Sorting books….

 Sorting books…..

For the last 12 years I have been periodically sorting and purging books…

First, children’s books,…

Then, after leaving women’s ministry to care for aging parents and ailing husband…

Downsizing to close up geology offices…downsizing to single living home…

And just lately, sharing books with others, filling and refilling a  small yard library….

Going  through these many purgings is like  reading a journal written over many years of life…giving up old friends…

How to raise toddlers, teens; miscarriages; adoptions; taking care of aging parents; counseling women; money management through feasts and famines; empty nesters; marriage and its many stages; personalities, temperaments, spiritual gifts; surviving crisis; Christian growth and its many dimensions; Bible study references, book studies, topical studies; Christian novels; how-to

and on and on…

Topics like church abuse, drugs, peacemaking in churches, financial crashes, grief, demographics…

The cleaning out my husband’s and his partner’s library yielded 56 boxes to donate to a mining library in Montana…plus many, many file cabinets of data and maps…

I am so thankful for so much advice over the years, counsel from afar…when we lived in remote areas…research already done to help us along the way…historical and current geology which propelled my husband to be the businessman he was…

But, The book that was always with us the most was the Bible…it was always with us, a daily teaching, admonishment, advisor…letter from our Father…we wore out several, we wrote in them, we highlighted them, we desired them…reading from front cover to the end…over and over…I haven’t the heart to downsize that section of books…I still have my parents, my husbands and mine…these I haven’t purged…

Thank YOU….for the writings inspired over the ages…Your Word which changes lives…

On one hand, Solomon spoke of books…

My son, beware of anything beyond these. Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.

Ecclesiastes 12:12

While John  wrote of books of Jesus ….

Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.

John 21:25

Peter Walsh wrote in his book, “ let it Go, downsizing for a fuller life”

“…..You’ve probably gotten the impression that downsizing should be a fear-inducing task. Honestly, how could it not be? As you travel through life, you encounter milestones that require you to comb through the stuff you’ve gathered: relocating to a new city; getting married and combining homes with another person; hitting tough times that send you into a smaller home; kids growing up and leaving the family home empty (and unnecessarily large); or the death of a spouse or parent.

When you downsize for these changes, you’re likely to confront some of life’s deepest questions. That’s one reason why the process is so often painful. Downsizing requires us to confront our insecurities, our relationships, and our own mortality. The stuff you sift through has the power to evoke deep emotions and memories, which can easily derail you. 

Downsizing can require you to shrink a houseful of possessions so they’ll fit into a new space that may be much smaller than what you have now. Many of these possessions are things you really, really like. They’re probably things you couldn’t possibly live without! To make the mission even more challenging, you’re likely working on an uncomfortably tight deadline. 

Sound familiar? Or maybe you’re facing another common type of downsizing scenario: the task of wading through a lifetime of items that belonged to someone else, like your parents, grandparents, or other loved ones. Their home contains stuff that might be important to you . . . but you probably have even less time to manage this kind of downsizing.”

He wrote a whole book of letting it go…yet another book…