Title Tuesday: Taking a Break

Welcome to  Title Tuesday, my favorite day of the week! This day is dedicated to book suggestions, news, cartoons, and reviews. I write this portion of my blog because I am a big believer in the motivational speaker Charlie Jones' quote which says, "You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.” I try to meet as many new people as possible and to read everything I can. This is my way of sharing that information with you. You can see a visual summary of the books I have reviewed for both adults and children over on my Facebook page. If you are interested in understanding my rating system for books you can read my Book Review Explanation here and What I Believe here. If you want to check out what I am currently reading or what I want to read next, friend me on Goodreads!

Hey y'all, some of y'all may have seen on my  Facebook page that I am taking a break from reading fiction books for a while. I wanted to take a minute and explain my reasoning for putting down the novels.  

It isn't that I don't enjoy fiction. 

In fact, it is exactly the opposite!

I LOVE a good historical fiction novel. I have been known to read 300 page novel in a weekend. 

But recently I have noticed that I am using novels to escape the realities of life. 

What are those realities?

I am 38 weeks pregnant with my third child in three years. 
My husband is military and constantly TDY  (that means he is away on an assignment or at a course but not deployed for all you non military) and we are working through some REALLY CHALLENGING things in our marriage right now. 

And this is where sin enters in. 

I first noticed it about a month ago when instead of talking with my husband or wanting to interact with the spouse that God gave me, I felt myself pulled towards the heroes in novels, even if the novel wasn't that good. 

But I was really convicted on it just the other day when my mentor asked me how my quiet time was and I had to confess that I had only spent two days out of the last eight intentionally reading my Bible. 

She then asked me how many books I had read that week. 

The answer? 

Two full novels. 

Ouch. 

So, I am going to take the next 6 months off of fiction. I will still read and review personal development, Christian living, biblical womanhood, homeschooling, and the like. 

But for the next 6 months I am putting a moratorium on fiction so that I stay in the present with my family and my marriage. 

Thank y'all for understanding!