Sarah Bessey is one of those writers who, I always feel like I really want to sit down with over some tea and scones and just talk geek about Doctor Who, Netflix, our kids, and our complicated relationship with the Church and God. While I have thought this previously with her two other books, as well as her Field Notes emails, I felt it in an even deeper way with her newest book, Miracles and Other Reasonable Things: A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God. I cried, laughed, shook my head, Googled, and commiserated (chronic pain is no joke).
Some quotes that really struck me and I highlighted:
I believe with my whole heart that the number one place where women should be flourishing is in the body of Christ. So I preached about what it might look like when ordinary women like us rise up in faith, at our full strength, instead of silencing or numbing or dumbing down or retreating in response to cultural pressure. It’s dangerous. Women who are awake are dangerous to the powers and principalities around us. We need to stop waiting for permission that has already been given. We’ve been commissioned to embody the Gospel in every corner of our lives.
If God had not forgotten me—and clearly God had not—and yet I was still part of the company of the unanswered prayers, perhaps that meant that I had misunderstood something about God. Perhaps the problem wasn’t God; perhaps the problem was the God I had created and the God I had been given.
Like most of us, when I walked through my own valleys of darkness and suffering and loss, God was often revealed to me in the darkness rather than in the light. The valleys were where I became intimate with God, far more than the mountaintops.
As someone who also deals with chronic pain and frequently wonders if I have pissed God off somehow, or if God even cares, this book really resonated with me. Also! The cover is beautiful and after you read it, the back sort of hidden image makes more sense.
The benediction at the end will. make. you. cry. It is so so beautiful. I actually did receive this copy as part of the launch team but I had already preordered an audiobook copy and all opinions are most definitely my own!
The Petite Texan 