This is Days 23 and 24 of a 31 Day Challenge. Catch up on the previous posts here.
If there is one book that I can say that changed my life, it would be Grace for the Good Girl. I've recommended Emily P. Freeman's most recent book, but this one, her first, was soul food. Like so many of the books that come into my life, this one found me. It was during a period when I was going through counseling, dragging up painful memories and analyzing them to better myself; not an enjoyable process. But Emily's words expressed what I couldn't yet say: I was a good girl trying to maintain a perfect image. I just hadn't realized everything yet.
This is another read to be sipped at and enjoyed leisurely. She uses scripture to show examples and truth, and also describes different ways "good girls" hide (because we can't show our mess). At the end of chapter, she provides a series of questions meant to reflect back over the chapter. Even though I often wanted to skip ahead, furiously desiring to know what else she had to say, I needed those pauses to fully digest everything she had said.
Those breaths before diving back into her book were like defragging your computer, necessary but it took time to process. All these bits of truth had been cut up and saved in ways that made my brain work harder and slower. I took (and still take) an unnecessary amount of time thinking through why I should or shouldn't do something, thinking through the consequences.
But as I read Grace for the Good Girl, truth about success and failure started to realign. My heart and head didn't have to work as hard to move forward and I stopped thinking so much.
I read this two years ago and am meaning to pick it up again before the close of 2015 (crazy to think 2016 is around the corner). I highly suggest this if you are a try-hard perfectionist like myself. If and when you do, I pray that it meets your heart at exactly the right time.
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