We’re back from our May furlough, and summer is in full swing! I’ve been struggling to find time to read. Just one more book finished this month. But, boy, was it a good one!

The Boys in the Boat! After seeing it on some friends’ reading lists, I decided to go for it. It didn’t disappoint! I knew nothing about rowing before reading this. But no matter. I learned. This was bigger than some informational book on rowing. Ideas like individualism, teamwork, perseverance, loss, the power of words, determination, trust, family, pride, and love were brought out. Even though I already knew the outcome for these Olympic heroes, I held my breath down to the very last race. The epilogue had me in tears. What an earthly legacy these boys left. But what about an eternal inheritance? Oh, my heart. Did any of them know Jesus?

Some of my favorite quotes from this month are below!

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To defeat an adversary who was your equal, maybe even your superior, it wasn’t necessarily enough to just give your all from start to finish. You had to master your opponent mentally. When the critical moment in a close race was upon you, you had to know something he did not–that down in your core you still had something in reserve….¹

“It takes energy to get angry. It eats you up inside. I can’t waste my energy like that and expect to get ahead.” ¹

Where is the spiritual value of rowing? … The losing of self entirely to the cooperative effort of the crew as a whole. -George Yeoman Pocock ¹

Oh, who should drag me into a great city, if I did not know there is another world! How gladly could I spend the remainder of a busy life in solitude… ²

My lodging was not such as I should have chosen; but what Providence chooses is always good. ²

¹ The Boys in the Boat, Daniel James Brown
² The Journal of John Wesley