books

If I were to write here about all the books I have known and loved …well you would never bother reading to the end!  So I am limiting myself strictly to those volumes I hope will best encourage and uplift those who are, like me, ill.  We desperately need encouragement and employment for our time in these sometimes overwhelmingly long days and where better to find both than in the reading of a book?  I have found great strength in the pages of these old and new friends and hope that you may as well.






Rose from Brier     by Amy Carmichael

“But I found that things written by those who were in pain themselves, or who had passed through pain to peace, like a touch of understanding in a dear human letter, did something that nothing except the words of our eternal Lord could ever do.  So these letters purposely go forth from under the harrow before the sharpness of the prod of a single tooth is forgotten.  They go to some who are under far sharper harrows, and they carry all they can to them of sympathy that understands.”  

So Amy Carmichael herself explains this most precious book written during her own long time of illness and pain.  If I were to pick only one book to recommend here this would certainly be it.  I have turned to it again and again in my deepest valleys and found comfort that was far deeper still.  It is amazing to find in the pages of a book the exact struggles you are facing, to find the very thing you are burdened with in the heart of another.  This is especially precious in a time of prolonged sickness when our struggles are new and so few understand.  Physical handicaps of any kind are very similar and in this little book Amy Carmichael reaches down into her own heart and captures the very essence of the hardest things we face.  But once she has helped us understand our troubles she lifts us up to better and higher thoughts. Her devotion to God is evident in each letter and her strong faith in His plan even as it includes pain.  It would be very hard to come away from this book uncomforted, unencouraged and unchanged and so I hardily recommend it to all who are ill.  You may also find inspiring Amy Carmichaels other books especially Gold by Moonlight written also from ’under her harrow’ but more far reaching in its’ audience to speak specifically to emotional pain as well as physical.




Lessons I Learned in the Dark: steps to walking by faith, not by sight     
by Jennifer Rothschild

This is a treasure I found unexpectedly on our library shelf.  Not knowing what I would discover I brought it home and found myself delighted with all that lay between the cover.  Jennifer Rothschild’s story is a gripping one.  She developed a degenerative eye disease at a young age and almost before anyone knew what was happening she was legally blind at age fifteen.  I can hardly imagine how incredibly difficult it would be to loose your sight so young and to face every day the challenges that handicap presents. However Jennifer Rothschild has found abundant Joy and Hope in our Savior and her book simply oozes with both.  Throughout Lessons I Learned in the Dark she weaves stories of her own experiences learning how to live with blindness and then turns those lessons into parallels for spiritual lessons about faith.  Often physical lessons are easier to picture and absorb than spiritual ones so her parallels are powerful.  This is a book about faith, faith that is bigger than our trials because it is fixed upon an almighty loving God.  I found myself laughing heartily and frequently over some of the things being blind has gotten Jennifer into. I was also strengthened in my faith as she allowed me through this book to glimpse her own.




Joy-a Godly woman’s adornment       by Lydia Brownback

Lydia Brownback became another of my favorite Christian authors during my journey through her on- the -go devotional series.  Joy is just one of four books in this collection and it is also my favorite.  Although her books are not written specifically for those who are struggling with illness I include them here because they do speak to many of the issues we struggle with regardless of what kind of trial we are going through.  Perhaps Trust will be the book in this series you most need to read or, Contentment but for me it was and probably always will be Joy.  The Lord used this book to transform my view of joy and I hope I will never be the same.  It was powerful to realize the false ideas I had about this so sought after fruit of the Spirit and freeing to be able to let those go replaced in my mind with true joy by God’s definition.  If you are finding it hard to hold on to joy in your infirmities I encourage you to read this little book and let it speak to your heart.