Welcome to the second week of our loosely organized summer book club/discussion/read-along. Today we’ll be discussing Chapters 4 – 6 of Grace for the Good Girl. You may also wish to join us on Facebook where we’ll continue discussion in a closed group, for those who aren’t comfortable leaving their thoughts in the comments.
if I had it to do over again…
If I had it to do over again, I would have made part one shorter. At the time, I felt I needed a full nine chapters to really unpack the good girl issues, to paint a clear picture of her struggles and give women every opportunity to connect with what might be going on beneath the try-hard, pleasant, strong surface.
Now that I have a couple of years of writing and relating with women on these topics, I wish I had condensed those chapters simply to get to the hope part more quickly. When I outlined the teen book on this same subject, I organized it differently. I’m not sure younger girls would hang with me for long if they didn’t see hope.
So thank you for hanging with me, for doing the hard work of discovery and listening. I hope as you’ve been reading, you haven’t felt too stuck. I made great attempts to weave hope and victory throughout these early chapters, but when you are uncovering some of your hiding ways, it can be hard to see if you aren’t looking for it.
the chapter that isn’t in the book – hiding behind her apologies
One interaction I am not surprised to see during our discussion so far is how many of us apologize for stuff – from being too honest to not reading the chapters on time. It’s actually kind of funny, if you think about it. Put a crowd of good girls in a room (even a Facebook room) and we’re bound to start apologizing for things we feel ashamed of.
In a way, obsessively apologizing is part of the hiding. We sorry our way right out of our own personalities. We apologize for not being fine. We apologize for needing help. We apologize for being emotional, inarticulate, not having answers. Sometimes we even apologize for apologizing.
When guests come over, have you ever heard yourself pointing out the mess to them and apologizing for all the imperfections even though you know that they probably don’t care and it doesn’t really matter?
When the dinner dishes still sit in the sink from dinner two nights ago, do you hear yourself apologize to your husband for it, almost like you want to point out the flaws first before he gets a chance to do it even though he’s not that kind of guy?
I completely accept your flaws but I am strictly opposed to my own. What I’m really saying is, Attention everyone! I have a very important announcement to make – I am a human being and I am ever so sorry about that.
But a true sorry is not about me. Saying sorry is a bad idea when it is used to cover up our beautiful, vulnerable, fragile humanity.
Save the apologies for real wounds, for soul sorrow, for widow grief. Save the apologies for when you really wreck things up and need to seek forgiveness. Save them for when we need to hear it. Otherwise your apology is just an empty space filler, something you are expected to say like, “I’m fine, how are you?”
more on the hiding
I nearly left chapter four out of the book. I wrestled with it, struggled through it, worried that it was coming across like we always have to tell everyone all the time how we feel about stuff. And I don’t think that’s true.
Chapter four would wake me up at night in hot sweats, worried I would be misquoted or misunderstood. You know how much good girls hate that. I wanted to be sensitive to the real problem of women hiding behind I’m fine, how are you? while still recognizing and respecting the fact that there are real, clinical and physical issues that need professional counsel and perspective. And that simply being honest about your emotions isn’t always enough.
We talked about two reasons good girls hide behind their fake fine. The first is fear, because if I’m really honest with you, you might run in the opposite direction. The second is laziness, because sometimes it just takes too much energy to tell you what’s going on. I’d rather just keep to myself because it’s easier and maybe you don’t really want to know, anyway.
Hiding behind fine can be a dark, lonely place to live.
Chapter five is packed full with good girl ways. How I would love to sit in Martha’s kitchen and ask what was going through her head that day when Jesus came for lunch. Martha strikes me as a different kind of good girl than me. It doesn’t seem as though Martha would ever hide behind a mask of fine. When she was un-fine, she was not afraid to say so. I really like that about her.
She and Julia Sugarbaker could have had their own show.
But the other thing about Martha, the part of her I see in myself, is this intrinsic belief that if she didn’t do the work, it would never get done. How much we miss out on when we think we are irreplaceable, when we think we have to hold everything together. What would happen if we dropped all our balls and ran full speed into the arms of God, elbows and legs Phoebe-flailing as we go? That feels like a risk.
