This morning the #shereadstruth devotion spoke about replacing toxic thoughts with God’s truth.  As I shared with you last week, over the past year I let myself drift away from actively doing this, and negative/fearful/discontented thoughts began to take over. One of the best ways I know how to dwell on a subject is to read about it, so I wanted to tell you about my five favorite books about faith. Keep in mind that I haven’t read anything in this area for awhile (I need to! Give me your recommendations!) so there’s nothing recent here. Thankfully these stand the test of time.

Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. It was hard to pick one C.S. Lewis book, especially since I took a class on him in college that really increased my knowledge, love, and respect. This book, though, articulates so much of what I think and feel at a deep level but hadn’t been able to express. It makes sense and speaks true to human nature. My copy is completely marked up. As a runner up I choose The Weight of Glory which is not technically a book but a sermon, but it makes me ache inside – in a good way.

Practicing His Presence by Brother Lawrence & Frank Laubach. Brother Lawrence was a monk in the 1600’s, and he wrote about experiencing and being aware of God’s presence constantly, in the most mundane or busy times of life. Frank Laubach was a missionary in the early 1900’s who wrote about putting this into practice in his own life. This small book was given to me by a friend in college and it was transformative. Every so often I reread it and am still blown away by the simple wisdom. The ideas presented in it are still my favorite way to think about prayer and being with God.

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. This is an incredible story of a family during the Holocaust. It taught me what it really means to have faith.

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. Aside from being beautifully written, I learned so much about what it means to love God – and let him love me – as a flawed person. I hadn’t ever heard of Anne Lamott or read anything like this before it was recommended to me by one of my best friends so I was kind of blown away.

Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall & Denver Moore. This amazing story about an unlikely friendship challenged what I knew about love, marriage, and ministry. At one point I was even ugly crying on a public bus and I could not even help it. Once I finished it I wanted to tell everyone I saw the entire story.

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FYI – This is the beginning of a mini-series on my favorite books & it was inspired by Hollywood Housewife.