Eat, Read, and Be Mommy

Last Saturday night I finished the audiobook I was listening to and started thinking about which one was up next; unfortunately, I was waiting on several digital holds from the library and my available choices mostly involved adult fiction from authors I haven’t read before. The problem there is that I’ve been trying harder and harder to limit my Sunday audiobooks to ones that don’t distract from the spirit of the day and my attempts to focus on my Savior, and if I’m not familiar with the author, I don’t know what to expect. I decided to scroll through available audiobooks for a better option, and I eventually came to Heaven is for Real. My thought process went something like this:

Hey, I’m pretty sure my sister enjoyed that and lent me a copy–yup, there it is on my shelf! Sweet! That sounds like a good Sunday option, and once I listen to it I can give her copy back to her, making something else that will no longer be in my house! And HEY, my niece is headed up that way for Thanksgiving, which means that I can just add it to the pile of stuff I already have for her and it will leave SOON! This is a win-win-win! Oh, and WIN, because the Goodreads Library Challenge for November is to read a book recommended to you by a friend or family member–SCORE!

Yeah, there really were that many exclamation points in my head. Sorry.

Seriously, though, it felt not just fortuitous, but downright serendipitous. And it was short–it took me a whopping two days to listen to it. Back to my sister it goes! As for what I thought about it–I enjoyed it, overall. I got teary once or twice, and I took it at face value as a family’s record of an amazing experience, told as accurately as a small child can actually tell it. My one issue was the father’s persistent efforts to prove his son’s story–constant reminders of “he couldn’t have known that” or “I know what he’s taught in Sunday School, and it doesn’t cover that and WE never mentioned it to him.” The father is a pastor, and I understand where he’s coming from, but I don’t believe those efforts are going to work the way he wants them to. Maybe they will help convince a few on-the-fencers, but in my experience, people who don’t want to believe are going to find a reason not to believe, while people with an open mind will respond just as well to the story itself, making so many reminders unnecessary (and repetitive).

Still, it was a nice Sunday read. And it can go back to my sister now. AND I commented on the Goodreads thread for November. Win-win-win!