A Language Fluent in Hope... Glorious Weakness - A Book Review post.

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I wrote a post last week, sharing two different visions I had during prayer that happened just days before I got an advanced copy of Glorious Weakness. 'Seeing' what I saw, and then reading the gift of words found in this book was such a confirmation! As I mentioned last week, this book was written and bled out by my friend, Alia Joy!  I highly recommend her book --but not just because she's a friend!

I recommend it because I think we all need it! 

Glorious Weakness - Discovering God In All We Lack by Alia Joy

This, from the Introduction:
“These days, when I am adrift on rough seas of life, and the tidal wave of my own limitations crashes against me, I need the X written down and mapped out so that I can believe in treasure again, to believe in beauty. I need to believe that lost things can be found if we only know where to look. My saltwater tears have mixed with the ash from the Refiner’s fire, and they form the ink to pen my story, a story that helps me find my way to the beauty that was always buried and waiting... So many people don’t have a way to talk about these kinds of struggles. The thing is, we all want to be able to tell the truth about ourselves and God. Some of us just didn’t know we were allowed... I hope this book gives you permission to illuminate the darkness in your own life, to skip the shortcut, to weather the storm, and to seek out the treasures along the way... There’s power in truth-telling, in resurrecting the sunken things and sifting them, a couple good shakes to get the sand out and let the light back in.”

Listen, Sweet Readers, it's no secret that I adore Alia!

I have long been a fan online and have been leaving '{insert gushing comment here!}' comments on posts throughout the blogosphere for years and years now. She is a friend in real life as well and when I heard she was writing a book I knew three things: 

1. I would commit to pray for her because she is real and honest and raw and her writing reveals that with every phrase --and that kind of writing will cost you! *Thank God she was willing!

2. I would apply to be on her Book Launch Team asap, and

3. I would be needing multiple copies!

Here's the thing: 

Her writing is beautiful and heartbreaking and inspiring and welcoming all at the same time. I had high expectations because I have read and listened to her stories for years, so I knew kind of what I would find in Glorious Weakness. 

What I wasn't sure of was if it would leave me feeling heavy or overwhelmed. She talks about real life --and how many know sometimes real life leaves us feeling both of those things, right?

But here is the truth of what I found in the pages of her new book: Hope... 

Was there also Heaviness and Hard things,

Big Topics and Overwhelming Feelings?

Yes...but AND... 

Somehow all interwoven in the mix of it, Hope remained, as she says, 'the language fluent on her tongue' and it is a beautiful offering! 

The other truth I found here is while she goes into detail about sexual abuse, sickness, poverty, suicidal thoughts and attempts, mental illness, depression and being bipolar, she doesn't offer up solutions or quick fixes (because there are none!) or puts a band-aid on it all and says it's fine (because some days it's not!) or pretends to be on the other side of it all! 

And yet --from the messy middle,

this is what Alia does: 

She makes room. 

That's the thing about Alia... 

She is always making room

in the circle or around the table! 

She writes her own life stories in this book to reveal that this hasn't always been done for her. She's lived life on the outside... she's been short-changed, cheated, robbed, counted out, and sometimes been made to feel less than, not enough, or invisible. And maybe because of that, she goes out of her way to invite others in. 

Glorious Weakness offers Truth and Honesty and Hope that we all are in need of! 

It offers us insight and maybe the start of empathy and the beginning of understanding better our own battles and perhaps the battles that others around us are fighting, too. 

It is beautiful and brutal

   and poetic and powerful. 

I think it holds the ability to free us from the lie that weakness is something to be ashamed of, something to be hidden or denied or ran away from. 

Instead, we find that in the moment of our surrender and willingness to admit that we are weak is when His glory actually shows up and shows off!

