Articles I Can Skip

Do you read every word of every magazine you pick up? I didn't think so. Unless you are my sister, Carol, you skip most of the ad copy, articles with limp titles, and articles with "too many words" and too little white space.

I used to let my magazines pile up in Tower of Pisa stacks because I thought I had to have a big block of time in which to do justice to the process of fully reading the entire issue.

No more. I can whip through a magazine in mere minutes, extruding from its richness the choicest morsels of information, encouragement, and entertainment. I skated through most high school history classes reading only the captions under the pictures, so this new form of magazine reading comes naturally.

I can tell in an instant which articles are not necessary for me to linger over. As I flipped through a recent issue of a women's magazine tonight, I noted a pattern to my skimming, scanning, and skipping.

I no longer need to read articles titled, "Five Things Every Mother of Teenagers Should Know." All three of my kids claim to be adults.

I can skip the article touting how difficult it is to find clothes to fit a size two frame. Yeah. My heart bleeds.

I don't need the article on quick house-cleaning tips. I could have written that one.

The essay on how to tell if it's a cold or the flu? Is it going to get me out of house-cleaning? I think not.

"Remodel Your Kitchen for $2000"? I might read the pull-quotes on that one if it said, "Remodel Your Kitchen for Twenty and Change."

"Ten Ways to Spend an Hour of Free Time"? How about "Ten Ways to Spend That Five Minutes of Free Time You Had Back in 1995"?

"Thinner Thighs by the Fourth of July"? No need. I successfully slipped through another entire summer without opening the drawer in which I keep my swimsuit.

"The Slippery Slope of Sarcasm"? Well, I suppose I have time to read that one.

Do I do that with God's Word, too? Do I skip the parts I think don't apply to me? The subjects I think I've conquered? The stories about people whose faith faltered?

Do I scan the parchment pages if it's a passage so familiar I think I've milked all I possibly can from it?

That might work if it were stagnant and I were perfect. Neither is true. It is living. And I am a work in progress.