I’ve been drifting at the edges of the human trafficking issue for a year or two now, joining my church in the Hope for Freedom cause, reading, talking, networking. I have sat with prostitutes who were trafficked into the trade by relatives and “safe” friends. I’ve heard their stories and seen their redemption. I’ve seen homes for restoring the souls of young girls. And I’ve read. I’ve read news reports of raids, successful and not. I’ve read books that were released, both secular and Christian. I’ve done what I could, within the confines of my suburban life, to engage in the fight for those with no voice, no justice.

Somehow, however, that deepest well of emotion that lives inside me has not been tapped. Maybe it’s the words we use: human trafficking, modern day abolitionist, modern day slavery. They are cold, distanced. Maybe it’s the size of the numbers: 27 million in slavery. It’s too big a number, and it seems unreal. Maybe it’s just my own selfishness and blindness, living in my insulated life. I have cared about the issue. I have worked for it. I have prayed over it. But I haven’t really lived it.

Until now.

I just finished reading God in a Brothel, An Undercover Journey into Sex Trafficking and Rescue by Daniel Walker. Somehow this book has hit me harder than any of the others I’ve read. For one thing, the book is written in the first person. There are few dry statistics here: most of the book is first hand experience. Walker infiltrated the kinds of places we’ve only seen in movies, the dark and dangerous corners of the world. He put himself on the line to covertly photograph and record financial transactions. He looked into the eyes of the six year old girl offered to him for his own pleasure, and he lived with the grief when he couldn’t find her again to rescue her.

Somehow, I felt it. I felt it in the pit of my stomach.

This is a dangerous book. It will wreck you on many levels. And I need to warn you, it is not a pretty book. Walker doesn’t spare us. He shows us how the go-go bars in South East Asia operate. He lets us feel the fear of girls who refuse to talk about their captors. Perhaps most gut wrenching, he talks about the temptations for him, bombarded on every side by the moral perversion of the sex industry.

And oh yes, just about the time my American soul feels self-righteous about the standard of our country, Walker takes us to Las Vegas and Atlanta. Ouch. Worse, he tells us why investigations in those cities will never go anywhere.

It’s a complicated world we live in. Some of these girls are in their industry by choice, and so do not fall under the umbrella of trafficking. Some of them were deceived by friends, or kidnapped by strangers. Saving them isn’t always easy, and the right answers aren’t always the obvious ones. But the cause of justice — the cause God gave to all of us — demands that we try.

Walker actually went and did something about it.

Read this book, if you dare.

NVader is Daniel Walker’s startup ministry to combat individual cases of human trafficking.

I end with a card given to Walker following the rescue of 13 year old Melissa — a girl who now wants to be a lawyer to help fight the injustice of trafficking.

I wish that you will never be tired of helping such many children like me. I’m so lucky for the opportunity that you gave. Thank you for all the help and support that you have given and showed me. I promise I will try my best to achieve all my goals in life. I’ll reach for them, I’ll try my best to succeed. I will never forget you, never.

I just finished reading Mark Batterson’s latest book, The Circle Maker. If you have followed Coffee Shop Journal at all, you know that Batterson is one of my favorite authors in the current Christian landscape. So I have been slowly savoring The Circle Maker, letting its message sink deep rather than skimming the surface of my mind.

The premise of The Circle Maker is simple: God honors the prayers we pray. Hardly ground-breaking! But Batterson frames The Circle Maker in an ancient Jewish tale that takes prayer to a new place. There was, once upon a time, a Jewish prophet named Honi. Honi lived at a time when drought was torturing Israel, and it was time for Honi to pray on his country’s behalf. So Honi literally drew a circle in the dry sand, stepped inside it, and pledged not to leave until God answered his prayer.

It sprinkled.

Honi prayed again.

It rained cats and dogs and threatened to flood the nation.

Honi prayed again until a gentle rain fell.

Using Honi’s story mixed with stories from Batterson’s National Community Church and his own life, Batterson encourages us to circle – metaphorically and often literally – the dreams we have for our own lives, the dreams God planted. Pray, think long term, let your prayers build your legacy: Batterson encourages us over and over to do the hard work of bringing ourselves and our lives into harmony with God’s plan for us.

I spent some time recently thinking about the “circles” in my life.

While Mark Batterson was walking circles around the city of Washington DC (and I say we need more people walking circles and praying in Washington DC!), I feel as if sometimes I’ve just been walking IN circles. May I be honest? Sometimes I’m not so sure that my prayers are much different than the “positive affirmations” that pop psych gurus like to peddle off on us. I pray them, regularly, but I sometimes forget that someone is LISTENING to them.

