Count Your Blessings #5

I can read – brilliant.

When I was at school reading was a complete pain the rear as far as I was concerned. I only passed my O-level English on my third attempt and it really got me down. I didn’t read the classics or anything like that as a child.

But, somehow, through it all I learnt to read.

As I got older a change came in my life where I not only learnt to read I actually started to enjoy it. This was a work of God.

What’s more, when I started to enjoy reading, God put me in a place with a couple of individuals who loved to read also (Vince and Martin). Their reading was completely different to mine and yet we enjoyed each others reading, they even changed my reading.

I’ve just finished reading The Shadow in the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon a book which I wouldn’t have gone anywhere near when I was 18 but now I love. But I’m also reading The Life You’ve Always Wanted by John Ortberg which is a completely different book. There is now a stack of books in my study which is getting to big for the shelves but I can’t bare to get rid of them because each one of them has spoken to me in some way. In a sense, each one of them is a part of me. Every one of them from The Darwin Awards III to The Second Reformation.

In recent years I’ve also rediscovered great picture books to. I could sit for hours and just take in the wonder of the Waters of Cumbria.

I know that it is such a blessing to be given both the ability and the resources.