Roots and Sky: An Invitation to Marvel and Feast [Review + **Giveaway!**]

I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Christie Purifoy has become one of my favorite modern writers. I first “met” her when we were both writing for Pick Your Portion, and I loved her contributions so much that I started following her around the internet. Almost every time she posts something she’s written, I don’t merely read, but feel compelled to comment—and it’s usually some variation on “Wow, Christie. So, so beautiful.” Her voice is lovely, piercing, elegant. So when she announced that she’d signed a book contract, I was eager to volunteer for an early review copy!

Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons is the story of Christie’s first year in her dream-come-true farmhouse, Maplehurst. She explores the way pain and joy commingle in the everyday and what it really means for dreams to come true. In the opening essay, she introduces the journey this way:

"A few weeks after moving in, one of my boys slid belt-buckle down and carved a deep scratch the entire length of that beautiful banister. Somehow I most clearly grasp the living reality of my dream come true when I touch that scratch or remember the miserable heat of that first day. We live in a good world shackled by decay. A world that always seems to fall at least a little bit short of its own promise. Yet glory dwells here too. Heaven and earth meet in scratches and scars. In broken banisters and in a Body broken for us."

[TL;DR review here--but keep reading below for the giveaway!]

Christie is a prose-poet, and her writing is exquisite. It's lyrical in a way that is very accessible—not the sort of flowery, trying-too-hard language that many readers find off-putting, but clear, vivid language with striking metaphors. It has richness and depth. Christie’s wonder and her hunger are contagious. She invites the reader to marvel with her, feast with her:

“I cannot tell whether or not these ordinary days are significant in the story of myself, in the story of my daughter, in the story of Maplehurst. Perhaps they are not. But can it be this lack of significance that makes them such a gift? They are gloriously excessive. Like a whole bowl of mismatched beads just asking me to thrust in my hand and wave my fingers. Like a sky spilling over with stars. Every moment I fail to record in Elsa’s baby book is like an unseen galaxy or an unnamed planet. Created but unobserved. Made but unremarked. What are they for? Why does God make them anyway? For the joy of it?

“He gives the blue-sky day in a month of blue skies. He gives the hand-holding day in a decade of holding our child’s hand. He gives the sunrise and sunset, always and again. He gives me a husband in the kitchen making breakfast. Not because it is Mother’s Day or because we have a new baby, but because it is morning. Again, it is morning. Again, we hunger. Again, we are satisfied.”

Yet this isn’t just another “find the beauty in the ordinary” book. Its light is crisscrossed with shadows. Christie isn’t Pollyanna; she writes not only of extravagant beauty, but also of anxiety and loneliness, depression and failure and loss. In the “Winter” section, she reflects on shielding her young children from the lines in Matthew 2 about Rachel weeping for the children of Bethlehem:

“One day they will know just how good and just how terrible the story is. They will know what Rachel’s voice sounds like, and they won’t be able to rid their minds of its awful cadence. I cannot spare them forever. Always there are more heartbroken mothers. Always there are more tears. But they will also know Emmanuel. They will know the good news of incarnation. That God walks with them, always already in the darkest places. He is especially present in the very places we imagine he cannot be. He is there holding Rachel, whispering his promises. It will not always be like this.” 

Christie doesn’t merely cling to sweetness; she fights for hope.

“This is not my first spring, and here is something I know: the day when daffodils emerge is not the day for hope. The day when seedlings show the bright green of new life is not the day for faith. That day came and went. Hope is for the dark days. The days when all you can see is mud and mess, like so many forgotten toys strewn across the backyard. Those are the days when miracles begin.”

The thing that has moved me to tears more than once in the midst of this book launch is the timing of it all and how prophetic her words have proven to be. Just weeks before the official release date, her family was devastated by tragedy, as her sister’s husband was one of the Marines lost in the January helicopter crash off Oahu.  Christie’s testimony to God’s faithful presence in the midst of unfathomable grief is startling—as she puts words to this sorrow, reading her most recent blog posts has felt to me like standing on holy ground. 

Even in heartbreaking grief, she bears witness to redemption—the priestly role she wrote about in the latter part of her book:

“The shifting seasons usher in so much redemption, even the redemption of one overgrown lilac. As priests we are witnesses to these redemptions. We are here to receive, to name the work of God’s hands, as Adam once named, and to proclaim, ‘Heaven and earth are full of thy glory!’” 

The beauty she captures is messy, not tidy; it is a beauty that makes you tremble. She describes this in the book’s final season, “Summer”:

"True beauty is not vague or distant. It is not a rose-tinted vision. Beauty belongs to the waking world. If beauty comes from God, then we will not find it in abstraction. It does not live in dreams; it lives in dirt."

