Saving the Bookworm: Long Live Reading

I wasn’t a reader my entire life, honestly, I hated it growing up. I never was charmed by the characters or enticed by a series until I reached middle school. I started reading a fictional series about the Rapture and the End Times. Growing up in church I knew about both, but this series hooked me. The Left Behind series changed my entire outlook on reading. It took twelve books through a seven-year tribulation and beyond, changing my life for the better. That is what the written word is meant to do. There is so much power in a book. I think in today’s fast-paced world we take reading for granted. Our attention span is getting shorter with thirty-second reels and the ability to skip commercials.

Sitting down with a book and reading it all the way through takes commitment. It can be challenging to commit to reading a book when we have so many other things that grab our attention. It is so much easier to turn on the tv or mindlessly flip through our phones disengaging and feeling nothing. I believe that this is one of the things that is missing in this generation–the loss of the bookworm.

Books make us feel something; they make us engage our minds and learn, they teach us to feel and make us vulnerable, making us look deep inside of us. Books make us sit and be still, they are physical (well personally I would rather have a physical than digital book) and sometimes heavy; we have forgotten what that weight feels like. I know I certainly wasn’t much of a bookworm when my son was first born, life got in the way and exhaustion took over, leaving very little left in me to consume much else.

The Love of Reading

The love of reading has not left me. I still love reading books, I love reading the Word of God, I just must make time for it and set a plan in place to actually accomplish it. This year in my quest of loving literature, I have committed to take a picture of every book I read this year. I post it on my Instagram stories and save it as #booksof2023, so that at the end of the year I can go back through that little picture journal and see how many books I actually managed to get through. This isn’t a competition with anyone or to show off my reading abilities, it is a way of holding myself accountable to be intentional in reading. It is such a joy to read and write, I want to fill my life with it so much that I pass the same joy down to my son.

Intention

I hope this year we are intentional in our time, especially when it comes to reading. We have so many opportunities to fill our minds with so many things, I hope we choose to take some time to read words that are printed and heavy with ink. To sink down in a chair with a good cup of something warm and delight once again in the written word. I hope it touches something deep down inside of us, gives us the space to cry and laugh and to know we aren’t alone. I have met books that have become like dear friends, and I am so thankful for the gift of reading. I hope each of our readers of AmericanMom find a friend in what we write, to know we are standing with you and for you, the written word has power and I hope to use it with grace.

Below are a few titles (just a few of many) that I love dearly and the titles I have finished so far this year. I hope you can find something in them, when I share books with people I feel as if I am sharing a part of myself, so here’s to you dear friend, read on.