God honors our prayers.

But do our prayers honor God?

I pray — most of the time — wimpy little me-sized prayers instead of the kind that have me shaking in my boots. At church this weekend we called those kind of prayers audacious prayers. Batterson reminds us that God loves those kind of prayers, because everyone knows that only he could accomplish them. Only God could possibly have one such a thing.

I don’t want to live my life missing out on God-sized answers to prayer.

I need to be drawing audacious circles and then standing in them.

If you want to get more information about The Circle Maker and watch some cool trailers, go to TheCircleMaker.

Toy Story: revival of classic storytelling

It’s been awhile since I have done a book review, and this isn’t one either. Not really. But I recently read The Pixar Touch by David A. Price.

I picked up the book a week or two ago…but wait…that isn’t true. Sitting in my QEpiphany conference I realized I wanted to read more about Pixar. After all, we were deconstructing Toy Story 2 and learning the backstory of the process. I wanted to know more. So I grabbed my iPad, searched Amazon Kindle and downloaded what looked like the most appropriate book. I have never held the book in my hands.

A perfect illustration of the first lesson I learned from both the book and from Pixar: technology disrupts. It makes the “good old boys nervous.” Some people will tell you that the technology is ruining the integrity of what came before. What would animation be without hand drawn cels? It would be different. But equally amazing. And that gets people’s feathers ruffled.

Lesson: When you are going to venture into a whole new world, be prepared to spend some time bringing others along and smoothing down their feathers.

The second lesson quickly follows the first: yesterday’s skill set may not be enough to meet today’s challenge, but it will probably provide the foundation for the skills that will meet the challenge. Without the skilled hand animators, Pixar would never have been able to hit the right balance in their computer generated characters. It required the eye, the deep background and the artistic sense that only animators possessed.

Lesson: Don’t despise the skill sets of yesterday. Figure out what they knew. It may be crucial to you today.

Finally (because research tells me your attention has already waned)…

Lesson: Nothing — repeat — NOTHING beats a good story, well written.

Great book...with some interesting background on Steve Jobs' time at Pixar.

It slips my mind, sometimes, that someone reading my posts may not know where they are written. With very few exceptions, most of my writing is done in Starbucks. If I didn’t write the actual post there, I at least scribbled notes to remind me later of the direction I’m going to take.

I don’t know all the reasons why Starbucks is my choice, but one of them is because it simply isn’t HOME. I can come here and focus, be myself, daydream and create. At home, well there’s laundry to be done, a new magazine in the mail, roaming dogs who terrorize me at every opportunity. The stuff of life. I connect with myself better — sometimes — when I’m not so surrounded by myself.

The other day I listened to two guys do the same at Starbucks. One was a regular, Dan, and I never caught the other’s name. Let’s call him Fred. These two guys began jabbering, and when I got up to go, literally two hours later, they were still jabbering. In the course of the hours they covered politics (conservative, but Dan has a liberal bent that inclines him to social justice), chiropractic (Fred is a chiropractor, and was convincing Dan — accurately in my humble opinion! — that chiropractic care could help him recover from his recent shoulder surgery), the military (both served, one flew planes, the other loved them). They covered their families, their work habits, their Starbucks drinks. They circled back around to why character and integrity matter in politics more than party affiliation, though each were registered Republicans. In short, they connected.

It was a life group in action. What do you call it at your church? At ours, during various moments, they have been life groups, journey groups, small groups, affinity groups. Whatever your definition, these two men joined a small group.

But let me ask you this question: when was the last time you saw two men begin with a passing nod acquaintance and end up with an intimacy and a feeling of belonging to the same tribe over the course of two hours?

That’s the genius of living life out in the community, in third places, shoulder to shoulder with your neighbors and strangers. Alan Hirsch, in his new book RIght Here Right now, says that “We have to be able to speak meaningfully into a culture, but in order to do that, we have to seriously examine a given culture for clues to what God is doing among a people….what is good new for THIS people?” My friend Dan was doing that. He was listening to Fred and conversing with him where he was at, the conversation meandering. And because it took place in this third place, others were welcome to join in or not. Some did, interacting as long as time and circumstances allowed. Others didn’t, living their own lives.

Either way, small group was had here in Starbucks, and a whole bunch of us got to join in.

I’m making the choice to go for community wherever possible. After all, I’m, pretty sure that’s where Jesus hung out. I just wonder if he’d have picked MY Starbucks!

