Hi friend,
In this May newsletter, you’ll find:
Announcement of May Book Giveaway!
Exclusive mini-essay for subscribers
3 Recent Books I’ve Read (with mini-reviews)
3 New Favorite IG Follows
2 Guests on “Worth Your Time” Podcast
5 Faith & Culture links you can use
Some exciting news about my upcoming book (last paragraph!)
If you are new around here (or not!), I’m glad you’ve decided to click “open” on this email! The winner of the Book Bundle (3 books!) giveaway is:
Amy at thegravitts@gmail.com
Winners of the copies of “Leaving Cloud 9: The True Story of a Life Resurrected From the Ashes of Poverty, Trauma and Mental Illness” are:
kaylagraceharvey19@gmail.com
my3sonsrmz@gmail.com
tpolitte142@gmail.com
gallerhea@yahoo.com
poulinsj@hotmail.com
Just respond to this email with your mailing address and you’ll get your books ASAP! Thanks for entering and EVERYONE: Stick around because in the month of May I’ll be giving away “Jesus Over Everything” by Lisa Whittle (chosen from email subscriber list.)
QUESTION: What are books or authors you LOVE that you think would be worth including in future giveaways? Bonus points if you tell me WHY you think they are important (just reply to this email.)
THIS WEDNESDAY: I’ll be going LIVE on Instagram with Brittany Estes, so follow us @ericka_andersen and @jbrittanyestes. You can see my most recent IG Live with Kim Patton (chatting adoption & more here!)
What Are You Filling Your Life With?
*Exclusive essay for email subscribers
Most of the items on your calendar and to-do lists aren’t likely spiritually satisfying. They are like tiny straws sipping out your energy and spirit throughout the week. We need more life-giving and less life-sucking, right?
Investing in your faith life through church attendance, intentional prayer and thoughtful reading of scripture can actually have the opposite effect of all those other to-dos. What if that effort you put into this spiritual part of your life resulted in a more peace, connectedness, and fulfillment overall?
It is tough to get quiet in the midst of a loud life, but once you know there’s something missing, it’s impossible to ignore the gaping hole. And yet, how do you fill it? How do you believe this one more thing will make a positive difference?
A Tangible Visual
A pastor I once heard explained it this way: Imagine you have a large vase. It very wide at the bottom and gets increasingly narrow toward the top. The largest, most important pieces of your life must fit in the bottom and there is only so much room as you move toward the top.
Make a list of all the pieces you are cramming into your vase of life right now:
Are the ones taking priority, holding up the rest, really the most important?
Are they doing their job?
Does something else need to be bigger and in the bottom?
Do you need to rearrange your jar, throw a few things out and get settled?
Take a moment to evaluate your jar of “stuff.” Grab a piece of paper and sketch if out if you have to. What are your buckets of busy and could something be eliminated to make space for the life-giving that’s available to you within a deeper faith life?
Jesus Says…
“Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise,” says Jesus in Matthew. “Like a person who builds a house on solid rock…the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse.”
He follows it up to say those who don’t follow His lead are building their the foundations of their lives on sand, where “rains and floods come and the winds will…collapse [it] with a mighty crash.”
What are you building your life on? Does your jar need rearranging? Take a deep breath and begin.
One of my latest Instagram posts:
Faith, Culture & Human Interest
Faith leaders concerned about these temporary shelters for migrant children
20 Essential Organizing Products to Make the Most of a Small Closet (Someone needs this!)
Pro-Life for All: A Second Chance for Incarcerated Image Bearers (my latest piece for ERLC)
Books I’ve Been Reading:
Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobez Du Mez
Fascinating look at the roots of Western evangelical culture. Well done and researched, but the author comes with a certain ideological framework (note the subtitle!) and am reading understanding the agenda that may lie within. Read with a grain of salt, but it is very readable, despite it’s length.
The Forgotten Ways by Alan Hirsch
I’ve had this sitting on my table for over a year, but so glad I started it. Getting back to the heart of Church and how we can mobilize missional movements through Jesus-following churches, discipleship and the right strategy.
Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind by Grace Olmstead
Most of us think little about the places we grew up — especially if we move away. In this book, Grace makes the case for staying — and why, especially in rural America — it matters deeply.
Favorite New Instagram Friends
Shekea Moreno: Shekea’s beautiful, uplifting feed features Christian-based encouragement for moms, to go along with her new “This Mama Prays” prayer journal. Important reminders are we live out our days.
Katy Fassett: If you haven’t seen Katy’s hilarious mom-style IG Reels, you are in for a binge-fest. Funny, relatable and just the kind of content I need in a break!
Rondell Trevino: Founder and Director of the Immigration Coalition and someone who provides beautiful, grounded, mini-words of wisdom for those of us who call ourselves Christians BEFORE we align with any political party.
Worth Your Time Podcast Episodes
Claire Culwell: An Abortion Survivor’s Story. Claire Culwell is an abortion survivor. She was adopted as a baby and grew up with an incredible, loving family. As an adult, she was inspired to find her birth mother. Soon after that meeting, her birth mother revealed something shocking: she had nearly been aborted.
Pregnant at 13, Claire’s mother was unknowingly carrying twins. When she had an abortion, the procedure took the life of only one baby. In this episode, you’ll hear for the child that survived.
Christina Crenshaw: Faith, Culture and Getting Cancelled at Baylor. Christina Crenshaw, Ph.D. is a professor, researcher, writer, and human trafficking fighter. She’s also a mom of two and someone who recently experienced her own form of “cancel culture” when a group of students at Baylor targeted a tweet she shared, labeling her “transphobic.”
In this episode, we discuss the tweet that turned her world upside down and how she chose not to back down from her beliefs, which stem from her work in trafficking, which often goes back to protecting women’s spaces.
Book Deal News
Some of you know I’ve been working on my second book, which is focused on women & reviving a deeper faith. I’ve been working with an agent to find a publisher and have had three meetings with publishers, two of which were very promising! I have a follow up meeting this week and I feel like we are going to clinch a deal to move forward so stay tuned. If you are on Good Reads, I encourage you to follow me there, where I will being making more frequent updates on the book!
P.S. If you missed my last piece in USA Today, I’d be honored if you gave it a read!
P.P.S. Got a friend who LOVES to read? Encourage them to subscribe so they will be entered to win the book giveaway each month!