books I read between 2012 and 2018. Any reading I did during those years was only the result of much diligence and intentionality, for even romance fiction, with all of its allure, had lost its appeal. I simply could not get back into reading.  Until I met Tom Sawyer through the masterful pen of Mark Twain. Last summer, my husband picked up The Adventures of  Tom Sawyer and would read it to himself each night before going to sleep; he would then frequently burst out laughing at Tom's ridiculou...

I'll never forget the moment I realized that doctors are frail human beings, just like the rest of us: I was very young, perhaps four or five, and the missionary nurse who helped bring me into the world had to return to the United States for cancer treatments.  I remember asking my mom: "But Mom, why is she sick? Isn't she a doctor? Can't she heal herself?"  This was one of the first times I remember being confronted with living in a broken world--a world where there are lots of good things, but there is also a lot of pain and sickness, even for good people who love God.  Life shouldn't be this way, but it is.  I was recently reminded of this particular childhood memory when I read When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi,   for it brings to the table the reality of a doctor-turned-patient, and how even the life of a skilled doctor is in the hands of a sovereign God.    When Breath Becomes Air  is the memoir of a 36-year-ol...

  On Reading Well , by Karen Swallow Prior (Brazos Press, 2018) A book about books. That is what On Reading Well is all about. However, Karen Swallow Prior does not limit herself to simply producing a bibliography of good books within her book. Instead, she gives her readers an exceptional piece of writing that illustrates in itself how reading has the power to shape our very lives. Indeed, after finishing the last page of the book, I believe Prior does with her book exactly what she argues all great books should do: "Great books offer perspectives more than lessons." (page 28)  On Reading Well is masterfully written. Prior, being an award-winning Professor of English at Liberty University, is well-qualified to write a book about how to read books; she crafts her words, sentences, and paragraphs with skill and expertise, resulting in her own book becoming an excellent example of great writing!  Prior chooses twelve separate virtues to form the skeleton of h...