You know that thing you dread each week? Mine’s Monday mornings. Not because it’s the end of the weekend, but because it’s my daughter’s treatment team meeting, where I have to make decisions I don’t want to deal with.
“Should we pursue another specialist consult for Angel?”
“How do we handle new troubling behaviors?”
“Will we spend Christmas morning at the residential unit with her?” and “How the heck is THAT going to work?”
Hard questions to consider. Harder to answer. And, because I’m a perfectionist responsible, questions that press on me like solid lead.
My guest today gets that, too. Her new book challenges all of us perfectionists to face grace head-on. Through her story, she invites us to (re)discover grace and find freedom from the need to control life. Please welcome Grace For The Good Girl author Emily Freeman!
My husband and I live in North Carolina with our three kids. We have been married for 10 years –
…this last year has probably been the most difficult as well as the sweetest of the 10. He is a youth pastor and I lead a small group of junior girls at our church.We have two daughters who are twins in second grade and a son in preschool. I’m also a writer, a job I still can’t believe I have. I’ve always wanted to be a writer but I don’t think I realized that until a few years ago. As dream-come-trues often are, it’s a gift as well as a burden. I am truly thankful.
I’m not sure I’d say any challenge led me to write my book. I think it was more of a burden, more of a if I don’t write this book, I might explode. This book was many years in the making, years of knowing a fair amount about holiness, discipline, obedience and rules but longing to understand this thing called grace.
Watching women and high school girls around me try-hard to live life as believers really motivated me to write, as I lived that try-hard way for many years and realized that life is too hard to handle, really.Sometimes when we try so hard to do life right, we never know what it means to live life well. I needed to flesh that out. The book was how I did that.
Q: What do you think makes grace so hard to understand for all us “good girls”?
Simply that it has no boundaries. Good girls like lists and outlines and tangibles. Grace doesn’t have bullet points or corners. That can be uncomfortable for those of us who are used to holding onto this life with both hands. We are comfortable earning our rewards. Grace says we can’t and quite honestly, that feels a little offensive.
I hear this line all the time: I didn’t think I was a good girl until I read your book.
I think women are surprised to realize that being a good girl isn’t necessarily about how good of a life you’ve led. Rather, it’s simply those of us who want so desperately to be good yet we never believe we can be good enough.
I struggle with understanding grace. I always think I am not doing everything right or enough. I would love to win this book!
This looks like a great book!!! I def need to read it!
As a perfectionist and ruler follower, I definitely struggle with feeling good enough. I would love to win this book!