I (almost literally) highlighted every page... -- and y'all know I'm the worst at picking favorites! -- but here are just a few of the many standout quotes from this gorgeous offering of words:

"Jesus knows the voices we face, and his promise to send a Comforter to be with us forever anticipates that our lives will be filled with grief and sorrow, with desert wanderings and our consuming and ever-present weakness. Why would we need a Comforter unless he knew we would be uncomfortable? Unless he knew we would need comforting?"

"Barren places long to be filled. Sometimes howling at the moon in the wastelands with our fists raised to the heavens is our most honest prayer for Jesus to come down from high and distant places we've relegated him to and walk with us on scorched and humble feet. Sometimes the holiest of ground is the emptiest." 

"Words are so simple. Just letters strung together. And yet they shift heaven and earth. They explode galaxies. They held space before we kept time. They have life and death contained in each strand, graced on open palms or piled like a burden."

"They didn’t know that sometimes God’s call home is harder than his command to go. Sometimes entering into a new kingdom looks a lot like forty years in the desert first. Sometimes keeping a language of hope fluent on your tongue with dust in your throat is the hardest thing of all."

 "If all warfare is based on deception, truth is the weapon to fight against the lies. The balm for our scars. To flourish in relationship we need a bridge of truth to connect us. The cross is the greatest truth we have. The X on the map, the way home, the treasure unearthed. The antidote for the voices that come for us is our true identity as beloved. The cross tells us the truth. I don’t know of a fiercer love than this: while we were sinners, Christ died for us. We are not shamed or self-satisfied, we are saved."

"Our growth isn’t linear, it’s circular. It bends back on itself and overlaps in ridged swirls and curves. We aren’t marching forward on a timeline so much as we’re adding rings to our core like aged oak, firming up roots, breaking bark raw, the shedding of ancient skins, limbs reaching and stretching and yearning for light... But God is not about upward mobility so much as inward expansion. God’s kingdom lives in the ever-widening rings, the core and the hollows. God’s kingdom growth starts in the dark and hidden places, in holy ground. In a seed busted open and yearning."

 Seriously, friends... There are entire pages

highlighted, underlined, tear-stained... 

This book is a gift - a beautiful offering... 
You won't read it and remain unchanged. 
You just might find that, as Alia says in the book,
we are all called to a ministry of weakness...
"...in fact, we cannot know grace without it."

Glorious Weakness is available wherever books are sold and it releases TODAY! (April 2, 2019) It is also available in an Audio version and there is something about the beauty and power of her words, in her own voice, that I think will be like Glory binding up the broken pieces.

You can find out more info about the author and all forms of the book by clicking HERE!

Wanna be Better for her words, too?

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Glorious Weakness by Alia Joy

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One More Thing

(for now...) 

I'm honored to be on two Book Launch Teams right now. Both are for books I have long anticipated, written by two of my favorite authors/humans! 

The one mentioned above, Glorious Weakness... and another one that releases today as well: The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman. 

Check back soon for a Book Review post for that one soon! 

(Spoiler Alert: I am LOVING it and it is one that I will

revisit over and over again!)

I'm also linking up with the lovely writer communities linked below:

Anita Ojeda for #INSPIREMEMONDAY

Mary Geisen for #TELLHISSTORY

Kelly Balarie for #RARALINKUP

Debbie Kitterman for  #TUNEINTHURSDAY

Lyli Dunbar for #FAITHONFIRE

 DID YOU KNOW? We have our very own (somewhat non-blog-related) podcast called THE CHANGING OUR MINDS PODCAST! Karrilee and her all grown up Girlie, Kayelyn, co-host this podcast and talk about Oh So Many random things!  Faith plays a part, sure... but it is more like joining us for coffee as we catch up on the couch or sitting at the table! We talk about whatever is on our minds and often reveal things that we used to think we knew... but we've changed our minds! We'd love to have you join us at the Table or a comfy couch as we catch up over a cup of something yummy and share life together! We invite you to SUBSCRIBE here to have the Podcast sent to your preferred listening device so you won't miss a thing! Also, follow us on Facebook to join in on the conversations!