The links have begun to pour in. Stories telling me of the importance of diet and of exercise, stories of how to organize the house and my life. Lots of links about bullet journaling, mostly because I am rather obsessed with this right now.

Links about new starts and plans for the new year. I wrote yesterday about my intention to avoid resolutions this year, my intention instead to focus on embracing more how I am wired and figuring out how to make that blossom.

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Psalm 139:14.   In all my haphazardness and all my inconsistencies, in all the things that spark wonder within me, and all the things that bring life to me…I am fearfully and wonderfully made by a Creative God who has marked me as His own. He has left His Image upon me.

Part of that, I think, is this deep affinity to story.

And that is why, I think, one of the links which continued to pop up in my FaceBook feed caught my attention.

The Wall Street Journal. The Need to Read.

The Need to Read.

Beyond just a tag on to my days, or something that would be nice to fit in to the schedule, there is a need to read. Will Schwalbe writes in the article above that the need to read is tied to a need to be exposed to ideas beyond just our own. We are able to experience and understand different ideas and people through reading. This is such an enormous reason to read.

It is not the only reason.

Right now, as I near 47 years old and parent kids from five to fifteen, I realize more than ever the need for wonder and story. That image of God marked on my soul? Part of it is is this innate affinity to story, this perking of the ears and the heart to a good story. Being drawn in to the characters and the setting, wondering what will come next and how the characters will resolve their challenges. Rejoicing in their successes and feeling that ache of heartbreak over loss and suffering.

In fictional stories.

Yep.

Crying those messy, snotty, tissue-necessary cries at the end of a story that releases our emotions. *

Sometimes we need that release. Because we have had to hold things together in the midst of a world that is stressful and filled with heartbreak. We cannot walk in mourning or anger or fear or sorrow all the time, even though we have valid reason for all those emotions…we have to learn to keep them in check and function with some sense of health in the midst of a crazy world.

Sometimes we need the catharsis of a good cry, the release of getting really ticked off at a villain worthy of our anger. We need our wonder sparked and ignited by the heroism of a fictional, or historical, character. We need our authors to give us a moment to release our emotions in the safety of a story so we can return to our realities of bills and parenting and teaching and health issues and dementia and cancer and fears and hopes and sports and joys and all that makes up our lives. We return with our hearts enlargened and ready to love well, to wonder well and, yes, even to have anger when needed.

Stories give us room to feel. They give us room to listen and to experience beyond our neighborhood. They are not a luxury, they are a necessity.

So, do not take it as a burden, and surely do not add it as a resolution…but go buy a book and read. Something. Ask a friend for a recommendation and find something worth reading.  If you need a place to start, check out this list over at The Rabbit Room.  Or, better yet…tell us in the comments what you are reading to start this new year! Currently I am reading Scarlet Pimpernel and Pride and Prejudice.

*The last book that left me in that state of an ugly cry (messy, tears falling and snotty nosed), was The Warden and the Wolf King…the last book in the Wingfeather Saga. You haven’t read these? Go…now. Read them to your kids, starting tonight!