I’ve noticed a spike in traffic to my book review of Radical, by David Platt. This makes me unbelievably happy, because it means that somewhere there are folks out there who are just discovering the journey to being a radical Christian, a Christian whose life is sold out for the kingdom.

So for those of you I thought it would be interesting to look back on my year post-Radical (the book, not the concept!) and see whether or not the book actually did impact my life like I thought it would. Here were David Platt’s goals for the one year challenge:

I know it is kind of skipping ahead, but do you want to hear the one year challenge?

1. Pray for the entire world.
2. Read through the entire Bible in one year.
3. Sacrifice your money for a specific purpose.
4. Spend your time in another context.
5. Commit your life to multiplying community.

I looked at that list last year and quaked. I look at that list this year and quake. But not quite as much. So in the spirit of utter transparency, here’s how my year went in light of the one year challenge.

1. Pray for the entire world. I’m tempted to say, “Yes, of course I did. Lord, heal the entire world.” But the kind of country by country praying that David Platt encourages fell by the wayside after about two weeks. Which, not coincidentally, is about the length of time most New Year’s resolutions last. What did remain for me, however, was a focus of praying for the countries with which I came in contact. When a piece of news hit the broadcasts, I would go to the Operation World website to read about that country’s challenges and pray for them. A friend has left to travel the world fighting human trafficking, and every country she goes to also gets researched. So bottom line on challenge number 1? I’d give myself a solid B-.
2. Read the Bible through in one year. This challenge alone has changed my life. I found a daily reading plan online that separates the Bible into genre types (wisdom literature, history, prophecy, gospels etc.). Every day you read a different type of genre. By following the plan for a year I have, indeed, read the Bible in a year and am onto my next year. Now there may be a few dropped days, but most of the time I made those up. The day you read the Psalms is usually pretty light, so I used it for makeup days. Part way through through the year I began reading with my journal open and my ears more open than ever before. Transformational. Now, this reading is the first thing I do when I flop into my soft chair at Starbucks. In a way, God, is my morning coffee date! Bottom line on this one? A+.
3. Sacrifice your money for a specific purpose. Sacrifice? Yes, we’ve intentionally denied ourselves some of what we would have previously spent, and have chosen to use it for kingdom purposes. But after a year, I can’t call it sacrifice anymore. It’s an amazing privilege. We have not narrowed our giving to a specific purpose, though I notice “themes” in our giving choices. There have been some other really cool decisions in light of radical generosity in our lives, too, but I’m not going to discuss them here. Bottom line? An A, but I have a huge desire for extra credit!
4. Spend your time in another context. Nope. Failed. Some of my family succeeded in this one, but not me. With this one exception: I did choose to get out of my contexts in my own culture around town at times. Still, not enough. This needs to be a goal for next year. The best I can say is that Radical opened my eyes to my ethnocentricity (big word!) and to the fact that I have NOT gotten out of my home context in a very long time. Maybe that’s progress, but I still give myself an F.
5. Commit your life to multiplying community. Multiplying community IS my life. It’s what I love to do. Over the course of the year David and I have noticed that one of our strengths seems to be connecting people, whether it’s across church campuses, across the community, our across the country. I expect to see more of that in the years to come as we personally transition from one phase of life to another. Bottom line? Let’s say a B+.

So how is that? There’s so much more that I would like to do, so many ways I let myself down this year. But many of those action points can be directly traced back to reading Radical. For one book (among so many that I read day in and day out!) to actually effect a change in my day to day habits is a stunning achievement. Even in the areas I’ve not done as well as I might, there is an awareness of a still, small voice reminding me that there is more to life than my day to day concerns.

Getting ready to read Radical? Go for it! Even the smallest changes you make in your Christian life will push you toward being a Radical. But there’s a warning: you will never shop the same, eat the same, read the same, watch tv the same, or even travel the same. Be ready for the adventure!

An embroidered throw -- like this one, but not this exact one -- is a reminder of my covenant to pray.

I think the Israelites would have conquered the Promised Land in half the time if they’d just skipped building stone pillars, memorials and altars all over the country. I honestly believe they were a nation of stone masons! I’m sure you’ve noticed it too: every few chapters they were building an altar to remember the lesson God had just taught them.

In Soulprint, by Mark Batterson, I’ve been reading about the concept of “lifesymbols.” Lifesymbols are symbols of the defining moments in our lives. Batterson describes an oxygen mask, one of his own lifesymbols. He keeps this oxygen mask, the one that was used when he almost lost his life in the hospital, but realized that God’s decision to save him meant God had a continuing plan for his life.

