Favorite Authors

Daily Gratitude Year 4-Day 167: Today, I am grateful for favorite authors.

Summer affords me a little more opportunity to read...(love my audio books!). With audio books I can clean, travel or cook and listen at the same time. 

The running debate at my house is whether or not "listening" to a book is the same thing as reading it with your eyes. I say...all are reading...just using different "mediums" to apply the words. The Love of my Life and our sons say I am "listening to a story".  

Love looks beyond all wrongs. I love them. They are handsome and smart...but I stand firm that on this point of contention...they are wrong. 

I find that I enjoy some favorite authors...and I am not alone.  The favorites change with my interests and my moods. I love a good mystery...and romantic suspense is a favorite genre. I enjoy historical novels, a little twist of sci-fi and if it is set in Ireland or Scotland...in the library basket it goes. Cowboys...men in kilts...and FBI agents are all a draw. Running series with bold, quirky characters are some of my favorites. They feel like old friends, even when the story is new. If a book makes me laugh out-loud...I add the author to my favorites. 

This image stuck a chord as I was just about to look for another book. It is about the book I have come to love best and with new passion in recent years. My Bible. Well, actually...I love all three of my Bibles for different reasons. The more I read "The Word"...the more I know and love the author. 

God's word speaks life into my days and is full of answers, peace and hope. It, also, provides guidance, conviction and the "ugly" truth of many areas where I need improvement. It is a multipurpose book. It is full of "short stories" that play into the "big picture". The themes are many...but love is the big one.  Love and redemption. Good stuff.  

For my friends who would rather create than read...Bible journaling (check out Illustrated Faith or Documented Faith)... is illustrating and celebrating God's word through art. It involves reading, listening and responding to the message. It is the new millennium's version of the illuminated manuscript that was popular in the 9th - 14th centuries, but seen as early as 897 AD.  The art form has been reborn and it builds understanding and relationship with the Author of Life. 

Today, I am grateful for favorite authors...and the Author of Life who gives us His Word so that we may know him.