Book Review - You're Already Amazing

Hi again friends! I'm still on blog hiatus (until Easter), but am still posting book and product reviews per prior commitments. Miss you all!
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"You don't have to do more, be more, have more."

This is what Holley Gerth suggests on the back cover of her newest book, You're Already Amazing. The subtitle teases me with a glimpse of what I long for, "Embracing Who You Are, Becoming All God Created You to Be."

But how?

How do we embrace our worth in a culture that caves in around us, with the lie that is eternally whispered into the depth of a woman:

You aren't enough. You are too much. You must keep reaching, keep trying, keep striving to be good, to be worthy of love.

You're Already Amazing is a big, soul-hug from a good friend, but it's more than that. It's an instruction manual on personality and purpose, and a mirror held up to reflect us only in light of who God says we are without the lies that blind our vision.

This is an interactive text and Holley gives us the opportunity to work through the truths she presents bite by bite. There is a "Go Deeper Guide" at the end of the book with sections for further study of each chapter.

Holley has a beautiful way of presenting her loving message directly, so it hits right between the eyes. She's never harsh, but helps us look at the whole picture in such a way that we can operate in our strengths and gracefully minimize the impact our weaknesses have on us.

"Love in a biblical sense isn't a touchy feely, vague experience. It's a verb. It's a series of choices and actions in our lives. So the next step in our process is to look again at your life through the lens of love." – Page 131

Perhaps the most insightful aspect of the book (for me) is its focus on pursuing purpose rather than perfection. Feeling like I was able to internalize this in a new way frees me up to connect more deeply with what God has for me in the world, not work to burden me but my heart and soul in action with Christ's leading.

Holley leads us to develop a LIFE statement (LIFE = Love is Faith Expressed) to help us check our actions, activities, and motivations against what we know about our journey. Mine looks like this:

I am created and called to express my faith through love, especially by inspiring, nurturing, and encouraging God's children through honest words, shared experiences, and creative nourishment.

There is a profound power in connecting with your deepest purpose in light of the Kingdom, and Holley's words were a beacon for directing me to embrace all that I am and even what I am not, to make more room for that which belongs in my path.

You're Already Amazing exceeded my expectations by leaps and bounds. I expected a pep talk, a sweet reminder to love myself, and an encouraging spur in the right direction. I didn't expect the book to be so chalk full of actual steps on that path. Holley is a woman deeply connected with her purpose, and it shows. I'm happy to have had the opportunity to glean from her wisdom and experience in this area. Ladies, don't miss this great resource.

Get You're Already Amazing through the links on this page. DaySpring has the entire Holley Gerth collection at 25% during the month of March! Woohoo! One of the best ways you can spend a couple bucks, for real.

25% off Holley Gerth Collection with code HOLLEYG25!

It's also the (in)courage Bloom book club selection of the month. Join the conversation!

Holley Gerth - You're Already Amazing

(Disclaimer: I received this book for free from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group in exchange for my review. All opinions are my own.)

A Year of No

Source

I'm a striver.

You know, a climb-the-ladder, always reaching, trying, working, moving, going, onwards-and-upwards sort of girl.

{This is, I'm sorry to admit, mostly motivated by guilt or a feeling of not-good-enough-ness.)

It's always gotta be more.  Not to have more but to be more, to be better, nicer, prettier, sweeter, more attentive and organized and disciplined and perfect.

And in my traipses around blog-land, I see that many of you have deemed 2012 a year of yes.  A year to grow… to "feel the fear and do it anyway"… a year to take the reins and face your life headlong as you lean into the wind.  This is beautiful.  And for a minute, I nodded in agreement.  Yes, yes!  I want a year of yes!  I want to embrace my fears and get ahead.  I want to be better, be more, be everything to everyone all the time!  YES!  

And therein lies the problem.

I am yes.  All the time.  I am always embracing and accepting and reaching out to take the next rung in the ladder, convinced my efforts should be stepped up, just a little… bit… more.

And so.

I'm declaring a year of no.

A year of learning to be instead of to go.  Of sitting down and watching the fog roll in just to marvel at the beauty, just to live right where I am for awhile.  To experience my year of home for all the precious moments I usually miss.  Because it isn't turning out to be what I thought -- this home thing.  I figured I could ride the theme for all its decorating glory, an excuse to fluff and primp and hang and paint… a satisfaction for what my home could become.