I felt the need to read through Roots and Sky quickly in order to post an early review (only to procrastinate from writing one for more than two weeks…OY), but I hated to rush—it is a book to be savored, one from which I have copied many quotes and to which I expect I’ll return again.

And, great news: Revell graciously sent me an extra copy to give away! It is my delight to share this beautiful book with one of you. Comment on this post to enter, and earn extra entries through the Rafflecopter below.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The winner will be announced on Saturday, February 27. 


Rita: Your visit to and "liking" of Christie's Facebook page was the lucky winning entry as randomly determined by Rafflecopter! I'll be contacting you to get the book in your hands ASAP :)

For those who didn't win, you can buy a copy of Roots and Sky through Amazon or Barnes and Noble. At only $8, you can easily justify treating yourself to a brand-new paperback (or pick up the Kindle version for even less)! 

One final note: Amazingly, Christie’s creative gift is not limited to words. She also has a way with a camera, and she captures the colors and light of Maplehurst in photos almost as gloriously as in sentences. You’ll definitely want to follow her on Instagram.

Made for More: Review and Giveaway

When I interviewed Hannah Anderson for a recent Ungrind article, I had more material than I could use there--so I am glad to use my own space today to continue discussing Hannah's ideas. PLUS, her publisher has promised one more copy of her book for me to give away here!

Let me first whet your appetite with a favorite passage from the book, one that encapsulates Hannah's thesis (and one of many that had me shouting, "Ohmygoodness YES!"):

“In recent decades, there has been strident debate about the roles of men and women in society and the church. Some argue that because gender is a significant, but not primary, part of identity, women should find their place through their gifting rather than their womanhood. Others volley back that gender should lead where a woman’s gifts are utilized and that they find fullest expression as nurturers.

But the problem with the whole conversation is that it tends to separate a woman into parts and pit them against each other. And unintentionally, women are forced to choose between two very essential truths about themselves. The fact that I am a woman demands that in some ways my identity and roles will be different from a man’s. Despite being equal image bearers, we are not the same. God even chooses to reveal aspects of His nature through my womanhood that could not be understood otherwise. So in this sense, gender itself is as much a gift—a grace—as intellect or personality could ever be.

Conversely, my imago dei identity cannot be summed up by my womanhood alone. While being a woman is essential to my identity, I am not ‘simply’ a woman. There is a part of me that transcends my gender, so in the end, regardless of how conservative we may be, we must all agree that a woman has more in common with a man than she does with a female cat!

The paradox of identity is that I am both a woman who is a person and a person who is a woman. And this will never make sense until both my womanhood and my personhood are united in Jesus Christ."

AMEN. I so love Hannah's determination to strip away all the baggage various branches of the church have brought to the "gender roles" conversation and establish a common-ground foundation: Women's primary identity as image-bearers of the eternal God, created to reflect Jesus Christ.

Chapters 8 and 9 (“Queens in Narnia: Embracing Your Destiny to Reign” and “Toward Perfect Union: Living Holistically in a Fractured World”) are worth the price of the book. I only wish chapter 9 had been written about a decade ago! How I remember the painful wrestling with my identity and calling as I was graduating from college and preparing for marriage. I absolutely loved Hannah’s metaphor of identity as a multifaceted diamond—it resonated so deeply with my journey and my struggle to reconcile opposing parts of who God has made me to be.

I still feel like there are plenty of unanswered questions as we attempt to move from vision-casting and lofty theology to concrete, practical choices--but I love how Hannah has reframed the discussion and am thrilled to promote ongoing conversation about this both online and in the local church.

With that, I'll leave you with a couple of follow-up questions and answers from Hannah:

In chapter 7, you talk about the dangers of identifying first and foremost as women, therefore making womanhood our central focus instead of Christ. You shared at Ungrind about why you think women’s ministry has so often been restricted to the “pink passages.” As a follow-up to that, how can the church “make room for feminine voices that can speak and write about doctrine and theology,” as you suggest?

HA: When I suggest that we need to make room for “feminine voices,” I’m emphasizing the truth that our experiences as men and women lend us different eyes on the same truths. For example, a woman who has gone through pregnancy and childbirth will have an entirely different insight on the process of spiritual birth than a man ever could. We must welcome these perspectives without women feeling like they have to relinquish their womanhood in order to share them. If we truly believe that God did a good thing when He made us male and female, womanhood has been given to us to reveal something about God’s nature that manhood cannot. As churches, we must find ways for both men and women to speak to the Body of Christ on doctrinal and theological issues.

