From My Bookshelf to Yours: Life Changing Books I’ve Read Lately

It’s been a while since I gave you an update on the books I’ve been reading. The last few months have been filled with some life changing books, and I want to share them with you.

Here’s what I’ve been reading lately:

Life-changing books:

Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms– This is one made my list of top 7 books every Christian woman should read. This is no cookie cutter book for moms in the trenches of motherhood. It is gospel-centered, Christ-exalting, truth-revealing. I recommend this too all moms.

Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds – I read this book after making my top reads list. I’ll be honest, I should update that list already! Jen Wilkin is passionate about taking women seriously as students of the Bible. God has used this book to affirm my calling as a Bible teacher and given me the tools to move forward. This book is for women who want to study God’s word. It walks you step by step how to do it effectively without any fluff. This is hands down the most influential book on me as a woman. This book is in a category all its own!

Radical Integrity: The Story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer – Anything from the WWII era brings with it a level of interest and curiosity. We all wonder how such a thing could happen. Of course, I have theories, but now is not the time to explore them. I read this book on a whim, and I found myself sneaking away to read more and more. The writer did a great job of bringing you into the story and thoughts of one of the greatest men in history.

Empowering Your Health – We’ve been working hard to get our health back on track. This is one of the first books I read when we made the switch to a more natural lifestyle many years ago. I re-read it again the last couple of months, implementing his suggestions along the way, and boy have we seen an improvement! I love Dr. Asa’s commonsense approach to health. It’s the number one book I recommend when people ask me where to start with “getting healthy.”

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing – Boy, I guess we’ve been doing a lot of self-improvement stuff lately. I also think things sort of culminated all at once. Regardless, our home was in great need of some help. We moved across the country, lived with our in-loves, bought a new home, and moved into it in less than a four month span. I needed some life-changing magic of tidying up in my life, and this book has been such a gift. As a Christian, I clearly don’t agree with some parts of her method, and she is certainly quirky. But it’s her quirkiness that makes her so incredibly good at what she does. I’ve been amazed at the results in our home as I’ve implemented her techniques and made a methodical sweep of my home. I’ve always wanted everything to have a place, and with her method it’s becoming a reality! I’ve now successfully cleaned out and organized our clothes, books, and papers. I have much more to do, but I’m loving how light and airy our home feels right already! This book is a must read if you want to get serious about getting your home cleaned out and cleaned up!

Other books I read, but wouldn’t classify as life-changing (still really good though!):

Dug Down Deep: Building Your Life on Truths That Last – To be honest, I didn’t finish this book. This book is a great intro to Christian doctrine. It’s an easy read on difficult truths. I recommend this book if you’re in need of foundational truths of the Christian faith. I’m not sure why I didn’t finish, but I gave myself permission to let it go. It’s a good read though.

<Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder – This book is filled with eye-opening and convicting statistics on our children’s lack of outdoor time. As a homeschool mom I found this book particularly helpful in sorting out priorities. I had fallen into the “school day mentality” and pushed out door time aside way too often. This reignited a passion and helped me to dust off our nature notebooks for another round.

I Love Dirt!: 52 Activities to Help You and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature – I had so much fun reading the ideas in this book. Sometimes it’s hard to break old habits, and I forget what I did as a kid. This brought back so many memories and helped me be intentional with my time outside with the kids.

James and the Giant Peach – We listened to this old favorite from my childhood during our commute time. We drive 45 minutes one way each Friday to pick up milk and do our weekly grocery shopping. We also have various activities that take us to the next town over. Anyway, we use this time to listen to audiobooks and the kids have been loving it! This book was a big hit!

Stuart Little – Another audiobook we finished listened to on a short road trip we took as a family. I had never read this one all the way through and had honestly only ever seen the movie. The whole family enjoyed this classic!

Anne of Avonlea (Anne of Green Gables, Book 2) – I’ve been reading this series all year. I’m taking my time and reading very leisurely, but I’ve so enjoyed getting to know Anne.

What have you been reading lately? What were your favorite reads? Any life changing books?

Want to see what other books I’ve been reading?

• My Top 7 Favorite Books of All Time
• 2015 Reading Challenge {with links to lots of book suggestions}
• My Top 10 Favorite Books from 2014

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