Do you have solid community in your life? I thought I could answer that question with an easy “YES!” until a crisis hit. It took that crisis for me to evaluate how I relate to God and to others.
Today my book Lean on Me: Finding Intentional, Vulnerable and Consistent Community is officially out and available for your perusal.
My dear friend Shelia–who is a character in the book, and a protagonist in my life–said this about it:
“Lean on Me is not a stale “how to” book with seven action points to automatically fix all your relationship woes. It is a story. A glorious, difficult, hope-filled story.”
In order to have a rich community surrounding us, one of the key values we must embrace is vulnerability. In Lean on Me, I talk about this complexity.
“A great misunderstanding in the world is that we must wait until we feel safe to be vulnerable with other people. They must earn our trust and show us they will not take our wounds and cause them to bleed more. We misconstrue the wisdom of guarding our hearts, our life’s wellspring, as a command to build a fortress around them.
We are never safe from pain, and safety has nothing to do with vulnerability.
Vulnerability will hurt…It is a paradox: once we realize being vulnerable is never safe, we are then free to be vulnerable. We guard our hearts by giving them to the Guardian. We accept the fact that hurt will come. We see wounds as gifts. When this dramatic shift in our spirit occurs, fear no longer controls us.”
You can order Lean on Me: Finding Intentional, Vulnerable and Consistent Community as a paperback and as an eBook.
If you want to read a few sample chapters of Lean on Me, you can do that here.
We need each other and we get to carry each other.
Much love,
Anne Marie Miller
Comments
2 responses to “How Do You Know It’s Safe to be Vulnerable?”
Wow, your post resonated with me so hard I thought it was going to knock me off my chair! I loved how you put it: “We guard our hearts by giving them to the Guardian.” So true!
When our identity and security are grounded in Christ we experience the freedom to be vulnerable without the fear of being destroyed. We are free to focus on serving and loving others instead of barricading ourselves behind an illusory wall. In my own experience, walls are ineffective at providing protection for my heart and very effective at isolating me.
Congratulations on your book. I’ve downloaded the sampler and can’t wait to dive in. Trying to decide whether to get the paperback or ebook. There is just something so satisfying about having a real book with real pages to turn, but the instant gratification of the ebook is tempting.
Thank you! I think (THINK) if you get the paperback the ebook is free or REALLY discounted. I unfortunately don’t have say over those things. I know it’s the case with my self-published books. I’m with you on the tangible aspect of a paperback though! :)