The beautiful truth of the gospel is that Jesus took the risk on our behalf. We don’t have to figure out how to let go of all the stuff we’re holding onto because Jesus ran full speed onto the dirty, broken roads of earth. He ran full speed to us. He meets us where we are. He fulfilled the law so we don’t have to.
At the end of chapter six (a chapter so close to my heart it’s hard to put in a tiny blog paragraph), I quote Dudley Hall and I’ll quote him again here:
“When you get miserable enough to die, you can be free. Go ahead and live under the law — give it your best shot. Ultimately the law will make you so miserable, you’ll want to die. Then you will find that someone already died for you.”
He really takes being un-fine to the extreme, doesn’t he? But isn’t that ultimately where we have to go? Jesus goes all the way to the cross and so must we. All this good girl junk? The cross is big enough to handle it. And the life of Christ is powerful enough to overcome.
What if instead of brushing our emotions aside and apologizing for the brokenness, we invited a few people into it? What if instead of pointing out the mess on the floor, we welcomed them to sit with us among it? Perhaps we would finally see that we were made for greater things than this. We are living in the midst of provision, abundance, skill. Giftedness. We were made by design and on purpose by an unapologetic God. Dare to receive His making of you. And don’t forget to say thank you.
group discussion
Because there is so much to discuss with these three chapters, I’ll post a question per chapter and you can either answer all three or the one that resonates the most. I will post the questions on Facebook as well and you can answer them there – it might be easiest to keep the answers all in the same thread so we aren’t hopping around the page.
1. What is your main reason for hiding behind your fake fine? Is it because you are afraid (what will they think of me!), lazy (it takes too much work and I need a nap and a bowl of ice cream), or something else?
2. In what ways do you resonate with Martha’s good girl ways? (see pages 62-64 if you don’t know what I mean)
3. Has your idea of the spiritual disciplines and the purpose of the law shifted in reading chapter six? If so, in what ways?
book club information
- Get a copy of the book. It’s never too late to join us. (Amazon, B&N, LifeWay, Family Christian).
- Join the closed Facebook group where discussion is happening as we speak.
- Sign up for the book club if you haven’t already. If you already subscribe to get my monthly newsletter, simply update your preferences to include the book club.
- If you are on Twitter, we’ll use the hashtag #graceforthegoodgirl (unless you can tell me something shorter)
- If you have blog, consider writing your own post on Thursdays and hosting discussion with your own readers. Link up to your own blog post in the linky below.
Reading Schedule:
June 21 :: Chapters 7 – 9
June 28 :: Chapter 10
July 5 :: Chapters 11 – 12
July 12 :: Chapters 13 – 14
July 19 :: Chapters 15 – 16
July 26 :: Chapters 17 – 18
Am I the first one? Wow. Well, okay, I really truly plan to blog about today’s subjects. The Mary and Martha chapter I think is my absolute favorite of yours out of the whole book
Yeah, I’m sure it should be one of the end ones with the hope and whatnot, but I think it was kind of good to know there’s Biblical precedence for good girls and nice to have a reading of it where Jesus isn’t impatient with Martha…
Main reasons I hide behind fake fine: because I’m pretty sure you don’t want to hear the truth (for goodness sake you’re asking me this during the peace — my church has epic peace-passing — not when we’re sitting down to coffee or whatever); because I don’t know you well enough to trust with the truth (um, yeah, that should kinda go two ways, shouldn’t it); and laziness (I don’t want to go into that today). The social convention is so strong to say “fine” that whenever someone actually answers that question with my honestly, my initial thought is: oh, they must be lonely and don’t have someone to talk to … and ever so often ends up with “oh dear sweet God, get me away from this crazy person”. So um, respecting boundaries and I think you have to be in relationship with that other person (friends, small group, whatever) to open up.
will blog about the rest…
Leanne Shawler´s last [type] ..Joy Dare Monday …
I often find myself being the “Martha” when it comes to leading something at church. I have been a women’s Bible study leader now for several years, and I pride myself (ouch, yes, that word pride!) on taking care of the little details. At some point, I began co-leading a second group with another young mom like myself. She was really the main leader of this new group, and I was there to just help provide some leadership.
