#NationalBookLoversDay – Elizabeth V. Beatty

I love National Book Lovers Day! So to celebrate, here are a few of my recent reads. Let me know yours so that I can add them to my list!

When God Doesn’t Fix It: Lessons You Never Wanted to Learn, Truths You Can’t Live Without — by Laura Story

If you’ve heard the song “Blessings” by Laura Story, you may like this book. Laura tells the story behind the song — one where God took the life she always wanted and turned it upside down. It’s about letting God write the story and trusting that His way is better.

Quotables:

“Our desire is for God to fix broken things. But God’s desire for us is to fix our relationship with him.”
“Our hope comes in Jesus, even when he doesn’t do what we want him to do. Even when he doesn’t fix what’s broken in our life.”
“The answer to our whys may be obvious now, or they may never be answered in our lifetime. But even if we knew why, it’s likely we wouldn’t be satisfied with the answers anyway.”

If You Only Knew: My Unlikely, Unavoidable Story of Becoming Free — by Jamie Ivey

This is the book written by a podcaster I listen to. It’s her story of overcoming the fear of people knowing the messy parts of her past. Jesus showed her, though, that He can make beauty from ashes, and her life hasn’t been the same since. Her vulnerability and willingness to go first in telling her story is beautiful to me, and I thoroughly loved this book.

Quotables:

“When you walk around feeling as though you need to forgive yourself, what you’re saying to God is that His sacrifice wasn’t enough. His only Son dying on a cross for your sins wasn’t enough. More is needed for you to feel forgiven. So, by your continual yearning to forgive yourself, you are actually creating a life where Jesus’ blood and sacrifice aren’t enough, leaving yourself essentially a works-based religion to follow, where if you could just do a few more ‘good things,’ you could possibly begin to forgive yourself.”
“When we hide the mess we’ve been through, we also hide the redemption that God has lavishly poured on us. We can’t proclaim His grace until we expose our mess.”
“But I guarantee, you will let people down less often when they expect you to make mistakes than when you’re maintaining the illusion of being practically flawless. You’ll have a much easier time giving people grace, and you’ll learn that nothing in life is better than receiving grace.”

It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way: Finding Unexpected Strength When Disappointments Leave You Shattered — by Lysa TerKeurst

Lysa wrote this book during a stormy season: infidelity, colon surgery, breast cancer. She faced one disappointment after another, but in the middle of it, she learned so much about the faithfulness of a God who loves her so much and who never left her side. She didn’t know the outcomes of any of the situations when she wrote this book, and her thoughts and emotions toward the situations she was facing are raw and real. It’s a great read.

Quotables:

“When my brain begs me to doubt God, as it most certainly does, I find relief for my unbelief by laying down my human assessments and assumptions; I turn from the Tree of Knowledge and fix my gaze on the Tree of Life.”
“Humans are very attached to outcomes. We say we trust God but behind the scenes we work our fingers to the bone and our emotions into a tangled fray trying to control our outcomes. We praise God when our normal looks like what we thought it would. We question God when it doesn’t. And walk away from Him when we have a sinking suspicion that God is the one who set fire to the hope that was holding us together.”
“To trust God is to trust His timing. To trust God is to trust His way. God loves me too much to answer my prayers at any other time than the right time and in any other way than the right way. In the quietness of all that doesn’t feel right, this truth does.”

Gay Girl, Good God: The Story of Who I Was, and Who God Has Always Been — by Jackie Hill Perry

This is Jackie’s story of living a gay lifestyle and then how she met God and found wholeness. It’s a beautiful story and helps me understand a different side of brokenness and how God redeems and restores.

Quotables

“I don’t believe it is wise or truthful to the power of the gospel to identify oneself by the sins of one’s past or the temptations of one’s present but rather to only be defined by the Christ who’s overcome both for those He calls His own.”
“Every single thing He has ever or will ever say is true. The simplicity of faith is this: taking God’s Word for it. And I might not have felt like it, but I had no choice but to believe Him.”
“Christ did not die to redeem us in part. Neither did He rise so that we might have life in portions. But with us having a body made for Him, as well as the mind, will, personality, and emotions that it contains, we must understand that God is after us becoming victorious over any and all sin that would hinder the whole person from serving God fully and freely.”

And that’s my list! Share with me some of yours!