Devotion to books

But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body
Ecclesiastes 12:12

I love books.

I love to read, I love to write, but I also just love books! I love to have them on shelves, as part of my decor, and in my home. My favorite Disney princess is Belle because she loves books. And I confess a deep-seated envy of the ceiling- to-floor-books room in the Beast's castle. Just getting it out there.



I love books.

And I have a really hard time parting with them. Books are my friends.

Consequently, my house is full of them.

All kinds of books - children's books, homeschool books, Bible study books, fiction books, self-help books, BOOKS!

The last time we moved (which, in terms of book-years, was several truckloads ago), the movers were not only exhausted but also a bit irritated. "Lady,", they said, "Next time you move, you have to tell the moving company that you have this problem with books. We ain't never moved this many books!"

Gulp.

I do love books.

And I just cannot get rid of them. It's not that I intend to hoard them - it's just that they are dear to me and tossing them out would be just short of giving away one of my children. (Wait, I have pondered that before....)

So I have an excess of books. My shelves are sagging and the storage room is full of boxes of books. (In self-defense, I inherited this malady from my father and when my folks moved in with me, his book legacy came, too. That accounts for lots of these books! Additionally, my mother-in-law shares my love of all things books and she has generously fed my addiction for many years. SO LOTS of BOOKS!!)

But the writer of Ecclesiastes is right. This excess devotion is wearying. So after years of resistance, I am cleaning out books.

I was quite affirmed in this endeavor as soon as I began - books from my college days probably are no longer needed! (But, hey, it's like I said - I inherited this from my dad - his shelves have microbiology books from the 1950's!)

I cleaned off the shelves. I opened up the storage boxes. And I let go of a lot of books.

If you saw my bookshelves now, you might not notice the difference. But 7 humongous boxes later, I surely do!

In the spirit of full disclosure, I'll share what I did with the books. I just could not drop them all off at Goodwill, as wonderful as donating there may be. (Not to mention the hefty charitable contribution that would be, come tax time) I couldn't even donate them all to the library, as noble as that would be.

These books are my friends. Seriously. I am attached to them.

So I shared them.

With my flesh and blood friends.

I sorted them out into categories (lovingly smoothing the covers of each one...) and assigned them to boxes. Then I invited my friends to help themselves. I cannot begin to tell you the joy I felt when these loves connected - my books and my buddies. My tomes and my treasured comrades. Together.

Bliss.

Seriously.

The more books my friends took with them, the happier I was.

Nice neat shelves. Books to bless in new places.

Happy dance.

Now somebody save me from Amazon Prime!!!!