Bread and Wine

So, I've been slowly savoring my way through Shauna Niequist's latest book Bread and Wine and while I've not finished reading it yet, I just had to put an update here.

Fortunately, because I'm sorely lagging behind in my reading challenge, it counts as a biography/memoir or sorts!

But aside from that it's also been mouth-watering and amazing. I have a growing list of first recipes I want to try, it will probably come down to which ones I can do on my micro-budget, but I'm excited to get cooking with Shauna!

While the recipes have been making me want to do things I've never dreamed of doing in the kitchen, like actually butchering a piece of meat, without fail Shauna's words have also been inspiring me.

For example, even though the chapter was about pregnancy - something I've yet to experience personally - in a very general way. The conclusion of the chapter is something I've post-it'd (I know, that's not a word, deal) for myself and have been wanting to share with someone since I read it. I just haven't had the opportunity to share it yet. So I'll tell you:

"I want to cultivate a deep sense of gratitude, of groudedness, of enough, even while I'm longing for something more. The longing and the gratitude both. I'm practicing believing that God knows more than I know, that he sees what I can't, that he's weaving a future I can't even imagine from where I sit this morning. Extraordinary indeed. More than enough." (bread and wine, enough, p. 59).

This paragraph! Shauna once again so excellently and elegantly takes thoughts that I feel could have been mine, and lays them out in a way that make them both encouraging and challenging. Reminding me that I'm not the only one who is living in what feels like a continuous season of transition.

At the moment my days have been counted in "since I got back"; and in such a way that has this underlying feeling of, maybe before it gets too long I'll be in Scotland again. The strange thing is that I'm getting closer and closer to a year of being back in California, and even if I do want to get back across the pond, I have no guarantees that it will happen anytime soon, or ever. I really hope it's not not ever. Beyond that, God's been continuing to guide me in such a way that has brought me back to Orange County and kept me here, so far, about half of the time I've been back in the state.

God, help me continue to cultivate that gratitude alongside the longing; the presence with the expectation. Help me remember that when I can't see beyond that next step; that you can, and that's all that matters.

A brief reading challenge update...no really, really really brief

Well, it's 3 months in, and I'm certainly not to the 6 books I should have read by now. I'm actually only in the middle of book 3. Well, I suppose that happens. Hopefully, however it will be done in the next day or so and then maybe I'll finally be able to get 2 books read this month. This isn't much of a life update, but I'm supposed to keep blogging about the reading challenge, so now you know!

(edit, added later)
Oh, and because I forgot this bit earlier, I should probably tell you about the 2nd book I finished. It was journals of Lewis and Clark from their famous expedition. It was quite an adventure. The editor - with the occasional end note - kept it primarily in their original turns of phrase and unique ways of spelling, which was at times both amusing and frustrating. However, overall I rather enjoyed it! It was interesting to learn about the difficulties they faced, the friends they made, the skirmishes they got into, and the general day to day life of a group of explorers.

#5in5 #readingchallenge