a deeper magic.

Since I joyful finished the world of undergrad academia in December, I have finally found the time to start devouring books for my own personal pleasure again. From December until now, I have read:

1. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
2. Hush by Nicole Braddock Bromley
3. Inside a Cutter's Mind by Jerusha Clark
4. To Own a Dragon by Donald Miller

All of the above have been worthwhile reads, and I am now starting "Sacred Marriage: What if God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More than to Make Us Happy?" by Gary Thomas. I LOVE books, ok? I always have - since the very beginning of my reading career - which I'm assuming began at about age 4, if we're talking when I started reading by myself.

Every time I read a great book, it ends up making me think, "I hope I can write something that worthwhile someday." Writing at least one book and having it published before I die is definitely a goal of mine... but I currently don't feel like I have anything that compelling to write about. So I'll wait for divine inspiration on that one, I guess.

Anyway, the reason I'm writing is that I wanted to share some of the thoughts that have really caught my attention in these books. I love when writers capture and explain something no one else has before - or at least no one I've read previously has ever explained it as well.

This was the concept that blew me away from Inside A Cutter's Mind:

"Though it may be very difficult to grasp right now, self-injurers sometimes would themselves because they innately, subconsciously know that in this world... 'The law says that almost everything must be made clean by blood, and sins cannot be forgiven without blood to show death'" (Hebrews 9:22, NCV).

"She had been spilling her own blood in a desperate attempt to make things right, to show that she was sorry, to prove that she deserved to hurt, to end the raging pain inside her. But no wound ever bled enough or went deep enough to last. No cut she made would ever satisfy the ache within. There would always be another reason to destroy, to punish, to heal herself through cutting.

How clear it was: Jesus lived to bleed - once and for all - for every reason she "needed" or "wanted" to cut. She was right all along: Blood did atone. But her blood was insufficient, so He bled in her place. He had suffered all of her shame and offered her the freedom to lay down her self-injury forever."

I have been aware of friends who self-injure since high school, but I had never thought about this being one of the reasons they may have been driven to do so - the idea that some people innately know the shedding of blood is necessary for redemption is amazing to me. The way I look at it, God's truth is already embedded in their brain - but they've only got half the picture. What a beautiful realization it is that God understood this need so deeply that he sent his perfect son to die for all the things we can never heal ourselves! That is true love.