for the good girl

In just six sentences of her book, Grace for the Good Girl, Emily Freeman manages to define me, to call out the way I lived for a long time.

If my story were a planet, then your rejection of me would be my nuclear holocaust. This fear of rejection drives me hard, eating away at my courage. And so I am cautious in my love. I am timid in my faith. My life tells a small story. I long to be seen, but I feel safe when I'm invisible. So I stay a good girl. And I hide. 

                                       -Emily Freeman, Grace for the Good Girl (page 17)

For the next nine chapters, Emily continues to define a good girl, peeling back the layers to reveal how she hides and why. And even though Emily used personal anecdote and narrative from the lives of fellow good girls, it felt like she had been listening to my own thoughts as she wrote these pages.

The fake fine, the strong and responsible act, the rule-following and even the indifference are excellent masks for the fear and insecurity and worry this good girl often feels. And just when the old shame and guilt and anxiety of hiding set in once again, Emily spends the last half of the book pointing the way to the freedom found when I give up my striving in favor of resting and remaining in the One who gives peace and grace in abundance.

While I knew, as a recovering good-girl, Grace for the Good Girl would have something for me, I never could have imagined just how much reading this book was like looking in a mirror. And I never could have imagined just how immediately relevant its content was, how I could put it into practice even before I turned the last page. 


Living the life of a good girl is exhausting. It is peace-stealing, joy-robbing and rest-depriving. And with great honesty and authenticity, Emily's writing pours out the same freedom and grace she invites the reader to receive, offering a better way - the way of a life hidden deeply in the heart of Christ.

 

So here's the question: are you a good girl? If so, I encourage you to pick up Grace for the Good Girl. It's available at your favorite bookseller this month, September 2011, from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group. I promise it's worth your time.

***Revell graciously provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.***