Well, her style was definitely more the “Mary” style. She didn’t fuss over details. I often felt like she was “flying by the seat of her pants” as she led. And to be honest, it drove me crazy. Couldn’t she see that details matter? I had a hard time not over-stepping her, just to take care of things. (And things that likely only bothered ME anyway!)
After a while though, I began to see that she had her own unique gift, and that maybe she had figured out what mattered more. She was so good at talking to the women who came, and making everyone feel so welcome. While I was “whirling and twirling” to make everything perfect, she was focusing on PEOPLE. And that alone made her group grow and thrive.
That was a big lesson for me to learn. In my “good girl” efforts, it is so easy to forget what matters most. And in the end, the two of us made a great leadership team!
Marcia´s last [type] ..worry
I hide behind my fake fine because I’m scared of losing a friend if I tell her my true feelings. I had a friendship end in college and it took me a long time to open up to new friends after that. It was just easier to pretend that I was “fine.” Now, I’ve learned (thanks to you!) that it is okay to take that mask off and be authentic. I’ve also learned how to be a better friend and to let new friends in; which I am so grateful for. Loved these three chapters Emily!
My reason for hiding behind a fake fine (and part of the reason I hide behind apologies) is that I never want to be a burden to anyone. I never want anyone to think I’m needy. And that is crazy because even though it CAN be a burden, I love being needed by people.
By the way, I love this: “We sorry our way right out of our own personalities.” So true and so sad.
Mary @ Giving Up on Perfect´s last [type] ..Monday Morning Mmmm: Chocolate Pudding Pie
I hide behind fine because I’d rather be at home, by myself (i.e. lazy). I am very blessed to have a few very close girlfriends, but I can’t even remember a time where they’ve ever seen me cry…and that thought seems very strange to me. I immediately linked my behavior and thought process to that when I read the chapter. I do share things with others (see above), including my husband, but even my very best girlfriends would maybe get only 75%, not 100 the real deal.
I really liked the Mary & Martha chapter, a lot. I found myself almost sticking up for Martha because it is *so often* the same feeling when serving in the church. I know one of my spiritual gifts is serving, and I often joke (and sorta’ complain) that ‘it’s the most time consuming gift’ out of the lot. When people throw out ideas at leadership meetings, whatever, I’m always thinking in the back of my mind, “ya, and who will do all that work? The same 10-15 who *always* do it and are sort of expected to volunteer for it”.
I have started saying no to almost everything that doesn’t involve a physical commitment because of the frustration I’ve had about it. It means it’s time to step back, because none of what’s coming out of that is love. Definitely not. It’s a really hard tension to balance. I have had this conversation with my husband many times also, as it seems that often the men are chatting while the women are cleaning, food prep, and childcare. It’s hard to be joyous and serve for years within this scenario when it’s so much easier to just stay home, put the kids to bed, and have an hour by myself, ya know?!
I have not arrived, that’s for sure.
Sarah M
Sarah M´s last [type] ..Be Right Back: Blogging Break
Again, always fitting for what I’m going through
(Oops, wasn’t done yet and iPad is acting goofy during our travels lately)… My answer is on my post today. I’m too emotionally drained to write it twice
The fake fine is safe. With the fake fine I don’t have to risk being judged or being blown off or being misunderstood. I also don’t have to worry about saying too much, or picking the wrong time, or committing some other sort of social blunder. And, I don’t risk that it’ll all come tumbling out and I might even start to cry. So..the fake fine protects me from hurt and embarrassment. I’d rather have the pain of keeping it all in–at least that’s a private hurt that I can manage; I haven’t put my heart in anyone else’s hands.
