Grace for the Good Girl: Voiceless + Link Up

August 1-14, I'll be blogging as I read through Emily Freeman's Grace for the Good Girl. Each week, I'll give away a free copy of her book! Enter via the Rafflecopter here.

Bloggers: I'm hosting a link-up today! If you've got something to share that's related to the "try-hard life" or "good girl syndrome," the link is live below or you can click here to join. I'd love to have you join the conversation!

"I was a good girl and I wanted to be a good girl, but it often kept me from saying what I really meant. In fact, my desire to be good even kept me from exploring my own opinion, and I grew up to believe that my opinion didn't actually matter anyway."

Emily Freeman, 

Grace for the Good Girl  

Seven years ago, when I began my MA program, I was assigned to write a “vision statement.”  Unfortunately, I’m incapable of envisioning anything. When I close my eyes, I see darkness; when I dream, I see nothing. 

So instead of trying to “visualize” or develop a “vision,” I closed my eyes and begin hearing voices.

For an hour, voices came to me: words and phrases that important people had said to me throughout my childhood and teen years. 

Mother, Daddy, and John.

Kimmi, Marcia, Suzie, and Derek. 

Grandma. 

Mrs. Cornish and Mr. Vickers. 

Ed (Eating Disorder).

I filled 10 pages with other people’s voices in under an hour. 

Then I tried to analyze what I’d written:

I contemplate the voices I’ve been hearing for the last hour.  Do they mean anything?  Are they anything more than a hodgepodge of childhood memories?  How is “hearing voices” going to help me write my Vision Statement?!?

Again, I scan what I’ve typed, looking for themes, patterns, a metaphor, perhaps.  None of this is new; I’ve “dealt” with all of these stories (and many more!) in various counselors’ offices.  More than once I’ve tried to leave them all behind.  What is the good of revisiting these memories now, when I’m trying to move forward toward an MA (and perhaps a PhD), not slide backward?  

And then it hits me.

I see something.

Actually, I see something that’s not here.  

(First she’s hearing voices; now she’s seeing things that aren’t there . . . !?!)

I realize what is missing from this chronicle of the voices from my childhood and teen years.

My voice.

Where is my voice in all this?

It’s not here!

Frantically, I scroll back through the pages.    

I must have just gotten so caught up in all the stories that I forgot to record my own words.  


I’ll just go back and add them in!  


Hmmm . . .  should I add myself in between every voice or every other voice?

Stop.

This means something.  

I can’t just go back and “edit” myself into this.  What I’ve written, here, means something exactly the way it came out.

It means something, that I recorded all these voices -- my parents, my brother, my teachers, my classmates -- but not mine.  It means something.

It means I didn’t have a voice.

I had no voice.

No voice.

Those blank spaces between other people's words? 

That’s me.  

Voiceless.  

The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Luke 4:18-19 (NIV)

Your Turn

• Do you say what you mean or hold back? Why?

• In what ways are you “voiceless”?

• How do good news for the poor, freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind,  and/or freedom for the oppressed speak to you today?

Check out this link to the Introduction of Grace for the Good Girl on Emily's website with great background information on the book, video trailer, and 1st chapter download for free!

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Grace for the Good Girl: Worry, Fear, & Anxiety

August 1-14, I'll be blogging as I read through Emily Freeman's Grace for the Good Girl. Each week, I'll give away a free copy of her book! Enter via the Rafflecopter here.


Bloggers: I'll be hosting a link-up on Friday on "the try-hard life" and/or "good girl syndrome." If you've got something to share, the link-up will be live at 12:30 AM Pacific. Would love to have you join the conversation!

“Worry is a thief, Fear is a liar, and Anxiety is their trembling, furrow-browed baby. I have lived with this dysfunctional family for the better part of my life. Sometimes I live with them still. 

Worry robs me of the peace I know is available. 

Fear lies and says there is no peace at all. 

And their immature, screaming baby Anxiety keeps me up at night with her unrelenting cries of what if? and what now? and what will they think?”  

Emily Freeman, Grace for the Good Girl

What if?

My grandmother lived through the depression. She always traveled with several hard-boiled eggs in her purse. Half-way through any flight, regardless of her hunger level, she’d pull them out and smell up the plane. 

Oh, I was trained to worry at a tender age!  

