+++ Day Three +++

The week of gratitude continues!! I must confess, I'm enjoying this. It's very good for me to have to spend the whole day contemplating something that I am grateful for - something that's worthy of this list. I find that it keeps the mind and heart cheerfully occupied.. and when the sky is grey and Monday rolls around, there's nothing that can cure the blues like simple gratitude. 

So here's day three ~ Good books. Literature has a wonderful power. It can create an atmosphere where we enlarge our knowledge of the human experience - just by reading the pages in a book. I've spent many good hours in the world of Charlotte Bronte, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, and others. Not only does reading do wonders for your personal writing, spelling and composition skills, it's also a delightful way to pass the time. When I need to get out of my own skin, there's no better place to escape than a good book. My shelves are full of the ones that have become like friends to me. Some of those pages are excerpts from my life it seems... and when I read them, it helps me to see that I am part of something bigger. God has written the most dramatic, life-changing story of all time, and in love, He has allowed me to have a page here and there. Praise Him. 

Here's a taste of my favorite lines from recent reads: 

"And now those divine surgeons had me tied down and were at work. My anger protected me only for a short time; anger wearies itself out and truth comes in."    -- "Till We Have Faces," by C.S. Lewis, Pg. 266

"You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring into his eyes as if he were your mistress:  better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him." -- "The Four Loves," by C.S. Lewis, pg. 71

"No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What odes such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be plated in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of it's summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise." -- "Villette" by Charlotte Bronte, pg. 283

"True love is not simply an emotional response. It manifests itself in acts of kindness, generosity and those actions that produce the greatest benefit to the object loved." -- "Real Christianity," by William Wilberforce

" I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all'; neither the beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep." -- "Villette" by Charlotte Bronte, pg. 409

"Live and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that until the day comes when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these words: Wait and Hope!"  -- "Count of Monte Christo," by Alexandre Dumas, pg. 508