Sisters Spring Reading Challenge - With Duet Books!

Charity and I have enjoyed discussing various reading challenges that we'd like to do in 2024. We are both looking forward to reading some of the unread books on our TBR and have the goal of stretching ourselves. 

(Charity gave me Milton's Paradise Lost for Christmas, and we are going to attempt to read it together. Are we crazy? Talk about out of my comfort zone!) 

If you are new here, every season (spring, summer, fall), my sister Charity and I come up with several reading challenges. These are just-for-fun challenges that we plan to do ourselves, and we welcome you to join us. No prizes. No sign-up forms. No pressure. Just the fun of reading together. We don't require any specific titles and keep the categories vague so you can read the books you want to read, while hopefully challenging you (and us) in our reading life.

This year we plan to have several duet reading challenges each season.

For a duet challenge, we will read two books that harmonize with each other. This doesn't mean two books in the same series or sequels, but two books that are different in some way, yet harmonize. 

I have often have the happy coincidence that two books I'm reading harmonize. Maybe one book references a book I just read or lends insight into a topic that I was reading about in another book. I say my books start "talking to each other," and my reading pleasure is enhanced.

So this year, we are going to attempt to increase our reading pleasure by purposely choosing books that harmonize. You can even turn these book duets into trios by reading three books that harmonize. 

For this spring, we have two book duets, one other book challenge, a Bible reading challenge, and a book related activity.

Sisters' Spring Reading Challenge

1. Duet Challenge: Read two books that are by the same author but in a different genre. 

Some  talented authors wrote in various forms, such as fiction and nonfiction or prose and poetry. Reading more than one type of their writing can give insight into their writing skill and process. 

Some author examples are Katrina Hoover Lee, Andrew Peterson, Mark Twain, Dorothy Sayers, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, Wendell Berry, and E. B. White, but there are many more. Pick your favorite author and see if they have written books in more than one genre. You may find that your favorite novelist also wrote essays. Or that a poet you enjoy also wrote history. 

2. Duet Challenge: Read two books connected to the same author.

This could be done in various ways. You could choose a biography of the author, a book that was influenced by the author, or a book by an author that influenced him or her.

For example: Let's take Jane Austen. You could read a classic Austen novel and a biography of Austen.

Or you could read a book that was influenced by Jane Austen such as A Jane Austen Education by William Deresiewicz. (Not from a Christian perspective.)

Or read a book by one of the authors that influenced Jane Austen, such as Frances Burney or Samuel Johnson.

Writers often write about the authors who have influenced them, so there are many directions that this challenge could go. If you read a book and the author references another book that you haven't read, find that book. 

I recently read A Chance in the World by Steve Pemberton, a true story about a boy who edured an abusive foster home. He told how books, especially Watership Down by Richard Adams, gave him the courage to hold onto hope. Now I want to read Watership Down and find out why the book was so meaningful to Pemberton. This is just one example of how one book author could connect to another book.

I can't wait to hear what you all read for this challenge.

3. Read a book that celebrates beauty.

You can take this challenge many different directions. It could be a book with a beautiful cover, a book of poetry, a book that encourages beauty in homemaking, nature, creativty, art, or words, or even a book that promotes inner beauty.

Some examples: 

A Home in Bloom by Christie Purifoy,

Adorned by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth

A Garden to Keep by Jamie Langston Turner

Adorning the Dark by Andrew Peterson

4. Take some notes every day (or most days, we aren’t legalistic here) about your Bible reading. 

This can be just sentence or two of your thoughts on the Bible passage or a verse that stood out. I know that I get much more out of my Bible reading when I read with a pen and journal, but I've fallen out of the habit. I'm excited to start again.

5. Place a book in a free library box. 

Many communities have little boxes in parks or other public places for books that you want to discard. I have a stack of books that I was going to take to the Goodwill, but instead, I'm looking forward to visiting some of the free library boxes several parks and stocking some good books.

 If your community doesn’t have one, then find another way to give away a book. Some libraries and coffee shops have free shelves.

I'm excited about these challenges, even if they are a bit stretching.

What are you looking forward to reading this spring?

Worship in the Hungry Seasons: the Limits of Productivity

I began reading time management books as a teen. I was a voracious bookworm, reading nearly every book in the house, including my mom’s books on home organization. I checked books out of the library on topics such as decluttering. Before I turned twenty, I listed Seven Habits of Highly Effective People as one of my favorite books.