Our defining moments double as altars to God…Like David, we need holy keepsakes to remind us where we’ve been and where we’re headed….Without these physical reminders, we quickly forget the spiritual lessons we’ve learned along the way. I call those physical reminders “lifesymbols.”And they come in every every size and shape imaginable, including oxygen masks.”

I love the idea of lifesymbols, and realized that I’ve been collecting them myself without having a lovely name to call them until now. What are some of my lifesymbols?

• I keep all my journals together on my bookshelf. Looking at them — even without reading them — reminds me of who I dreamed I would be when I was in seventh grade (my earliest journal), when I was waiting for my children, and last year, when I was realizing that I’d better decide who to be pretty quickly! Looking at your life lined up on a bookshelf is both humbling and inspiring.
• Oregon postcards. One of the nicely framed pieces of art in my house is really just three post cards from Oregon. I love my family, and I have a large selection of precious friends and family who live in Oregon. Looking at that artwork reminds me to pray for them and reminds me of all the times they have spoken into my life. I have other frames filled with other places and other people, all of whom are important to us.
• A handstitched throw on my living room couch comes from Jerusalem. It, along with a stone cross from the year 300, remind me of our trip to Israel last year. While we were there we covenanted to pray for something specific, one of those requests you write on a tiny slip of paper and cram into the Western Wall. Every time I see the throw, bought in the Jewish quarter at the corner of King David Street (Ah! To think such places exist!), I’m reminded of my covenant and of God’s promises to me. I pray.
• Bibles from my grandparents — all four of them — well-used.
• Strange momentos, such as my dad’s patient id card for Dana Farber Cancer institute (God was faithful to bring us through!), the birth certificate of the man my grandmother helped to raise (Our family reaches out to take in others), World of Coke 3-D glasses in my parka pocket (friendships are a gift of God, cross generational lines, and last forever even if we only see each other on Facebook).

Thinking back to soon-to-be-King David, he kept the armor of the giant Goliath. Every time he looked at that armor, prayer and praise had to rise up in his chest. When I look at my lifesymbols scattered here or there throughout my home, I’m reminded that God has always been working in and through my life. “I need to identify the story lines that the Author of my faith is scripting for me,” says Batterson. “Lifesymbols are like cue cards that help us remember His script.”

Batterson calls this kind of memory searching “memory management and stewardship.” God has placed these memories in me for a purpose. They are encoded in my brain and define who I am…for a purpose.

“Life is lived forward, but it is relived backward. Part of discovering your soulprint is seeing the purposes of God in your past experiences. The past is not circumstantial. The past is providential.”

What about your lifesymbols? What are they? What do they say about your “story line?”

There are no ordinary people. You have never met a mere mortal.”

– CS Lewis

Who am I now that I’m not who I was?

This is a question that has been running around my head for the past year. David and I are, predictably, in a season of change in our lives. Part of that change was inevitable: our kids are moving out and all those responsibilities will soon rest mainly on their shoulders. This is an amazing transition, and it has humbled me to watch the girls begin it. Another part of our season of change is due to our family circumstances. We just sold my dad’s business in Boston, and are now entering a new phase in our own business lives as a result. Put both these circumstances together and — in my opinion — you have an opportunity for God to step in and write His story all over your future!

So this is the state of affairs as I begin to read Soulprint, by Mark Batterson. You may remember that Mark’s first book, “In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day,” was my first in-depth blog review and set the course for not only Coffee Shop Journal, but my spiritual growth plan for the past four years. (You can find the first of the Lion posts here, if you want to go back and read them.) Mark has since written two other books which I have thoroughly enjoyed, but didn’t impact me like Lion.

Soulprint is getting ready to set my course for the next few years. In a return to the kind of vision of hope that moved me years ago, Mark Batterson is writing about God’s unique plan for us to step into our future and accept the vision God has for each of us. Our fingerprints, he says, are unique. So are our “soulprints.” An that uniqueness is not just God’s unbelievable gift to you, the lottery you won in life. It is a responsiblity! He has planned for you to be…YOURSELF!

Is that not the most amazing thought?

You are good enough to do the task God has designed for you. As Mark says in the first chapter, “You were created to worship God in a way that no one else can. How? By living a life no one else can — your life. You have a unique destiny to fulfill, and no one can take your place. You place an irreplaceable role in God’s grand narrative.” Anything less than being all that God created us to be amounts to forfeiting our spiritual birthright.