Emily,
I posted my answer to your questions on the Facebook page, but I just wanted to add that I am glad you didn’t make the first part of the book shorter. While it has been painful to get through (I mean really, you depicted me so well it’s like you were reading my mind) with all that truth slapping me in the face, it really took every single chapter to give me the full picture of how broken I really have been most of my life. Sometimes you really do need to go all the way to the bottom of the pit before you can appreciate what it would be like to get out of it. So, thank you for the long, unabridged version of the first part of the book. I really needed every word of it!
I agree! I might not have gotten it if it had been the abridged version. I needed every honest word.
Karen´s last [type] ..Grace for the Good Girl: Week 2
so encouraging. I felt that way for myself, but I wasn’t sure if that was how others would feel too. But you’re right. It has to really hurt before we’ll be willing to seek a Healer.
I am the queen of over-apologizing. And I am terrible at looking you in the eye. And I think I underlined over half of Chapter 6. And you know what is super crazy? I want to apologize that Chapter 6 is the chapter I relate to the most. I want to apologize that I just don’t fully get this grace thing yet and I still try too often to work for His love and acceptance…things I KNOW are already mine. I guess it’s the pressure of a “good girl” would get that by now.
A verse came to mind after reading Chapter 6. In Philippians 3, Paul lists all of his credentials, how when it came to the law he was the bee’s knees at keeping it. But then he goes on to say this :
“Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant – dog dung. I’ve dumped it all so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by Him.” (Philippians 3:8 MSG)
Oh, how I want to embrace Christ and be embraced by Him. THAT is how I want to live. But I cannot do that if I am embracing a life of living by the law. I cannot fully know Him if I am trying to be my own righteousness. It’s grace or it’s the law. It can’t be both. Which totally frustrates my rule-following good girl.
Last thing.
This quote from Dudley Hall… “Grace is not Jesus helping you live up to the law.” Wow.
Kimberly´s last [type] ..Needy – It’s Not Such a Bad Word After All
Oh…and hopefully you don’t ban people who mention dog poo in their comments from your blog. It was in the Bible. Promise.
Kimberly´s last [type] ..Needy – It’s Not Such a Bad Word After All
Kimberly? Do you realize you just apologized in your comment? Too cute. I’m so glad you’re here, so glad you’re plowing through this journey of receiving grace. Thanks for letting us be part of it.
My main reason for hiding behind my fake fine? I think it is fear. I would much prefer to be alone until I have fully processed, analyzed, and understood my un-fine state. If I have it in a nice little package all tied up with an action-plan-bow? (I already know what is wrong and what I need to do to fix it) Then? Then, I’ll gladly share it with you to demonstrate how capable I am at managing myself while attempting to be vulnerable and relational at the same time. If not, then I would rather just hide behind fine. If I don’t know what is really wrong, then I just might say the wrong time. And then I would be afraid of being wrong. Or misunderstood. And you might judge me. Or think I’m a mess. And I wouldn’t be in control anymore.
And if I ask how you’re doing and you are brave enough to come out from behind “fine” then I might be afraid that I would have NO IDEA what to say!
From chapter 4, my favorite lines are “It isn’t me doing the work for God, but it is me trusting God to do the work in me.” and later, “Worship, not work, flows out of the hearts of those who believe.” page 63
From chapter 6? The rule follower. The chapter in which I recognized my good girl most. My primary identity as a believer for all the years of my life before? A good girl who follows the rules. But that made it hard for me to understand why I needed the gospel. And it made it easy for me to look like a believer because I worked hard at all of those spiritual disciplines. I realized when I read GFTGG that much of that was most likely self-righteousness and my life had become hollow and yet heavy at the same time – even as my testimony was of salvation by faith in Christ alone.
Last fall, I finally had the experience of being freed from my sin and freed from the burden of having to deal with it on my own. And I’m learning what it means to apply the gospel of grace daily! And now I am free to practice spiritual disciplines by grace and with joy.
“You and I can now go to him in freedom and joy, not to gain favor but because we already have it. We are free to draw near rather than try to please from afar.” page 76
I managed to answer all three questions in exactly 1000 words on my blog. Wordy, but I guess I won’t apologize for it
Writing out the answers to these questions is helping me to process my life, my testimony and what I’ve learned over the last year. And reading the comments from others is tremendously encouraging as well!
