Yarn Along

~ Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading (though not at the same time!), and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs. I love seeing what other people are knitting and reading as well. So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading? Take a photo and share it either on your blog or on Flickr. Leave a link below to share your photo with the rest of us! ~ Ginny Sheller for the Yarn Along.

I have paused A Girl of the Limberlost temporarily as I’m reading Own Your Life by Sally Clarkson, in anticipation of Sally’s upcoming conference.

I’m having to read this book slowly.  I’m going so slowly because it feels a bit foreign to me.  Oh, how do I put this?  I go to a Lutheran Brethren church.  The preaching is good, and very grace-based messages.  The emphasis is strongly that God has given us this gift of salvation (it’s not something we work for) and any works we do are just in response of this gift.

This book is about that response to the gift.  I think it’s a big question that Knut and I have been discussing for the last few years: What part do we play in our sanctification (a fancy word for God growing us in our Christian walk)?

So, I guess reading this book has been uncomfortably refreshing.  It’s challenging.  It makes you think, and drives me back to the Word.  I’m not sure I’ve ever described a book that way before.  I’m just so challenged by it, and I so often question my own motives so often in doing works, that I haven’t considered the flip side in several years, that God has given me stewardship over this life, and that’s not to be overlooked.  God’s purposes for our lives are serious business.

This book isn’t about making your life what you want it to be.  It’s not about directing your life.  It’s about realizing what God has called you to do, and doing it…owning it.  It’s about taking the portion, or cup that God has given you (and you alone), and drinking it, because he gave it to you for his kingdom purposes.  This life is a gift…a gift with a purpose.  Our lives are not to be buried in the ground, as in the parable of the talents.  It is not ours to fritter away.  It’s yours, but will you use it for the purposes it was intended?  So then…what will you do with it?

I’ve found that in many “Christian Living” books, the first 3 chapters are the only ones that need to be read, and after that you get the gist.  The rest of the book is just supporting what the initial chapters said.

That’s not so with this book.  I find that the chapters I just finished, (Part 3) to be my favorite.  Actually no.  The chapter I read in Part 4, about what it means to exercise your faith and it was like I was underlining literally every sentence in the chapter, to the point that I stopped underlining and just put brackets around paragraphs I liked, but then that got redundant too, so I just started staring pages that were good.  They’re all stared in that chapter.  The further I’m getting in this book the deeper it gets, and that has me coming back for more.  It’s brought about lots of discussions in this house.

As for knitting, I’m back at my color work project, as the simmering didn’t take long with this one for me to figure out where I wanted to proceed from this point in the design.  I’m trying to get this piece to a good place so it will be easy to bring on the plane for my trip soon.

Linking up with Ginny’s Yarn Along.