What Does Reading Offer?

This Sunday morning, as usual I read through Ann Voskamp's (Author of One Thousand Gifts and The Broken Way) blog posting for this week. 

I've been a voracious reader all my life. Reading books have definitely strengthened my writing life as well as my spiritual and mental growth. Surely the enjoyment I get reading good and well written
books is something like biting into a soft and sweet peach or the drip of honey on my tongue. I could almost taste the goodness of the words in my mouth. 

But I never went to the extent to which Ann Voskamp went to understand the value of reading as Ann had done.
As such, I couldn't help but share what I've read  this morning. As always, Ann has a unique way of conveying her thoughts in words that glitter and pulsates with beauty and content. 
Following is an  excerpt from her posting for this week on Reading Good Books.

Pages can be preparation, the smell of old books can be comfort, and a way to prepare for anything is to read the best things, the way to live a good story, is to read the wisest stories, the way to prepare for what’s up ahead, is to read the hearts of those who have gone ahead.
” ‘We read to know we are not alone,'” says C.S. Lewis’ Shadowlands. Every crisis we’ve ever battled through, I can remember exactly what book stayed by my side, the scent of ink on paper like the scent of home, like a welcoming.
I hadn’t known: When we abandon ourselves to stories — we know we aren’t abandoned in our own stories.   
I have long felt that tall stacks of books on end tables are ebenezers, guideposts, trail markers to reach for, a kind of hands to hold on to, and gird us with a brave strength for the hard roads, the steep inclines, the days when we feel forgotten and left behind.
I have held pages and felt held. “Literary experience heals the wound….” C.S. Lewis reaches out with steadying words.
A book can be your feelings pulsing through the veins of another. 
A book can be courage for the obstacle course that is your life.
A book can be a saw that breaks you out of the box — that breaks you free. 
Reading words can rewrite your life. Hope can come as gentle as turning pages.
We could read toge(s)ther. One year. 12 Books. For such a time as now.

Prepare for whatever’s coming and grab hope off the end table, off the shelf, off the nightstand, and do more than wield good books like a sword.

Eat good books and The Best Book.

Hunger every day for strengthening words, have a voracious appetite for them, digest them, swallow them, get them in your veins and let them become you and you become them, let them become your spine, your beating heart, your mind, let them become what you breathe and speak and think and the air you move in, because you aren’t taken aback by what you’ve taken time to prepare for, and books can prepare you for the test that is your every day, your new year.