By faith, Noah built a ship in the middle of dry land. He
was warned about something he couldn't see, and acted on what he was told.
-Hebrews 11:7 (MSG)
I'm no Noah.
And if God told me to build an ark of
I'm no Noah.
God knows I build with words and not with nails. Build
bridges, build a home, build friendship, build understanding, build ships in
the desert with the alphabet because it's all I ever knew about saving people.
And this?
Soul Bare… Right here, in this season, this book is my ark. My ship
built of words instead of wood, with stories instead of nails, and covered
inside and out with a thick coat of love instead of pitch. It's no ark, but
it's what He asked me to build, a tiny little offering in the face of the
floodwaters all around.
It's all I ever knew about saving people. It's how I've
always saved myself, how I've turned my eyes back to the only one who really
saves. Hammering out the words to float your stories safe, and I ask… would you
like to join me? Lend your tender heart, your only-yours story among the rest
of us typing mad because it's how we know about saving, because it's what we do
to point to Him?
There's one month left to submit an essay-length piece
(1000-2000 words) for publication if you're interested in contributing to this
project of building up faith from the root of our hearts, digging out
authenticity and redemption from the heaviness, mining for joy in the
unlikeliest of places.
From the
project page:
It is a vulnerable and
difficult practice to open ourselves wide, to share the gritty and painful
parts of our story, or to explore against-the-grain ideas. Standing emotionally
naked before God and others can be an intimidating but richly prolific experience.
It is a progression of salvaging our own broken pieces, telling our story, and
gaining a deeper understanding of one another and of God’s beautiful purpose
for us as we seek to develop who we have been into who we are becoming.
The very Word of God
is a collection of soul-bare stories, of broken people salvaged and sanctified,
lives poured open for a holy purpose. By its words and the beat of our own
hearts we live out and share a beautiful picture of grace and ransom, of unique
(but shared) humanity.
We are looking for
real, honest stories of your journey through self-expression in your process of
becoming authentic. Why and how do you bare your soul and for what holy
purpose?
Get more
information here, if you're so inclined. And in the meantime, your prayers for
this book and its writers are both grace and blessing, as is your support and
spreading the word about the book however you'd like.
*Title, subtitle, and cover design are likely to change. We're working with a bit of a fluid concept here that will be further defined once submissions are chosen. If you have a piece that feels like a good fit for this project but the categories or title/subtitle are having you second-guess whether it works, please send it anyway. Blog posts are allowed but must be removed from all sources prior to publication.
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