Karen´s last [type] ..Grace for the Good Girl: Week 2
Hi Emily,
1. Wow, I am really seeing how I hide behind so much more than I thought I was, and I think it is because I am so afraid of not knowing what is the right and perfect thing to do, say, be, how to answer the question so everything will turn out right OR to do the wrong thing and then not be able to fix what happens next…….. and thinking there is no one else who will fix it………
2.Which leads to the next question, no one else to fix it or do what needs to be done. I really love how Martha expressed her feelings, even while still “doing” , I never do that.
3. “Talking about spiritual disciplines, my dad told me that there is a difference between the discipline of sitting down with God and the pleasure of knowing His voice.” Yes! that is so very true. I also have loved the spirutial disciplines as it puts order in an otherwise chaotic life, something to count on, something that stays the same when everything else is changing so fast and I cannot keep up!
I was laughing to myself when you talk about apologizing, as I had just done that once again right before reading this post! So interesting to recognize things now……….
“He ran full speed to us. He meets us where we are. He fulfilled the law so we don’t have to.”
I love that and wrote it in my note cards so I can see it over and over…..
Thank you………….
I think Chapter 6 “The Rule Follower” resonated with me the most – possibly out of all of Part 1! I think this is an especially tricky mask because it is so easily praised and admired from within the church. Its so easy to serve in the kids ministry, and help clean up after church, and make meals for families who have newborns – and BE PRAISED FOR THAT – and think that I’m ok because of that.
My little-girl-self was a rule-follower early-on, before I really knew Jesus. I grew up Catholic, and while this is not the case with every Catholic experience, my experience was of hearing all the things to do and ways to be good so I could get to heaven. I don’t remember ever hearing the word grace, or deeply thinking about it. I certainly didn’t understand it. “Though I never would have admitted it had I been asked, my deepest belief was that I had to perform for God in order to earn his acceptance.” – that statement is SOOOOO true of me!
After I experienced Jesus’ radical grace through some Jesus-loving friends of mine in college, I started to learn about this grace thing and how simply accepting Jesus’ sacrifice for me was more than enough. Thing is, its easy to know in my head that the work of saving me is finished and complete in Jesus, but its completely another to actually *live* from this truth. As I learned about this thing called grace, I couldn’t help but notice some other words that are often mentioned around it. Spirit, freedom, and life; law, kills, sin and death. I’ve found throughout Scripture, life in the Spirit is consistently contrasted against life lived striving to keep the law. But it left me wondering, well what is the point of the law?? Why did God give it in the first place? If life in the Spirit is how I want to live, why did God even give us the option of trying to fulfill the law?
And Emily, when I opened Chapter 6 I found all my answers staring me in the face!
“The law was designed to expose our heart condition, to make us see our guilt. It was never meant to make us righteous.” -pg 72
“God longs for us to place our trust in him rather than in ourselves. One way to do that was to give us a law we could not keep to show us how very perfect he is. And there, in our weak and helpless condition, we would finally agree with him.” -pg 73
Oh, how I finally agree with him! While I always loved rules, because it gave me something to measure myself against, something to tell me if I was doing good enough – they were indeed a fickle friend. Because often when I measure myself against them, I come up short. I fail. I can not keep the law. And I am desperately in need of Jesus and His grace, every day! I love the image you shared in the book comparing the law to a mirror. Now whenever I realize I’m trying to use the law to save myself, I’m going to picture myself trying to clean my face by rubbing it fervently with a mirror. Its so ridiculous, that I just have to laugh! And in laughing at myself, I start to find the grace to remember the whole point of the mirror/law in the first place. To see my sin, and then run to Jesus with it, remembering He has ALREADY paid the price for it.
“I have a very important announcement to make – I am a human being and I am ever so sorry about that.” – oh my stars that made me laugh. In a ‘this is so true isn’t it funny’ kind of way!
