Book Review

Can you tell I'm trying to make up for the fact that I haven't been blogging much lately?
A friend and I are recovering computer addicts. We've come to realize the huge amount of time we have wasted on the computer and have made a pact to spend less time online and have set guidelines for when we can and can't use the computer. So far it has been a bit tough but so rewarding. One of the things I have more time for is reading. I have always loved to read but have somehow lost the desire. Seems to me since I became I mother I've read maybe 5 books total. That's pretty bad. Everytime I would sit down to read I'd fall asleep and so I've started over a dozen books and just never finished them. But it's time to change that. I'm in period of my life that it's time to reassess and reinvent myself. Every few years I have to step back and see how far off track I've gotten so I can get back on. We've been counseled to seek after the best books (or something like that) so I'm going to try my best to do that. I have several "church" books on the shelf that I have started again and and again but never got through. They can be tough reading but when I finish I always feel so inspired to be better. So I think in reading these books it will be much easier to become the Kate I have been in the past and also the Kate I see in the future. If that makes sense.
I was up late finishing Sheri Dew's book "If Life were Easy it wouldn't be this Hard (and Other Reassuring Truths)" and I got quite a bit out of this book. It had some great chapters on charity, a subject I really enjoy, and a great chapter on purity in women. There were several parts of the book that really stood out to me, I want to share one of them.

This quote was in the chapter entitled "You May Be Making Life Harder Than It Needs to Be" and she goes into faith and seeking God through prayer. It's a bit long but worth reading.

"Not long ago a friend asked if I would help her hunt for a new home. She'd had a discouraging experience surrounding the probablility of a new home and was feeling disheartened about the entire process until we came across a house perched on the side of a cliff that had gorgeous views and other appealing features. "Oh do you think it's possible that this could be my new home?" She asked with obvious excitement, adding a request: "Can we pray about this, right now? In fact, will you offer the prayer?" I was happy to, and while praying asked that if it did not run counter to the Lord's will, she might be alloweed to live in that home...or something better.
The "something better" part caught her attention. It had never occurred to her to pray for "something better" than she was imagining or conceiving. Yet none of us would wish to limit or restrain the Lord by the smallness of our vision or hopes or petitions. The Prophet Joseph didn't hesitate to pray in this manner, as he demonstrated at the dinner table one evening. Looking over the food spread before them, he prayed simply, "Lord, we thank Thee for this Johnny cake, and ask Thee to send us something better. Amen." Before the meal was over, a man came to the door and asked if Joseph was home, and, finiding that he was, said "I have brought you some flour and a ham" (John A. Widstoe, Joseph Smith-Seeker after Truth)
Something better, just as Joseph asked. That prompts the question, Is it possible that the Lord has blessings in mind for us--blessings and gifts and revelations so much better and knowledge so much greater than we have yet conceived, but blessings we haven't received because we don't ask. We don't petition. We don't plead. We don't seek to understand His instructions and promptings as relayed by the Holy Ghost with increasing clarity, frequency, and purity. In other words, we are distracted by the world or derailed by our unbelief and hard hearts, with the result being the same in either case: We don't receive what He has for us because we don't really, consistently, diligently seek after Him."

My post is already super long so I won't go into any detail regarding this quote. You all are welcome to the borrow the book if you'd like.