Reading

I added a few titles to the list of books in my side bar that I've "read" this year.

To be fair, at the moment, I'm counting it as having been "read" if I make it 100% of the way through either a book book, or an audio book.

My friend LP/CA recommended a pair of audiobooks on her blog a while back. "Funny in Farsi" and "Laughing Without An Accent" were both well worth the time I spent on a couple weeks worth of commutes and evenings playing a computer game that I spent listening to them. They were funny and poignant stories of adapting to life in America and the world, and really did make me laugh aloud quite a number of times.

Reading is something I've always loved, but have struggled to do for much of the last six months as I've struggled with some other things in my life. I started reading at four years old, and I honestly can't remember a time when I haven't been lost in one book or another until these last several months.

But, a few weeks back, the desire to read slowly started returning, and my attention span and eagerness to travel through a book has slowly increased.

Tonight, I finished a book for the first time in several months. "Chasing the Dragon" by Jackie Pullinger. I've been encountering an ongoing theme lately of the importance of giving testimony to the things Jesus has done. The importance of the testimony in both creating faith for more works of God, and in simply remembering the wonderful things God has already accomplished.

I've been in a space where I needed to be reminded of some of those testimonies, in my own life, and in the broader world, and "Chasing the Dragon", though simply written, quite nicely accomplished this. With tale after tale of the miracles she encountered working with the heroin addicts of the walled city in Hong Kong, Pullinger has managed to stir my heart to again begin believing for the bigger things offered in the kingdom of God. And for that, I'm immensely grateful.