Recently, a friend said to me, “What is this ‘summer reading’ phenomenon? Does anybody actually have more time to read in the summer? Am I just doing this wrong?” I could only nod my head in sympathy. I am not the woman at the beach tucked under an umbrella with a cold lemonade and a thick book. I am the one racing across the sand behind a sticky-fingered and relentlessly energetic two-year-old who wants to swim “by yelf [self].”

But Melissa Kruger’s recent article reminded me that motherhood, what she movingly calls “an extended journey of letting go,” is a privilege with joys at every stage. This may not be my summer for losing myself in a book, but, in God’s kindness, it will still be a summer filled with his grace.

The articles below are worth your time—even if you only have five minutes. And, in case you’re at a life stage that does allow for some lazy page-turning by the sea, we also have a reading list that features recommendations from some of us here at TGC Women.

P.S. The locations for our 2020 Women’s Training Network Two-Day Intensives have been announced.