Surrendering to Motherhood

This book was recommended to me by a friend and I appreciate her for that. This is the story of a woman who is a very successful journalist and the mother of four boys. Her career and independence is very important to her and stays her focus even after all of her children are born. I definitely have some work to do to surrender like she does and that is why I appreciate this book. I also gained a better outlook on my life as a Mother. It was very interesting to read her journey to a life just like her mother's. When this realization hits her she writes, "There are no shackels in this house, this is no jail. These kids are your ticket to freedom like nothing you have ever tasted, the kind that is not hinged on TV appearances or writing for Life magazine or being a size 6 again. It's the liberation that comes from the sheer act of living itself. When you stop to be where you are, then your life can really begin."

My favorite part is this "I've had some great baby-sitters over the years, but of this I am certain: You and I can have the best caregiver on earth, but there is no one who can physically touch our children like we are able to. That sacred chemistry consoles us, too, it is the optimal soul soother, and it's ours anytime we want. So you might as yourself the next time you're rushing out of the house: Where are you going? Or are you there already?" From this I have started paying attention to how I feel when I touch one of my girls. Now I can't stop touching them. Everytime I am near them I reach for them.

She talks about "being where you are when you are there". This my new motto.

Cry, the Beloved Country continued

I finished this book and was so uplifted by it. There is a part where two black men are speaking about the problems of South Africa. A young reverend tells the older reverend his feelings about power. "...there is only one thing that has power completely, and that is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power." When I read this I thought of my children. They are not looking for power they are truly just loving and that keeps under their complete control. They have more power over me than almost anything in this world.

He continues, "I see only one hope for our country, and that is when white men and black men, desiring neither power nor money, but desiring only the good of their country, come together to work for it.... I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating." The spirit wispered to me that I have been prideful and desiring power in my marriage and that it was going to start causing problems. At first I thought this was crazy, our marriage was really good and we were happy. Over the next few days I started to notice that we were having small blow ups and 90% of the problem was me. I remeber clearly standing in the kitchen with a spoon stiring our dinner when this came to me. My anger at the thing we were arguing about disappeared when I thought that I need to stop this and start loving before I find that Matthew has turned to hating.

I highly reccomned this book!!!!

Cry, the Beloved Country

"Cry, the beloved country, for the unborn child that is the inheritor of our fear. Let him not love the earth too deeply. Let him not laugh too gladly when the water runs through his fingers, nor stand too silent when the setting sun makes red the veld with fire. Let him not be too moved when the birds of his land are singing, nor give too much of his heart to a mountain or a valley. For fear will rob him of all if he gives too much"

This is the passage where the book gets it's name from. This is how I lived my life for too long!! I let fear rob me of so many things because it has stopped me from calling someone or going to visit someone I feel I should. I have missed opportunities to grow by not taking a challenge. I have usually taken the easy road, this is the reason I have not lost the weight I gained from having Lola and Abby. I read this last night and I couldn't sleep because I was going over in my mind all of the times when I didn't love enough, wasn't happy enough, wasn't moved enough, or didn't give enough of my heart. Then I realized that this was the same thing. I wasn't feeling better I was actually making myself feel worse (that Satan is a tricky little devil). I stopped, got on my knees and thanked God for the opportunities he has given me and repented of the times I didn't take them and promised to always take them when they come up again. I feel so much better already!!!!

Les Miserables

My book club is reading Les Mis over the summer. I decided to start it now in order to have time to read the unabridged version (we'll see how this goes). I found a video on Youtube about Les Mis that I thought people would enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0Dn0_gsbA8

by the way, what can't you find on youtube?

A Tale of Two Cities

I finished this book in time for my book club that meets on the last tuesday of each month. I had 200 pages left 4 days before the meeting. I took off my whiny pants and just read it. I am so glad that I did. This was my fourth time reading this and every time I read it I end up in tears. This is a story set during the French Revolution. I had heard it described as bloody, but until I read Dickens' descriptions of some of the events that happened I had no idea what that meant. The streets literally flowed with the blood of those taken by Madame Guillotine. He used foreshadowing very effectively. In the begining of the book a barrel of wine breaks and spills all over the street. The people stop what they are doing and rush out to drink what they can. They sip pools of it. Mop it up with their clothes and ring it into thier and their babies' mouths. Also the man who was delivering the wine didn't care, it wasn't his problem, those who own the wine needed to worry about it not him. When it was over they and their clothes were stained red. During the bloodiest parts of the revolution the people were literally stained with blood, they couldn't wash it off their hands, thier clothes or anything else they had. The women would sit at the foot of the Guillotine, as the people were beheaded blood would spatter them, they would even take souveniors of their "favorite" aristocrat i.e. locks of thier hair or pieces of their clothing. Those not in France didn't feel like it was any of their business and stayed out of it. One of the biggest ironies of this is that part of the blame for the revolution was King Louis' financial help of the American Colonists during their revolution which led to high taxes, but the Fench peasants took their courage and ideas from those American Colonists.



This is a sad display of what we humans are capable of if pushed too far.
Here is a picture of a recreated guillotine. Most people would lie down with thier head through the hole and a basket below them. The revolutionaries invented this machine to make the beheadings more efficient and faster. If I had a choice of the guillotine and someone chopping my head off I would choose the guillotine. Until I read this book and the accounts of the beheadings before and after this was invented I would have never looked at the guillotine as the merciful method of execution and can now even see it as a blessing.

New Blog

I am going to start writing here about all that I read. I read all the time. Usually about three or four books at a time. I need somewhere to write about it. Writing always helps me understand what I read. I also attend at least three discussion meetings each month where we discuss something we have read together. I also need a place to archive what I learn there. Thank you Bugs and Stacee for making me excited about blogging again.