You know what really bums me out? When I’m reading a review of a spiritual book I’ve loved, and one of the reviewers gives one star because “they are too emotional and self-absorbed.” Well duh. It’s a memoir. Memoirs are entirely composed of blood, guts, and glory. If there were no tears, it wouldn’t be real life. If they aren’t partially self-absorbed, they wouldn’t be human. Real life is like this: hard moment, no epiphany, tears, epiphany, blood, guts, sadness, happiness, tantrum, realization, happy-sad tears.
I’m skeptical of self-help books. There are the Lifeway books, which are about happiness and bravery and finding our best selves in God, and then there are the “progressive” books which might not even talk about God at all, but are banned from Christian bookshelves because the writer inserted a curse word. I love reading about messiness and chaos and God’s love for the self-absorbed people we are, but I don’t like when people claim that they are being “real” and then solve everything in an instant with a single Bible Verse. I’d rather not talk about God if it’s going to make people feel inferior or confused.
It’s rare that someone can teach you how to be brave or how to change your life in ten days. I’ll read it and want to cry because I suck at bravery.
This is why Shauna Niequist is one of my favorite writers. If you’re reading this blog, it’s entirely possible she’s one of yours too. If you haven’t read her, leave now, read, and come back when you’re done. I mean it. Go.
One of the reasons her books resonate is that they are about the ordinary moments of life (sprinkled with a little upperclass Christian bubble glitter) They are about digging into community and finding the spiritual in the everday. All that jazz. She talks about losing her first job, miscarriages, and weight problems. You know, real stuff.
I grew up reading Christian self-help books. Many of them went like this: I had this one moment, and it was awful and it was so hard BUT THEN…..INSERT RANDOM BIBLE VERSE HERE. My life was forever changed (read: so is yours!)
I read a book recently that was like this. (I should say, I mostly just flipped through). It was a parenting book and basically said read these bible verses, parenting is actually super easy if you read these bible verses. Okay, got it? The end.
This is why Jen Hatmaker and Glennon Melton and other bloggers who are quirky and real and self-aggrandizing have had their heyday recently. It’s because people are reading these self-help books and they are like, wait a second….
Maybe we’re tired of picking up five books and feeling that tinge of envy and sadness afterwards when we think hey, why isn’t my life fitting into this box? Why does it feel like a a carnival ride after eating way too much cotton candy instead of a glory to glory progress to eternity?
I think real life with God is hard. I think it is good. Real life looks more like labor contractions on a hospital machine. We doubt a lot more than we have faith and the squiggles are all over the map, rising and falling.
The pressure to fit all of it into a tidy narrative is real, but we have to be careful that we don’t oversimplify the spiritual life. After all, the Bible is rarely simple. Everyone is messed up in the Bible. Everyone is sleeping around and killing people and apologizing for killing people (okay, this is an oversimplification).
We have to leave space for the messiness of sanctification. We have to leave space for failure. Period. We have to leave space for being human.
The spaces where I have achieved the greatest transformation in my life have been the spaces where I am fully knowned and loved. The spaces where grace comes first and no one is trying to “self-help” me out of anything. The stories full of failure and also full of life and hope. Where hope is a figure on the horizon, coming steadily closer until I can see his face finding me in my brokenness.
Not after I have an epiphany. Not after I get my act together. Right here. These are the spaces where our brokenness and his goodness meet. Maybe here, in the gritty, war-torn margins, we’ll move from glory to glory.
The post Why I (Mostly) Won’t Read Self-Help Books for Women appeared first on Briana Meade.