What if…

• ...there’s no more food?
• ...she stops being my BFF?
• ...I miss a point on this test?

What now?

(Setting:  The eating disorder unit, just before our first family group counseling session.)

My counselors: “People change, Cheri! Just you wait and see!”

Me:  “You don’t know my mother.”

My counselors:  “Just you wait and see!” 

Me:  Maybe they know what they’re talking about!

(After the meeting)

My counselors:  “Cheri, sometimes you just have to accept…”

My worst fear had come true: there was no hope for me. My only “hope” was to try harder.

What now…

• ...that I have two babies and a difficult marriage?  Try harder
• ...that we need my income but I dread teaching every day?  Try harder
• ...that I’ve fractured T7 and can’t do what everyone needs me do?  Try harder

What will they think?

The summer I was 9, a boy at day camp asked me, “So, do you read the dictionary for fun?”

“Of course!” I answered honestly, thrilled to have found a kindred spirit. Only he didn’t talk to me the rest of the summer. 

I can still feel the flush of shame as it dawned on me, days later as he and the “in” girls snickered at me from a distance yet again, that he hadn’t asked a question. 

He’d delivered an insult. One I’d been too dense to recognize.

I grew into a mashup of Sanguine PURSE-onality with hypervigilant anxiety.

What will they think…

• ...if I talk too fast? too much? too loud?
• ...when they see the cat and dog fur on the couch?
• ...about my out-of-season mis-matched Ross clothes? 

Fear drives.

But Love leads.

“God can do anything, you know – 

far more than you could ever 

imagine or guess or request 

in your wildest dreams! 

He does it not by pushing us around 

but by working within us, 

his Spirit deeply and gently within us.”

(Eph. 3:20 Message)

Your Turn!

• How do you know the dysfunctional family of Worry, Fear, and Anxiety?

• Which cry keeps you up at night:  What if?  What now?  What will they think?

• What does “Fear drives. But Love leads” mean to you?

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Grace for the Good Girl: Envy vs. Eagerness

August 1-14, I'll be blogging as I read through Emily Freeman's Grace for the Good Girl. Each week, I'll give away a free copy of her book! Enter via the Rafflecopter here.

“I felt as if an invisible good girl was following me around wherever I went, showing up without permission to shame and blame and scold….She embodied the good girl version of my current life stage and shamed me accordingly: good student, good leader, good wife, and good mom.

She represented the girl I wanted to be but could never live up to. I constantly worried that my imperfect status would be discovered. I often experienced guilt but didn’t know why. I felt the heavy weight of impossible expectations and had the insatiable desire to explain every mistake. My battle with shame was constant and hovering.”

Emily Freeman, Grace for the Good Girl: Letting Go of the Try-Hard Life

I got to hear Emily Freeman present at the She Speaks Conference a couple weeks ago. The information she shared was excellent; her off-hand comments and ad-lib comedy were even better! 

Later, I introduced myself in an over-eager babble of incoherence. The only half-intelligent thing I said was, “I’m so glad for you and your children that you’ve figured this out now rather than waiting ‘til you’re my age.”

I jokingly told Emily that I envied her – just a bit! – for taking off her good girl “masks” so young. 

just a bit

Who do I think I’m kidding?

Ten years ago, when I first wrote and shared my testimony, Florence Littauer was surprised by my “good girl” approach. She said she’d never heard anyone give a “good girl” testimony and encouraged me to develop it into my keynote talk.

That was all the encouragement I needed, of course, to freeze in fear and do what came so naturally: 

nothing.

What I didn’t tell Emily is that I envied her – more than just a bit! – for writing the book I was supposed to write.

“the heavy weight of impossible expectations”

Okay, the book I wish I had written but too many complicating factors and poor choices and just plain “life” got in the way.

“the insatiable desire to explain every mistake”

All right, the book that I would have written...if only...

“My battle with shame was constant and hovering”

Yeah, I envied Emily. 

Then I recognized my invisible good girl at work and told her to go take a hike, packing all her “supposed to”s and “wish I had”s and “if only”s with her.

Far greater than my fleeting envy is my eagerness to read Grace for the Good Girl. 

‘cause my name is Cheri, and I am a “Good Girl”... 

...who needs all the grace she can get!

Your turn!

• What's been your experience of being a "good girl"?

• In what ways have you lived "the try-hard life"?

• What would "letting go" mean for you?

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