Stop and think about that again.

How many times have we read the story of Esau in Genesis 26 and wondered how in the world could Esau have sold his birthright for…soup? Really, Esau? Soup?

But maybe we are doing the same thing. Oh, we might be selling for a slightly higher price — at least a few filet mignon dinners — but when we stop being all we can be, we’ve sold out just like Esau.

“Let this promise soak into your spirit…It’s never too late to be who you might have been.”

For the rest of the book, Batterson uses the life of David to illustrate how God takes all the moments of our life and connects the dots into the role he has for us to play.

“Every past experience is preparation for some future opportunity. And one way God redeems the past is by helping us see it through His eyes, His providence. So the key to fulfilling your future destiny is in your past memories.”

David the lion-killer (oh! There come the lions again!) is transformed into David the giant-killer. God is literally hand-crafting us one at a time for the destiny He planned.

I don’t know about you, but those thoughts challenged and comforted me. My mind went back to the day we sold the business up north. On the phone with Buddy Hoffman, a pastor and dear friend who has mentored us over the years, I was wondering out loud what was next for us. Buddy said, “One thing you know: it will look nothing like the past and yet it will also look everything like the past.” It’s good to know that God never expected me to be my Dad, or my Mom, or my pastor, or Mark Batterson, or the many authors I admire. He never planned for me to plan my life around them or anyone else. He planned for me to be me.

“The end goal is not a revelation of who you are. The end goal is a revelation of who God is. After all, you won’t find yourself until you find God. The only way to discover who you are is to discover who God is because you are made in His image….He sets us free from who we’re not, so we can become who we were destined to be.”

– Soulprint

[I rarely do in-depth processing of books on the blog, usually settling for a brief recommendation and what I learned from a particular book or author. But Soulprint is hitting me at a deeper level...so be prepared for at least several posts while I take this journey! And take my advice...go grab a copy.]

This is one of my definitions for a small burst of happiness: Starbucks with my coffee, Ipad and journal!! Seizing little moments of happiness makes us happier overall.

I will confess: I’m a  ”happiness” junkie.

It’s not entirely my fault, being born with my own particular DNA which makes it impossible for me to live in a depressed state for long. There have been times, however, when I’ve slumped into that “I don’t really care about the world just let me sit on my couch” state of being for one reason or another. During those moments, the sunshiny days of being happy for no particular reason at all seem far, far away. About as far away as the kingdom of Far, Far Away.

My faith, however, always points the way back for me, and happiness is the most amazing gift, given by God. In the book of Philippians He tells us to think about good things, lovely things, true things. It’s good advice — and advice born out by scientific proof, by the way — and it never fails to turn the corner for me. I change what I think about and I change how I feel.

I’ve noticed an upsurge in interest in the field of happiness (or positive psychology) in the bookstores lately. And I am intrigued. I’m always intrigued when scientific inquiry and faith come together like that. The basic premise of the happiness research revolves around the concept of neuroplasticity: that the  brain can rewire itself and learn, grow, change. As Christians, we’ve always known this. After all, Romans tells us that our lives can be transformed by the renewing of our minds. God changes us from the inside out. Now science has proven the fact that our brains physically change in response to learning with all sorts of fun studies. One such study focused on London cabbies, who apparently have to carry around an incredibly complex map of their city in their brains, resulting in one area (the hippocampus) which grows larger than the normal person’s hippocampus. I didn’t even know I had one, but apparently mine is not all that spectacular compared to a cabbie’s.

In any event, the big news is this: we can teach our brains to think differently. We can teach ourselves to do what God commanded, and be…happy.

So let’s!

This blog is the first in a series on some of the happiness research and what it means for us in everyday life. There are some concrete ways that we can “think on the things that are lovely and true,” following God’s advice. I think it will be interesting to give ourselves permission to experience happiness, joy, and the peace that passes understanding…no matter what the circumstances around us say.

Incidentally, the way I refocused my thoughts during those blue times and began thinking new thoughts should hardly surprise you. I went to the bookstore. I smelled the lovely smell of new books. I picked some up books half-heartedly, and found myself interested. I went home with a couple to read. A hot tub, a good book and time to read them? Mission accomplished.

So there’s your first principle to finding happiness: change what you are looking at.

