Sharing Books

After some thrift-store finds, I dug into my collection of literature.  I've been collecting books over the summer for the classroom and placing them in a big bin.  I've reached 100!  Yay!  The only thing is 20 of them are from the series "The Babysitter's Club".  Yes....back in the day I was an avid fan of the young pre-teen novels.  The drama of being a pre-teen girl. Even if they weren't that educational, it made me read! So I've thrown in my old books to my piles.  Today I spent my day taking inventory on my books, and labeling them with the title "Mrs. Gorter".  Wow, what authority that brings!  I crossed off old teacher's names and placed in my own thinking "yes, this is mine in MY own classroom!"

After going through about a box, I found a book entitled "Spirit in the Rainforest" by Eric Wilson, a famous Canadian author.  Maybe some of you have heard of it, the "Tom and Liz Austen Mystery books" that take place all over Canada!  Anyway, I opened the front flap and it was signed by Eric Wilson.  I just found this randomly at a thrift store and was already planning on doing an Author Study on him!  Now I have his signature!  

 Next I came to my old babysitter club books which I talked about earlier.    I opened to the first page to find each book labeled "Shena C" followed with my old phone number.  I cared so much about these books I labeled them with a phone number in case they ever got lost!  Some of them I even included my home address!  Other books I went through were given to me from my grandparents - "Dear Shena, Happy Reading with Love from Opa and Oma."  These were the ones I couldn't cross off.  I had to leave them.  I almost treated them like treasure, not wanting to share them.  How could I let others take these off the shelves for Home Reading when they might get destroyed and ripped?  But think about...what good will they do on my shelf?  Like I have the time to read through every book again!  Its time I share my treasure with others.  My students. 

 How often is our faith a treasure that we don't share with others?  We would rather keep it to ourselves because we don't feel comfortable with sharing our story with someone else.  Sometimes its not our story we are afraid to share, but it could be the best book in the World: The Bible.  Let's take our physical books and our spiritual stories off the shelves and share them with others.  And most importantly, in everything, let's share The Word.