I think I hide because really it is hard to face FINE. Until someone, like you, writes down what is in my head, puts it in a lovely book and asks me to read it. Then I face it – and it changes my life. Thanks for that, by the way!
And thanks for popping in over at my place on my non-world changing post. But see, good stuff happens in the comments! Love that!
Stacey´s last [type] ..What I Wore Wednesday
I’m so glad you read the book, stacey. Thank you. And thank you for telling your story. We need it.
I hide behind fake fine, I’m sorry, and being Martha, because I do not want to burden anyone else. I don’t want them to have to put forth effort for me. Thank you for hosting this book club.
Donna´s last [type] ..Father’s Day
Emily,
Thanks for not making part one shorter. It’s just right how it is. It’s deep and dirty and gritty and i love that, and I need that! I’m also loving reading everyone’s comments!
1.I hide behind the fake fine because in my head that is what being strong is. And i am strong darn’t! It’s needy to tell people when you aren’t feeling fine and I absolutely hate being needy. It’s not “put together” to be un fine. Reading the book i know all those things aren’t true but it’s so hard to really live that way and embrace it and to FEEL it. It’s a process though and I am grateful for that.
2. I am in a predicament with the whole martha and mary thing. Because I am definitely a details, work, kind of person. I can pretty much guarantee that I would have been in the kitchen cooking. But I never would have said anything to anyone about anyone else not doing any work (except maybe a short rant to my husband.) But my motto is that it’s more important to be kind than to be right. Which comes from my sincere desire to be Christ like. so I guess my predicament is… “how can we be real and open and honest with our unkind or un Christ like feelings but then still be Christ like?” Does that make sense? I think I’m rambling for my own sake now.
3. Chapter 6 is deep, deep stuff. As in I know it will change me forever, once I’ve read it and re read it about 10 times and then spend the rest of my life really going through it
The part where you talk about apologizing away our personalities really resonated with me. I am a chronic apologizer, it’s ridiculous. But I love the idea of saving them for when they are really needed and really matter.
I’m definitely going to need to re read these chapters, so much good stuff.
Thank you, Anna. Chapter six? I would die for that truth, I think. We are so free, more so than we will ever realize on earth, I think.
I hide behind my fake fine because of fear. I fear that revealing the not so fine things in my life will make people not like me. I’ve had to do a lot of hiding behind fine lately. Almost two years ago, my husband planted a church, and it’s been super hard and lonely for me and for my girls. But I can’t tell anyone that. I think all my friends from our former church would just tell me to come back there (which is definitely not an option) and would have a you made your bed now lie in it attitude. I can’t risk that. So I hide behind fine.
April´s last [type] ..The Dirt on SSMTC
oh April, that’s tough. Working in a church it sometimes seems like they hand you a mask on the way in, doesn’t it? Hard to live in that place, I know. I hope you’ll find some connection here with other women who get it.
I was getting ready to apologize for jumping in so late in the game, but then I read the first part of this post and just laughed out loud and ate another Oreo
I think I will tackle question #1 and confess that I hide behind my fake fine because I am terrified that people will not like me/respect me/take me seriously, or even worse, that my imperfections will turn them away from Christ. My husband is one who is “well known in the gates” (Proverbs 31), and he is also the pastor of our church and Captain of our sheriff’s office. I want to be that “good wife” of the pastor/cop variety, and if I do not give off the persona that we are a family who has it all pulled together, I fall apart. I have even stopped taking all three kids to the grocery store alone in fear that someone that knows him will make a comment on my parenting skills (this has happened before), and it will reflect badly upon him. Whew. I need to stop Martha-ing my way through life and Mary my way to His feet.
Christie Elkins´s last [type] ..bye, bye bottle. (daily photo)
WOW. Your husband is a pastor and the Captain of the sheriff’s office? That’s tough on the good girl, isn’t it? I’m glad you’re here, Christie.
So excited to be a part of a community of ladies striving after seeking His will and putting off our own!! Thankful for this book club
Christie Elkins´s last [type] ..do you love me? (daily photo)