Saturday, June 11, 2016

Must Read Summer Book: Review of Sophie Hudson's Giddy Up, Eunice

Get thee to a bookstore and buy this, post haste.


I may have mentioned a hundred few times that I was a part of the launch team for Sophie Hudson's newest book, Giddy Up, Eunice.  The tagline because women need each other is what will draw you in and hold you and then push you out the door, filled up and fired up and ready to see "how the Lord multiplies our efforts."

In these days of pinterest and instagram and facebook posts full of perfectly filtered snapshots of life, we are missing the intimacy of safe and sacred spaces with each other.  Where we don't have to filter life--we just live it.  Together.  These safe spaces need to move beyond the "generational silos" we often find ourselves in with our friends moving in the same narrow lanes we move in.  We need to look back and forward and learn from the generation ahead of us and encourage the generation behind us.  The wheel doesn't need to be invented over and over again.  The human race hasn't really changed all that much in the last 10 years.  Women have been encouraging and teaching each other for EVER and somehow we've forgotten that.  Sophie's gentle book reminds us that "what we have in common far exceeds any perceived generational differences."  Blessing and confirming and strengthening--that's what we need to be about

Taking the stories of pairs of women--Elizabeth and Mary, Naomi and Ruth--Giddy Up, Eunice shows us how to do that.  Moving beyond comparison and competition, we can start investing in what matters:  people.  In the picture above you can see some of my washi tape  tabs.  My copy is full of them, along with highlighted passages, exclamation points, smiley faces, and all manners of asterisks and stars.  If ever a book was meant for a women's book study group, this is it.  I've been processing through what I've read and really can't wait to dive in again and see what those words mean for me to actually DO.  It's not enough to read this and nod our heads and move on.  This funny, sweet book shares a truth that needs to be acted upon.  The church and our world need women to rise up and cross over our self-imposed boundaries and "bless the fire out of each other".

Amen, Eunice.  Giddy up.





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