Link Love: a gift for you and some beautiful writing

It has been a full month for me, friends, leaving not even a little time to write reflectively. I’ve saved a few things to read along the way, though, and wanted to share them with you.

First, Abby Perry interviewed me in January’s print issue of Christianity Today. I hope there’s something to be mined from this for you. “In an age characterized by abuse of authority, there’s a corresponding fear of false accusations. In the book, I argue that you can’t live in fear of a certain outcome. You have to be faithful to what God is asking you to do. You have to care more for the person in front of you than you care about avoiding lawsuits or protecting your own reputation. Sometimes that means giving touch, while sometimes it’s better to withhold touch. But the primary concern is never your reputation; it’s the person in front of you.”

Next, Abby King wrote a beautiful reflection on naming and being named that I wanted to share with you. "‘What is your name?' [the man] was asked. And he answered, ‘I am what has afflicted me.’ How many of us know the truth of this? When we are towards the end of ourselves, we begin to believe that we are only what we struggle with.’"

Nate and I left the Baptist church and more specifically our church home last year and began attending an Anglican church. It was a decision we mulled over since before we even married (our longing for liturgy and a smaller congregation was what led us to the church I was on staff at in Denver and then we found solace and peace in The Falls Church Anglican while we lived in DC) and just took us a long time to sort through. We did not leave angry, though we did leave sad. We did not leave without a big piece of our hearts still there, but we did know we couldn’t continue to be invested in something that was at discord within us on various levels. I found a fellow journeyman in this piece from Fathom Magazine. “I was ready to leave behind the Baptist tradition when I could recognize how much I loved it and still felt beckoned to the beauty of Anglicanism.”

I love and loathe how much this piece from Jen Pollock Michel resonated and convicted me. I have very firm boundaries around how much I read and respond to the various mediums through which people can reach me in this extreme digital age. Yet, I don’t know how you read a sentence like this without knowing you need to change a bit: “Jesus both protected his time and willingly gave it up, and in this digital age, we are called to do the same.”

Jen Rose Yokel wrote a beautiful review of Handle With Care for The Rabbit Room (one of my favorite spaces on the web these days). “To quote the great Mister Rogers, “Anything that is mentionable can be more manageable,” and everything is mentionable here. Handle With Care talks about the need for loving self-touch and care for our bodies, the longing for touch many of us experience in singleness, the need for self-control and mutual respect in marriage, finding a healthy balance for touch in between purity culture and #metoo stories, and understanding how trauma and abuse affect how we give and receive touch. If that sounds complicated, it is, but it doesn’t feel like too much.”

Last, if you made it this far, we’re six days away from the release of Handle With Care (if you’re tired of hearing about it, imagine how tired I am of speaking about it…) and it’s the last week to claim some pretty beautiful preorder bonuses, a print from cover illustrator Stephen Crotts, a code for a leather journaling Bible, and a book of original poems read aloud by their authors.

Preorders are good for you because you get all these beautiful gifts, but they’re especially good for me because they help bookstores know how many books to have in stock so they don’t sell out on release day. To preorder, just go to your favorite bookseller or click here, select PREORDER and then fill this out and we’ll get your gifts to you on February 4th + you’ll get your book in the mail on the same day!