Can books change your life?

Books. They generate ideas. They teach. They educate. They open our eyes to new possibilities and sometimes even new worlds. Is it possible that they can change our lives?

I have found in my own personal story that I am nothing without my books.

Thanks to books, I found a great desire to be an adventurer within me. Reading the pages of treasure hunts and secret fountains of life or mystery solving in far away worlds as a teen, I was birthed into the world of adventures and yearned for those experiences in my own life. (Read Tuck Everlasting, by Natalie Babbitt)

Thanks to books I said yes to the adventure of traveling to the African continent as a 17 year old. I'm so thankful that books stirred the interest in me before I even had the opportunity in front of me. (Read The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad)

Thanks to books written by women about their stories and plights pre-21st century, I began to see the resilience of women and what they could overcome, slowly uncovering in myself my own power. (Read Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte and A Room of My Own, by Virginia Woolf)

Thanks to books my marriage of 30 years has thrived, not just survived. We learned how to fight fair and how to communicate and fill each others' needs, how to communicate and how to love one another well. (Read His Needs, Her Needs, by Willard Harley; Love and War by the Eldridges; Fighting for Your Marriage, Markman, Stanley and Blumberg)

When we adventured to Mexico as a couple and decided to birth and raise our two children there, far from family, far from our norms, far from local and handed down parenting information in English, books guided us. Thanks to books I was able to practice and deliver two healthy babies without epidurals, with my husband coaching me by side. Thanks to books I was able to get my babies on a schedule of feedings and naps and we were so thankful to understand these rhythms and implement them without extended family to help care for them. Thanks to books we were able to feed our little ones amazingly healthy foods that we made ourselves and even snuck in pureed veggies into their treats! Something I still get ribbed about to this day. (Read Husband Coached Birth and The Bradley Method by Bradley and Hathaway; Babywise by the Ezzos; Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld)

Thanks to books, when I was raising my daughter and finding myself to be so very angry, books walked me through my past trauma and helped me take it out, examine it and get rid of the parts that didn’t serve me. Books helped me replace the anger with peace and with love. (Read Making Peace with Your Past, by Tim Sledge).

When my health and my body were failing me and I couldn’t understand what was happening to my weekly running ability, books helped me change my entire outlook on health as well as own my physical gait so that I could run as the ancients did, restoring me to health and delight (Read Born to Run, by McDougall)

Thanks to books, my understanding of community development from an asset based approach changed completely. (Read Risking Everything, by Sarah Corson and When Helping Hurts, by Corbett and Fikkert)

Thanks to books, when I took a position in a company that went south quickly, books got me from on the sofa in despair to back into the world of working on mission while truly understanding my own motivations for the first time in my life. (Read Falling Upward, by Richard Rohr)

Thanks to books, when I was questioning everything in the church model I was used to, I was sent back into the world on mission outside the church walls with permission to do so as a believer in Jesus. (Read We Have Permission, by Pete Cocco)

And thanks to books, my interpretation and understanding of bible scripture has changed and grown and evolved into an ever expansive concept of grace and cosmic love. (Read Her Gates Will Never Be Shut by Bradley Jersak).

Soul, Body, Heart and Mind - changed for good thanks to the books I have read. These are just a sampling of the ones that stood out over the course of my life.

That means that every time we pick up a new book, we open our minds to endless possibilities through story telling and new tools given for our use. What a powerful medium.

In short, books change lives. 

What books have changed your life?