Further Reading

The Happiness Advantage by Shaun Achor

It is a quiet October afternoon and I’m looking forward to a yummy dinner with my in-laws tonight. Jillian is working and then shopping, Kylie is in Georgia, David is working away in his office, and two dogs are trying hard to play with/ignore each other. In other words, a calm, peaceful slice of time.

I, of course, am reading. Well, I was until I started writing.

It just occurred to me (and seemed worth writing) that I have traveled miles and miles in this past week, back and forth through time. All because I’ve been reading such a diverse group of books. As our literal travels take us here or there, I pick up book inspirations from each stop. Might I add, the Harvard Coop is a gold mine. Although they do have mice running around, which was disconcerting. And with my iPad and iPhone, it doesn’t take much for inspiration to strike.

Just a sampling from recent days:

The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven by Kevin Malarkey.

This was a phenomenal book about a father in son who were in what should have been (and in some senses, was) a fatal car accident. The six year old son Alex was presumed to be dead, but managed to survive in an extended coma. During that time he was allowed glimpses into heaven. As committed Christians, the author and his son both understood the importance of what Alex had been allowed to see. His story is amazing, and well worth the time I spent traveling to heaven and back with little Alex.

Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick

I’m only up to chapter two of this book by one of my favorite preachers, but it’s already challenging me to “think audaciously” about what we can do for God.

The Next Christians by Gabe Lyons

Definitely one of those books that we should all read. Gabe puts on the Q conference each year (a highlight of my year), and this book (a follow-up to his first work, UnChristian) captures some of the essence of Q. Essentially the main idea is this: Christians are called to broaden their definition of the gospel and become “restorers” of God’s kingdom in this world. I love the concept. Read it: he writes better than I do.

This Beautiful Mess: Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom of God by Rick Mckinley

My bloggy friend Diane recommended this to me recently, and she apparently knows exactly what books I need to read and when. This is a phenomenal reminder that life in the kingdom is a journey, and that sometimes that journey isn’t linear but is full of twists and turns and messes. Imperfect people don’t always get it right, but they are on the journey. If you are feeling stressed by the illogic of people around you, this book might speak to the wonder of what God’s doing in their lives. It gives you new eyes!

The Creative habit: Learn it and Use it for Life

This is a book on harnessing your creativity by choreographer Twyla Tharp. It’s opening up new ways of looking at life for me, and inspires me to put the book down and create something. Which means it is taking me a long time to read the book, but that’s ok. It will keep.

Wholly Jesus by Mark Foreman

I’ve just begun this book on the wholeness we can find only in our faith, but it is one of those books that lays a great foundation for growth. Really looking forward to this one over the next few weeks.

That’s still only a partial list, but seeing them altogether like that helps me realize where some of my strange thoughts actually come from! They are a synthesis of all that goes in my mind. An old quote reminds me that “You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the experiences you have, the people you meet and the books you read.” So read on!

Embrace Me, by Lisa Samson

The hidden secret, the one no one wants to talk about, is that we are all broken.

It’s true, isn’t it? Pick out the super star, the guy or gal or couple that seems to have it all. Find the person who, by whatever standard you can imagine, seems to be on top of the heap. Spend some time with that person. Spend good time, quality time. Begin sharing your hearts. And you will find that underneath there is a person who has been beaten up by the world in one way or another. Because we are all broken. We just don’t all want to admit it.

This summer I read a book by Lisa Samson that brought that truth home to me in such a beautiful way.  The story centers around the life and friendships of people who traveled in a side show (or a freak show, said less politically correct). Each of these characters, now enjoying their off season resting in a little bed and breakfast, are impacted by their individual oddities. Valentine is horrible burned and scarred, and now makes her living billed as the “Reptile Woman.” Her best friend Lella has no arms and no legs. Valentine tenderly takes care of her every need, while feeling unworthy of Lella’s frequent thank you’s. Rick is a contortionist. And all of them are discovered by Gus, a tattoo-covered missional monk who is living in a converted laundromat downtown.

The course of this book follows the awakening of faith in each of these characters, and the building of community out of the unlikely beginning of the freak show. It’s a beautiful picture of the church. Reading Embrace Me made me realize just how beautiful broken people really are. The skills, the wounds, the quirks and flaw are part of what make up the mosaic of life. If we can learn to appreciate our own brokenness as the journey God has brought us on, we can learn to appreciate brokenness in others. And it is in that acceptance that real community is formed.

Embrace Me is a fun story. It was just right for the back porch on a quiet summer day. But it surprised me in the end, when I realized that there is a deep longing in all of us for others to see our brokenness and love us unconditionally anyway.