For the moms: book recommendations

Today I wanted to share two book recommendations with you. I started reading these books simultaneously and their messages complimented each other so very well! Here’s a little about each one. Hope you guys enjoy and if you don’t have any books on your nightstand currently, these are both really good reads about life and motherhood.

Book 1: Mitten strings for God

Mitten Strings for God by Katrina Kenison is a beautiful book. I drank up every chapter. The main message throughout the book is the observation that mothers today have ever increasing responsibilities and pressure to be and do it all. Another central theme is the pressure of modern day society to rush children through childhood.

I love books that talk about the idea of slowing down life and boiling it down to the things that truly matter. Each of the twenty-nine chapters have honest writing that reflects on different parts of motherhood with chapter titles that include: Surrender, Healing, Nurturing, Sabbath, Balance, Dailiness, and Peace.

In the introduction the author says this:

Being a mother today seems to require that we move too fast most of the time. Much as we may crave quiet interludes with our children, family mealtimes, and meaningful rituals, many of us have resigned ourselves to life without them. There may be days when we barely manage to bring the members of our families together in the same room at the same time-let alone share our innermost thoughts, a joke or a moment of quiet intimacy.

Yet we also know that our relationships- with ourselves and with each other-need time if they are to flourish. Parents and children alike need time for solitude, time to stretch and think and wonder, time to become acquainted with ourselves and with the world around us. And parents and children need sacred time together, time that is carved out of our busy lives, protected and honored but not scheduled. Time, instead, for just being.

I hope you will give this book a read, especially if you are needing encouragement in the area of mothering. It really touched me!

Book 2: Present over Perfect

The next book I want to talk about is by Shauna Niequist entitled Present Over Perfect. The book tells the story of when the author found herself exhausted, sick, and burned out on busy and her subsequent journey to finding a new way of living to increase connection, depth, and meaning.

In her chapter entitled Stuffed, the author remarks:

What I ache for these days is space, silence, stillness. Sabbath. I want to clear away space and noise and things to do and things to manage. I want less of everything. Less stuff. Less rushing. Less proving and pushing. Less hustle. Less snapping at my kids so that they’ll get themselves into the car faster so we can go buy more stuff that we’re going to throw away. Less consumption. Less feeling like my mind is fragmented and my stomach is bloated and my life is out of control.

She goes on throughout the chapters to tell her story of unraveling the deeper idols and values she has come to believe will somehow make her good enough and somehow fulfill her. She talks about creating a reputation as a hard worker and how productivity became her idol. Unraveling her dependence on this created identity is a theme woven throughout the book.

One of my favorites chapters was entitled, You Put Up the Chairs and it relates a story where a young pastor is telling an older pastor of how his church has just exploded in size. The younger pastor keeps telling the older pastor how it was unexplained growth, a “unstoppable phenomenon.” The older pastor replies with a quote that I haven’t been able to forget: “You kept putting up more chairs.” It’s one of the parts of the book that hit me the most. Our society trains us from when we are young that bigger is better and we should build, achieve, and do it all faster and faster!

It had never occurred to us, in church-building or any other part of life, that someone would intentionally keep something small, or deliberately do something slow.

Wow. I just love the messages and themes of this book. The book is divided into six parts and within each are very readable sections that talk about the authors quest for soulful living that is no longer dependent on performing, producing, and perfecting. The book really spoke to a season I lived through and wanted out of and encouraged me that there was purpose and meaning in stopping, in creating, in simplicity, and in deep connection with ourselves and families.

If either one of these books sounds like something you are interested in reading, here’s my Amazon link to them (as such I receive a very minimal percent if you purchase through my link). Enjoy moms! Motherhood has so many facets and seasons. Be encouraged that there is always time to change patterns and routines and create new ways of life for our families.

Blessings,
Alyssa