"Goodbye Bookshelf Books! No, I Can't Do It!" by Julie Seedorf

Recently a friend of mine started packing her books for a move. There seemed to be many books left on the bookshelf. She explained, “These are the books I can’t bear to pack away yet, and be without them for even a little while.”

I love to read. I have managed to manage my book obsession and get the books down to one book shelf, only because I read more Kindle books these days. I still love the smell of bookstores and have to glue my credit cards to the bottom of my purse so they can’t come unstuck when I want to make huge purchases in the bookstores. I still finger with reverence the cover of books and close my eyes in pleasure at the feel of them in my hand.

Having said that, the Kindle makes my life easier when I travel. I only have one bag now instead of two extra to carry my books and magazines. I can have a new book at the touch of my finger to my Kindle screen. I fear that my Kindle is becoming my bookshelf because I have hundreds of books on my Kindle.

After viewing my friends bookshelf and wanting to simplify my life some more I thought perhaps I could empty my bookshelves.

The top shelf is lined with books by Catherine Coulter, http://www.catherinecoulter.com/, Kristin Hannah, http://kristinhannah.com/content/index.php, and Max Lucado,  http://maxlucado.com/ . The rest of the shelves are a mixture of books my friends and my daughter  have given me that are quirky and fun and speak to the creative person inside of me. There is also a shelf of bible studies that I have never done, most are by Women of Faith, http://www.womenoffaith.com/.

I positioned my chair to climb on so I could reach the top shelf and start purging the rest of my books. As I touched each book by Catherine Coulter I could not bear to move it off the shelf. I moved on to my Kristin Hannah books. I touched the first one to move it to a box. My hand would not move. I could not take a book by Kristin Hannah down either. Nor could I move the Max Lucado books to a box for good will. I arranged them neatly by author on the shelf.

I moved down to the Bible Study books by the Women of Faith and the books I have by Patsy Clairmont, http://patsyclairmont.com/, and Barbara Johnson. I reminded myself that I should start a Bible Study books so the books stayed on the shelf too along with Patsy and Barbara.

Next were all the filled journals, empty journals, and quirky books my friends and my daughter had given me. It was a funny things but those books seemed glued to the shelf.

I now understood what my friend meant by not being able to part with her books yet for the move. I could not part with the books on my shelf. My favorite authors, my quirky sense of humor books especially those by SARK, http://planetsark.com/ had to stay. Looking at the books alone without reading them gives me hope for the future that perhaps someday my writing will be cherished by someone the same way I cherish the books on my bookshelf. I did not find one book that gave me a ho hum feeling. These books were all on this certain bookshelf because they speak to my heart.

If you are feeling guilty about those books collecting dust, ask yourself what part of your heart they move. Keep the ones that do because they are not dust catchers, they are heart catchers.

From:  http://sprinklednotes.com/2014/07/01/goodbye-bookshelf-books-no-i-cant-do-it/