Most teens weren’t reading productivity guides, but I was the oldest of nine, a bossy type-A Big Sister. Add my personality to a culture that admired efficiency and getting-it-done and, well, maybe I put too much value on productivity.

I married someone with a similar personality. Ed dreamed of more projects than could be completed in a year of Saturdays. We both had trouble saying no, which meant that we did crazy things like serve as youth leaders when we had two children under the age of two. We loved goal lists and always wanted to do more—read more books, can more vegetables, invite more guests.

I loved my life and how I was spending my time. People regularly asked me how I got it all done. And I’ll admit it—I was proud of being capable and productive.

But then Ed was diagnosed with brain cancer and told he had only a year or so to live. He was only forty and life felt too short, but by faith Ed believed that God had given him enough time. He longed for more years with his family and grieved the suffering that his death would bring, but his soul was at peace. He chose “It Is Well with My Soul” to be sung at his funeral as his testimony. As the tumor consumed his brain, Ed became childlike, not looking ahead to tomorrow, not worrying about the future, not angry with his lack of productivity. In two years, cancer stole his intellect, his speech, his motor skills, and finally his life, but it never destroyed his peace.

Peace was harder for me to find. As Ed declined, I had to pick up tasks I had never carried before. I was anxious at the thought of parenting alone and accepting help felt like failure. The time management books and productivity mindset that served me well in times of plenty had limitations in the hard times.

1. A productivity mindset lives in summer, reveling in the abundance of growth and harvest. But humans all experience seasons of winter—seasons of death and doubt, desire and drought. Winter can’t be avoided, rushed, or despised because it isn’t productive. It must be accepted as a natural season.

2. A productivity mindset can’t change the reality of human fragility. Whether forty-two or ninety-two, our earth years are fleeting compared to God’s eternity. My efforts at time management appear pitiful when compared to God’s vast expanses of time in eternity.

3. A productivity mindset may fear the future. What if I get sick, or the economy slows down, or I’m caught in traffic? My careful plans could derail. I could run out of time. Jesus pointed out the birds as a model. They follow instinct to build nests, fly south, and find food, but they don’t stress about the future.

4. A productivity mindset always wants more—it is never content. In contrast, at the end of Creation week, God rested. He wasn’t weary; God never tires. He hadn’t run out of creativity, energy, or ability as we humans do. In His boundlessness, God could have created endless plants and animals, but He said it was enough. Could I choose contentment and rest?

5. A productivity mindset focuses on me and my accomplishments. Time management only has value when it brings God glory. If a meal chart helps me be a calmer mom, it is a good thing. But if organization feeds pride and becomes an idol, it is not of God. All personalities have their tenancies toward sin, including mine.

6. A productivity mindset values those that are successful, but in God’s upside-down kingdom, the greatest in the kingdom are the least—the helpless, homeless, and handicapped, the infants, infirmed, and imprisoned. Those who have nothing to give, who rely totally on God, have a special place in God’s heart.

7. A productivity mindset desires self-sufficiency, but God prioritizes humble dependence on Him. He gave stern words to the church in Laodicea who claimed they had no need of God. My productivity could hinder my relationship with God if I didn’t realize my desperate need for Him.

8. A productivity mindset sees negative experiences as something to fix. But only in acceptance do we find joy and the ability to rest in God. Cancer brought an end to Ed’s productive life on earth. My efforts couldn’t change that fact. For me, cancer brought a rearranged life, the shuffle of grief, the awareness of weakness—and the need for acceptance.

But as He has for the animals, God provided ways to survive the barren seasons. Though I am limited by time, daylight, weather, energy, and abilities, God is not. He stands above human limitations. When I worship God in the hard times, I’m praising His work, not mine. When I’m no longer trying to impress others by my productivity, I can allow them to see my barren shelves, my bruised heart, my blighted prayers. I can give others opportunity to care for me until spring comes again.

I’ll probably always love the bustle of summer, the excitement of harvest, the days filled with activity and productive projects. I may always enjoy reading about time management and be tempted to value time by what I accomplish. But I counter the longing to do more and be more with worship. I want to walk through the hungry season, the dependent years, the times of weakness, with hands lifted in worship. Because of Jesus. It is well with my soul.

(This article was first published in Commonplace: The Quiet of Winter by Daughters of Promise Ministry)