Night-Time Reading

I squeeze five minutes of reading in most nights - ten if M is taking his time getting to bed. Just this week I smiled to myself when I realised that the reading topics that most interest me all start with the letter 'F': faith, finances and France - a few more F words to add to my list (see F Words August 2009).

I'm not too keen on the finance books next to my bed waiting to be read. I already don't like the titles but I'm prepared to give them a chance because I am always looking for something new to learn. But I do not labour through a book just to finish it. The author has three chapters to get my attention. Failing that, I boot it out; I am an avid reader with limited time.

One of the books I am reading is 'The Incredible Journey of Faith' by Ray Pritchard (see America August 2009). I bought this book at the August conference we attended where Ray Pritchard was the speaker. At the conference Ray Pritchard gave anyone, anywhere, copyright privileges for any of his material. Using that permission, here is a piece from the sixth chapter of this book:

"I received an email from a man in Pennsylvania who had read one of my books. Not long ago the doctors told him he had prostate cancer.

It was while reading your book that God and I came to peaceful terms with cancer. Not only that but he gave me the ability to see how cancer would be useful in His kingdom and in my life. Cancer clears away the cobwebs, cancer clarifies, cancer makes concise, cancer enables you to find comfort in God and freedom from the world's entrapments.

If he had not had cancer, he would never have discovered these things. Cancer may not be good in and of itself, but it can be good to have cancer if out of that crisis you come to a new understanding of God. We learn more in the darkness than we do in the light. We grow stronger in affliction than when the sun is shining and all is well. It is not coincidence that Moses discovered God's glory in a time of personal crisis. It will be the same for us as well."

I closed the book; I prayed for my mother.