Introducing....Chains Falling

What on earth?  That's just about the only thought in my brain right now when it comes to the blessing it's been to learn what I wrote into this book. If you are hearing this for the first time, I just self-published my first Bible Study.  What on earth?

Here's what happened.  A few years ago I heard someone use a verse in Hosea to teach something else and quickly flipped to it (ok, not really quickly - it's hard to find Hosea quickly...we'll go with eventually).  Eventually I flipped to this verse and read the context finding myself both curious and terrified.  There is some wondrous and scary stuff in this book of the Bible.  I decided I had to know what it meant and one thing led to another and before long I was spending hours digging in.  I wrote my lessons into these little teachable bullet points that I shared with this fantastic group of women who study with me on Wednesday mornings.  They encouraged me, we just really learned so much together.  And that was enough for me, it still is. 

My Amanda - friend and partner in ministry asked me to write it into a version that we could teach moms and daughters over the summer and we loved doing that together.  And that was still enough for me.

Then this year with the encouragement of my friends and husband I rewrote this study into a six week Bible Study.  Without these people I probably never would have taken this leap.

Me and Candace on one of the days they were "encouraging" me. 
She makes me ugly laugh, it's totally her fault I look like that.

When I teach I am very aware of those I am teaching.  I interact with them and draw from their attentiveness and understanding, their joy and pain. With writing I felt a little lost without that interaction.  This is new for me......and makes me feel very vulnerable.  Ultimately it came down to a willingness to follow God and share these lessons beyond the security I know.  I feel inadequate in my own ability to persuade with words, but I am so confident in the message of this book that it's worth the risk of being unliked or even misunderstood to tell the truth He is in Hosea. What Hosea teaches about God's love for us, His unwillingness to flatter us, His longing to see us whole and healed, His grief when we are unwilling to love Him back and is just beyond words. 

And there is my problem, because books are words and they just don't do Him justice.
So here it is, and I am so humbled.

Thanks Julie and Sarah for the amazing cover! 
Julie did the photography and Sarah was the model. 
We shot the cover for this in a field by a local park....no kidding. 
Julie's amazing that way.

You can buy the book through Crossbooks (the company we hired to publish Chains Falling) or if you are nearby you can buy it directly from us (which helps us cover the cost of the book most completely and saves you a few dollars on shipping). Part of the self-publishing process is that we get to buy and sell the books to cover the publishing cost....almost scarier than actually writing the book.

We will have the big debut of the book at a large women's event at our church on September 13th.  So if you are close.....come and buy a book!

So much thanks to you ALL!