Nothing to Prove Review: A Book For You

I've not officially written a book review for you before.  It's a new thing I'm trying so just go with me on this for a minute.

So many of us (women) are striving.  We strive to be really good at all the things.  Often we drive ourselves to the edge of sanity to get there.  Our addiction to approval, praise and perfection and the lengths we go through to get there stretch us in ways that leave marks.  Scars even.  We are a performance, like based society and as women we are striving, maybe towards the wrong things in the wrong ways.

Jennie Allen, one of my very favorite authors and people on the planet, has written a book that has freed me from those striving places.  The Bible is our number one go to for healing and instruction, always.  God has also given words to others to teach us, Jennie has words to teach us and wisdom to share.  

I don't want to share all the details (because you should go read this book today!) but I want you to know that this book will free those places in your life where you are striving yet falling short. At every turn Jennie reminds us that we are enough because Jesus is enough.  With personal accounts, Biblical examples and words of truth and inspiration Jennie takes readers on a step by step journey through the pain of inadequacy to the freedom in Christ's enoughness (that may not be a word but we are going to pretend it is today).  There's talk of transparency and authenticity which ya'll know are two of my favorite words!  She baby steps us through each hidden crack of our feelings of inadequacy and heals them with the words of our Heavenly Father.

You can't miss out on this book, and I promise it will change you.  God is doing something in the words FREEDOM and BROKEN this year, I believe it.  He has so many of our leaders speaking truth into these words. Let's set our lives up to hear from people teaching truth about doing life together, being enough in Christ and being broken before with each other and our Father. Say yes to Nothing to Prove, read it's pages and let it sink into your soul. Then message me and tell me all the things God is teaching you through these words, because I am certain He has a word for his girls through this book.  

I am sharing this review not because I get some special benefit from it (I was on Jennie's launch team so I got to read the book early, but that's where it stops). I want you to read this book because I know it will change us for the better, because I know God is working in this and I want us all to be apart of these places that will set us free.  Imagine if every woman operated under the idea that she was enough in Christ.  What an army we will be!

Free is where our creator wants us to be, He created you for such a time as this, you were made BEAUTIFULLY FEARFULLY and WONDERFULLY in his perfect image...you have nothing to prove in your life with him, he has already declared you enough sweet girl!

Go get this book so you can read the words that changed me. Click here Nothing to Prove Amazon to order your copy.

Much Love,

Chrystan

PS- I'm headed to IF:Gathering in Austin, Texas this weekend (back to my home state!) Are you participating in IF? If not you can live stream it, check out the details here!

To recognize our need for God is the beginning of our finding him ~Jennie Allen Nothing to Prove

Underneath

It is officially winter on Ferrell Farms.  The sky is deary, the days are short, it's cold and there is snow.  Let me peel back a layer of myself and tell you I despise winter.  It is just all the things.  I don't like being cold, I can't drive in winter weather due to a car vs black ice situation that could have ended my life and I have seasonal depression so there's that. WINTER, yuck.  However, I have seen some beautiful things around me this winter that called me outside with the little's this weekend.

There was white snow on the ground around the farm this week and it has been so pretty to look at.  Except that under snow there was mud.  Nasty, dirty icky mud.  The ground was so saturated that my boots were sinking down into the mud.  Which left the snow dirty and my boots (and little boys) filthy.

The last few years I have been all in and committed to transparency.  I don't want any woman to begin talking to me, hear me speak or read my blog and think she just has it all together. I always want you to be reminded that I am a hot mess.  There is no perfection in the lines of these words.  I am 100% washed in the grace and blood of Jesus and that is the only way this hot mess steps one foot in front of the other most days.  So, I have a group of women (my prayer group that is now a part of the Imperfectly Brave movement, you can join in too!) that I am nothing but 100% real with.  This week they literally heard me talk about how I have felt so out of sync with God these last two weeks.  I told them all the yucky places while they all sat around my farmhouse table and nodded their heads.  Their pointing fingers were down, they were judgement free and they let me say all the things.  Then they prayed with me. I cry with them I laugh with them and we are so real.  From that group I have realized we just need to be so very real with each other. If we walk in perfection, there is no room for Jesus.  If I act like I've got this all under control then I can't show you that it is only through Christ that I am even keeping my head a float.

Under the snow, was the mud.  But the mud reminded me that there is life, real true growing life under there.  Snow is the precipitation that keeps our ground watered and prepared for the planting and the harvest.  The mud holds that all together till the harvest comes.  There is beauty in each role, the snow, the mud, the yucky of it all holds a beautiful picture in the end.  I want to present Jesus in a good light, I want to be washed white and I am, but then I get muddy again and there is grace.  Wash, rinse and repeat.  Perfection only takes away from the beauty of grace, and ladies grace is where it's at.  May I always be reminded of the hot mess that Jesus loves so fiercely he gave his life away for all the mess to be washed in the blood and remade into a beautiful daughter of the most high King.

I took my eyes off the prize last week and in my transparency I found it all again. In my weakness he stayed strong, sought me out and brought me back. It's not different for you sweet girl.  You can be real, there are people out there that need you to show the imperfection to see the work that the Lord has done and is doing.  May we all find grace in the muddy places, for the harvest will be plentiful.

Much Love,
Chrystan