I completely forgot about this month’s book club until it rolled around on Friday. Good thing the book this month was short. It was also AMAZING. We read Left to Tell: Finding God in the Rwandan Holocaust. Honestly, my expectations for this book were low. I have already read a few memoirs and books about the Rwandan Holocaust, and when I originally got the book, I just looked at it and felt weary. I did not want to read more about the horrors I knew this memoir would inevitably contain.
BUT. This memoir blew me away. It read very similarly to Corrie Ten Boom’s The Hiding Place. The fervent faith of Immaculée, the author, brought me to my knees in repentance. As I read about the miracles God did for her and the mighty works she accomplished by faith, I felt so, so inspired. I spent the rest of the day asking God to purge everything but love from my heart. Immaculée suffered at the hands of evil, and she returned this with burning love and forgiveness.
That is the miracle of grace. This book was as inspiring as scripture.
I brought the kids to Qualtrics in the morning so I could read while they played. They ate breakfast there because the cleaning crew was at our house.
Lydia’s school called an emergency snow day, so around noon I woke up Clarissa, packed up everyone in the car, and picked her up. I meant to take advantage of the extra home time to fit in some great practice with the girls…but I just let them have free time all day while I read instead. I did manage to bake some raspberry jam currant buns for my mom’s arrival home from Pittsburgh and make some chili, but that was about all.
Before I left for book club, the girls painted faces. Lydia painted Mary’s and Ammon’s face (in addition to her own),
and Mary painted Abe’s.
Face painting, though great fun while it lasted, ended up in a major tantrum from Mary over spilled glitter. Upon hearing her screams and seeing glitter all over the house (and this just mere hours after the cleaning crew had cleaned everything), I threw all of the glitter in the house away. It ended up being a stressful evening for Abe, who had to deal with tantrums and poop accidents in the tub (Ammon) and blow-outs afterward (Ammon) and poop accidents in general (Mary).
While Abe was dealing with poop everywhere, I went to book club, which ended up being the best book club we’ve ever had. Jill’s sixteen year old daughter, Katie Freestone, joined us. Katie babysits for us and sends me the sweetest texts, and I love her so much. She contributed incredible depth and spirituality to the lesson.
One of my favorite parts was when Katie told us how she recited “Jesus the Christ” to her friend as they came to a steep hill on their run. She also talked about looking out at her classmates and being able to see them all as God’s children. One of her other comments was that discomfort is often part of turning to God, and since her life doesn’t have discomfort like the kind found in the book, she seeks it out through self discipline (such as running or denying herself chocolate).
I was so impressed by Katie. I was so impressed by Immaculée. I was impressed by the other women in the book club and their sincere comments about how they do or don’t find God in their lives.
Basically, I was impressed and inspired all day. While I was busy being impressed and inspired, my children were busy being neglected. Hopefully all of this inspiration will translate into better mothering so someday they will be talking about how, at the age of sixteen, they recite “Jesus the Christ” to their friends as they run up hills and such. That would be a dream come true.