I have had one of the neatest experiences this last month or so. For an avid reader, it's a dream come true! I've participated in my first book launch team. The author is the same gal I took the "Overflow" course from and I've enjoyed reading her blog for years. When Tyndale Publishing asked for participants to join their private Facebook group to read the book ahead of it's scheduled release date, I jumped fast on that bandwagon!!
The book is described as a spiritual memoir. It's the book Edie says she never intended to write because she bares her soul in all it's honesty and messiness.
I have kept coming back to Edie's blog at www.lifeingraceblog.com for her inspiring pictures of how she decorates her home, for her delicious soup recipes and her insight into Christianity. I have appreciated her passion and respect for Biblical confessional Lutheran theology after living most of her life without it. I've been encouraged by her heart for hospitality and her willingness to open her doors to everyone and anyone that made need some love.
It's the pretty that has kept me coming back.
It never occurred to me where all those passions she focuses on in her blog came from. I never considered that her story may not have began so pretty to look at. I never imagined the reality behind all those pretty things.
As our launch team read through the pdf of her book, we were treated to a weekly Facebook live book club with the author herself. She and "her people" became like old friends to the group of us. She would give us nuggets of information during these live calls like "what happened to cousin so and so", "who married who after a 30 year divorce", and "why southerners love a good funeral", etc. Her sister and cousin became celebrities to us and we were so excited to "meet" them on these live calls.
When reading memoirs in the past, I hadn't really thought about the impact on the author as readers flippantly leaf through pages of some person's real life. As the launch team began to react to her words and read her wounds, she reacted too. We were all a crying mess as she processed other people processing her life!
The connection between words and human soul was never more evident and obvious for me as her life literally became an open book.
Her childhood was definitely a worthy page turner. I can't say I related much to her strong, southern upbringing (although I do have 10 months of life in Tennessee under my belt), her alcoholic father or divorced parents. I wasn't sexually abused as a child and didn't have need to visit a relative in prison on a regular basis.
But what really struck me was that within the community of the book launch team, more people than not did relate. And that struck me to the core. Edie's words were starting to inspire a confession revolution! Women were being emboldened to share their own story that they had tried to bury deep and forget. They began to say out loud the things they had only dared to whisper to themselves. As they began to acknowledge the extent of their hurt and brokenness, Edie's written words were reminding them of the Saviour we all need to make us whole again.
As the book moved beyond the injustices of her childhood, it went on to speak honestly of her own mistakes and sins of adulthood. This may call for even more bravery for the author to admit her screw ups and the consequences they bring! This was something I could relate to if I'm being honest with myself in regards to my own mistakes and sins.
As I continued to "turn" the pages of my pdf, I suddenly began to understand better her need to nourish the people in her life with food and love and hope. I now saw more than just the pretty things she's showcases on her blog - I saw a woman broken by the sin inherited by human nature, the same one I'm broken from. I saw a woman hurt at the hands of others, as I have been in different ways. I saw a woman make her own mistakes and insist on learning the hard way, as I'm prone to do. I saw a woman in need of redemption and being led into the arms of her Saviour, Jesus. Redemption is my greatest need too, and maybe we have what matters in common with different details.
The message I take from her book is inspired by her openness to put herself out there for the sake of not just her own healing but perhaps even more important - for the healing of others. We all have a story that showcases our own brand of stupidity, hurt and hardship. When I am brave and open and honest with my fellow sisters, I may just move beyond the superficial and the seemingly "pretty things". The unique challenges that I have experienced can be used by God to encourage and support and meet the needs of others going through their own hurt. Making myself vulnerable to others may just be the beginning of their healing. Bringing what I have to give to someone's fire is Christ working through me. What a privilege this is!
Watch the book trailer here
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