At one point in the book, you acknowledge that “pursuing imago dei simplicity is anything but simple”…but then somehow “when you look to Jesus,” it will all magically fall into place. HOW, specifically, can we fight for wholeness and an imago dei focus in our own lives and in our sisters?

HA: For me, the struggle for simplicity is a process of constant re-evaluation, of learning to align my priorities with God’s priorities. When we hear the word “simple,” we often think “easy”—but that’s not the case at all. Simplicity means that the different planes of your identity are working together and you exist in God’s shalom even in the midst of busy, chaotic times.

For example, part of submitting to Christ means acknowledging my own limitations, acknowledging that HE is the Messiah, not me. So when I’m going through a period of stress, when it feels like I can’t meet all the competing demands of work and family and church, it’s really important for me to learn to let go of some things. But my ability to do this is directly related to my understanding that He is in ultimate control. I can let go because Jesus doesn’t. And when I come back to this place—when He is the center of it all—I experience His peace. Even if the dishes didn’t get done and I forgot to sign the field trip form. (Again.)

Hannah, it has been a delight to interact with you about this book and its ideas. Thanks so much for your time and for your winsome efforts to refocus women's identity around imago dei!

Grab a copy of Made for More: An Invitation to Live in God's Image at Amazon...or enter below to win! And to read more from Hannah Anderson, check out her blog, Sometimes a Light, or follow her on Twitter for frequent links to her articles around the web.

I've never run a Rafflecopter giveaway before, so we'll see how this goes...thanks in advance for your patience :) Winner will be chosen on Sunday, November 30! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Made for More: Author Interview

Hannah Anderson's book had me shouting YES! out loud as I read. I repeatedly scribbled "wow" and "AMEN!" in the margins. I think Made for More: An Invitation to Live in God's Image is a deeply important contribution to the church's conversation about gender roles, femininity, and identity.

I am delighted to direct you to Ungrind today, where you can find a recent interview I did with Hannah about her book--and a giveaway from her publisher! Hannah begins by saying:

When I first entered adulthood, life was pretty easy; I had my nice, neat categories. I knew who I was and where I belonged. And then life happened.

Ten years later, the roles and categories that had once given me security weren’t working anymore. I felt uncertain, out of sorts, and restless. When I looked around, I saw my friends going through very similar struggles. So I started asking myself, What have we missed? What has been absent from the conversation that would explain why so many of us are longing for “more”? It turns out that the “more” we needed wasn’t more opportunity or different roles; the “more” we needed was God Himself.

 Head over to Ungrind for more, plus a chance to win one of two copies of the book.

...And stay tuned, because I'll be revisiting this next week with more of my thoughts about the book and some "bonus material" from my interview with the author!

White Umbrella Giveaway Winner

And the winner, chosen by random.org, is...

comment #2, Brenna Kate!

Send me your mailing address and I'll get  The White Umbrella: Walking with Survivors of Sex Trafficking in the mail to you ASAP.

Thanks to everyone who entered, and to my sweet friend Sandra, who started it by giving the book away to me!

Giveaway: The White Umbrella

Last month, a dear friend of mine received a couple of copies of The White Umbrella: Walking with Survivors of Sex Trafficking by Mary Frances Bowley. She was so captivated by the book that her interest piqued mine, and she gave me a copy of the book, asking only that I pass it along when I was finished. Well, now I'm finished, so I decided it was time for a blog giveaway!

The White Umbrella tells stories from Wellspring Living, an Atlanta-based ministry which fights childhood sexual abuse and exploitation. This organization comes alongside wounded and broken women and offers them the love and support they need to begin putting their lives back together.

The harsh reality is, sex trafficking isn't just an "over there somewhere" problem, an ugly issue centered in Southeast Asia. It happens here. And maybe you've heard the alarming and heartbreaking statistic: one out of every four women is sexually abused before the age of eighteen. That means women you know and love have suffered unimaginable horrors. How do we help them? What can be done?

Bowley and the staff and volunteers at Wellspring Living have spent the last decade pursuing--and demonstrating--answers to those questions. From the back cover of the book:

Every year over 100,000 girls in the United States are forced to do someone's sexual bidding. Most of them are between the ages of 9 and 19.  

This is not some foreign, faraway problem. This is in our own neighborhoods, our own towns and cities.  

Throughout these pages read the stories of these girls and the people who have come alongside them to hold the white umbrella of protection and purity over them on the road to restoration. See the need for these protecting, serving partners. Learn what it means to love and care for these survivors in action, prayer, and support. 