Instead, I am finding the joy in mediocre.  I am finding that sometimes, just okay is enough.  And that when friends fly far and long to visit and I lament that my house isn't done, they couldn't care less because they came to see me and they see me in what I've managed to get on my walls, and they see me in the creative touches I've made around my home.  And while I thought I wanted a home whose corners were posted around the Internet, I've learned that I only want a home whose corners are piled with the makings of a life that is all and only gift, a place where we are us and life is love and the messy and the graceful and the ugly and the beautiful all blend together to resemble a life that fits.

I've lived here a month now and I only just discovered that there is a creek at the foot of our property.  It's a creek you cannot see, but only when I get silent, when I sit on the back deck and listen, I hear the waters rushing through the hills and valleys of this land.  I've discovered, by slowing down and paying attention, that there is a dirt trail on a hillside in the distance, and people ride horses up and down this road on a regular basis.  There's an osprey nest in the tallest tree and a white speckled horse that runs circles on the ranch-land below.  We have a miniature waterfall, only 6 inches high, a fairy ravine made of rocks and sticks in the side yard, and the deer sneak in our gate at night to graze.  There is so much quiet beauty here, and I wonder what else I've been too busy to miss.

Numberless still, I count with Ann, the gifts:

- A birthday surprise, friends from afar.

- Loads of familiar, long-missed laughter that feels like a different kind of home.

- My children forming bonds with people that matter to me.

- Snowmobiling on Sunday, a different kind of worship in a different kind of sanctuary.

- A confirmation of my calling as a mom and wife -- a realization that I am exactly where I should be in this big wide life.

- Time, and how it slows deliberate.

- Patterned paper, in high supply and versatility.

- Lunch with mom yesterday.

- Grace to change our minds.

- Surprise toddler kisses.

- A heart stirring, a question on my mind - our family incomplete?

- Quiet love, reaching out in the night with tangled arms and hearts.

- Water… clean and drinkable and so easily taken for granted.

- Mail delivery.

- Soft pillows; deep sleep.

- Strawberries in January -- summer sweetness in the dead of winter. 

I'm a Recovering Good Girl

I'm a try-hard.  Actually, I'm a try-harder, since try-hard never manages to measure up.  And I care desperately what you have to say to me, about me, about my worth.

(As Emily P. Freeman says, "If you wonder what gives you the authority to define me, I will say it is because you exist.  I must have worth and it is up to you to give it to me…I beg you to see me, to notice my goodness, to ignore my failure, to be inspired by my beauty, to be captivated by my essence." (Grace for the Good Girl, p. 17, 18)

I shouldn't do that, of course.  

I know where my value comes from.

But I am afflicted with a syndrome that makes me ever striving toward a make believe notion of good enough.

I am a good girl.

And this book?  Grace for the Good Girl by Emily P. Freeman…. Well, I'm only on chapter 1, but it's rocking my socks off. 

"I taught people around me that I had no needs and then was secretly angry with them for believing me.  Somewhere along the way, I got the message that salvation is by faith alone but anything after that is faith plus my hard work and sweet disposition." (GFTGG p. 13, 14)

Can I get an "amen"? 

…And all the bloggers said…Amen.

Maybe you're a good girl too.

If you'd asked me a month ago if I was a good girl, I'd have shook my head.  Nope.  Not hardly.  Good implies … well… good.  And I never feel good.  Not really.  I'm not even well behaved.  I am prone to surfing the internet when I should be cooking something nutritious for my family and craving a glass of wine every now and then and ten minutes ago, I devoured an entire king-size Snickers bar without coming up for air.  I sometimes watch rated R movies and used the "s" word yesterday and considered, at least twice this week, running away to join the circus.

Good girls don't do things like that.

Reading this book, though, makes me realize just how much good girls do do things like that.  They tell themselves all kinds of lies about the hundred arbitrary ways they'll never measure up… and then suffer in the misery of persistent failure.

If you don't already have a copy of this book, do yourself a favor.  Join me.  Buy it, read it, soak up the truth that has already begun to penetrate my mask-wearing heart.  And thank you, Emily P. Freeman, for writing such honest and beautiful words that cut to the core of this people-pleasing, try-hard heart.

Linking up to: www.mommadaybyday.blogspot.com.

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