I'd like to send my copy of The White Umbrella to a reader who would like to read it and then pass it along to someone else. To enter the giveaway, simply leave a comment below. For extra entries:

• share this post somewhere else (Facebook/Twitter/your own blog/etc.), and leave a separate comment saying that you did so
• subscribe to my blog (here or over in the sidebar), and leave a separate comment (either saying that you are already a subscriber, or you have just now signed up)

This giveaway will close at 9:00 PM (CDT) on Saturday, November 17. The winner will be chosen by random number generator and announced next Sunday. 

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year for Snail Mail

I absolutely love the tradition of sending Christmas cards. In the age of email and Facebook and blogging, I love walking out to the mailbox and finding something personal and fun among the bills and advertisements nearly every day in December! I love opening envelopes with familiar handwriting and seeing notes from faraway friends. And I really love seeing their smiling faces in a photo card.

All our Christmas cards go in a basket on the dining room table, and each night for dinner we select a card and pray for the family. We do all the photo cards first, because as soon as we get through all of those, I get to plaster them all over my refrigerator! For the rest of the year, you can hardly tell what color our fridge is, and that's just the way I like it: covered with photos of loved ones, whether it's friends we see every week at church, cousins who live far away, or friends I haven't seen in years.

This year, Shutterfly is making it even easier for you to bless me with a Christmas photo card :) They are giving away 50 FREE photo cards to bloggers! I was so excited to read about this promotion on Sarah's blog, because with stamps at 44 cents apiece these days, sending out cards can get pricey pretty quickly.

We haven't taken our family photo for this year's cards yet--I'm hoping to give it a try with the tripod and remote this weekend. The last few years, we've had friends or cousins do a little photo session; this year, I wasn't quite so on the ball. I'd really love to get professional portraits done, but the budget won't really allow that this year. Maybe someday...in the meantime, a little trip down memory lane to see how our family has grown through the last few years of Christmas cards:

My, how life changes...

I can't wait to get going on this year's cards--hopefully we'll be able to get a decent picture. Elijah isn't super cooperative about that these days (he apparently prefers to be on the other side of the camera) but we did discover over Thanksgiving break that bribing him with raisins at least convinces him to sit where you want him and look in the general direction of the photographer.

Anyway, Shutterfly has tons of great cards--I'm going to have a hard time choosing. They have some premium cards printed on cardstock instead of photo paper, which would be much nicer for writing personal notes on the back. And the traditional, basic 4x8 photo cards have come a long way in the last few years, I think! This tree design is really fun for those who have too many cute pictures and can't choose just one:


As relatively new parents, we've also found that photo gifts from sites like Shutterfly are joyfully received by new grandparents at Christmastime :) For Elijah's first Christmas, they received photo ornaments for their trees. We've also given playing cards and calendars. And as much as Elijah is into puzzles right now, I think he would really love a photo puzzle of some beloved family members! Too bad he's not *quite* ready for 252 pieces yet...

Head on over to Shutterfly to do some Christmas photo-shopping...and if you're a blogger, sign up to get some free cards! And then send me one so I can put you on my fridge :)

Gospel Primer Giveaway Winners

We have seven winners! I used Random.org to generate seven integers and then applied those numbers to the comments in order in the original post. I think rather than surf all over hunting for each person's email address, I'll list the winners here and let you email me :) If you see your name listed below, send me an email: amykannel[at]hotmail[dot]com. Include your snail-mail address, and I'll get your prize sent off as soon as possible. If I don't hear from you by Monday, I'll go looking for your address.

Doing a giveaway is hard--I wanted you all to win and felt disappointed for everyone I didn't pick. I also felt sort of disappointed that only 19 people entered. I guess everyone just doesn't realize what a fantastic book this is! But, that made the odds better for those of you who did enter.

Without further ado, the grand prize winner of A Gospel Primer for Christians and a surprise gift is:

• comment #19: Terri, on 1/29 at 5:01 PM

Six other winners will be receiving pocket versions of the Gospel Narrative I memorized, an excerpt of the original Primer. They are:

• comment #15: Marcy, on 1/28 at 8:13 AM
• comment #27: Jennifer, on 2/1 at 8:03 PM
• comment #3: Zoanna, on 1/27 at 2:01 PM
• comment #18: Karen, on 1/28 at 12:53 PM
• comment #35: Andrea, on 2/2 at 4:14 PM
• comment #10: Sarah, on 1/27 at 4:47 PM

Congratulations to the winners!

If you didn't win, but still would like a copy of A Gospel Primer for Christians, it can be ordered online for only $10.95. Thanks so much to all of you who entered the contest and who read, comment on, subscribe to and blog about my blog. Have a great weekend.