Can you take 3 seconds to leave a comment and vote on which shirt you’d buy (if any?) of the five options below? If you can leave your gender and age, that would be super helpful. Any other commentary is optional but would come in handy if you have, say, thirty seconds to spare.

Feel free to share too, if you like “Shirt C” but would like it better in grey. And how much you would pay for a shirt like this…you guys are my heroes.

Thanks!

In keeping with the theme of my book, I present to you…

Special thanks to Our Shirts Don’t Suck for the design and printing of these shirts. I can honestly say they truly don’t suck! I’m totally thrilled with how they have turned out so far!

Let me preface this post by saying I love the freedom of the internet.

I think it’s a great place to share ideas and resources.

If it weren’t for the generous spirit of The People of the Internet, I don’t think I’d be able to be a full time author and speaker. I wouldn’t have learned as much as I have in the last five years. I am so appreciative to people who find value in the conversations we have here or as a result of one of my books and who spread that message.

However, when a blog gets to be well-read, something happens. People begin emailing you asking you to plug things (books, CDs, organizations, giveaways, other blogs, their mom’s necklace line, PETA for Christians, etc.) all the time. In the time I was away this summer I had forty-three requests for book reviews or blog tours. It can make you feel like you’re a commodity. I’m not a fan of that feeling. (That’s why I’m also a little over-cautious with how I promote my new book…)

Anyway, one of these requests came from a very well-known pastor (although I’ve never met him). So, I thought I’d try an experiment.

Bottom line? I’ll let him speak to this platform if he lets me speak to his.

I’m typically not so stark or even subscribe to a philosophy of reciprocity. I think people should share because they want to – not because they’ll get something out of it. But again, this is just an experiment because I’m feeling a little snarky after going through forty-three requests. And because I like you guys a lot and don’t want to waste your time telling you about forty-three new books every two months.

Below is the email I sent to him in response to his request. Names have been removed to protect the innocent.

What’s your guess on how this will end? First person who guesses correctly wins a free copy of my new book. At this point, your guess is as good as mine.

Added: I’ll allow two weeks for a response and, if at that point there is no response, we will assume it’s a no go…

—–

Dear Well-Known Pastor,

Thanks for thinking of me for your blog tour.

Actually, first, I have to say I admire your keeping your “real” email address — many pastors of large churches I know change theirs to a tricky combination of their initials or golf nickname their pastor friends have given them like “theplaid@churchname.com” while the messages sent to the obvious email addresses go to gatekeepers. I used to be a gatekeeper. I understand. That’s why I have a generic email address listed on my blog. It can get overwhelming.

Anyway, as you can imagine, I get requests for book or product reviews or mentions all the time for my blog, In fact, just in the time I was away this summer, I received forty-three of them. Some were from new authors, others from pastors of large churches like yourself, and some from grammy-award winning artists (or their representatives).

It can make a girl feel like people are just out to use her for her blog’s audience. If I said yes to everything, that’s all my blog would be – and that isn’t the purpose of my blog.

It’s kind of like how you determine what to promote from the stage at your church. The tens of thousands of people who visit my blog monthly are, in some aspects, like a church, and I want to respect their time and challenge them with a message God’s placed on my heart. It’s one of the reasons I stopped advertising on my blog.

I have done book reviews or studies before, but they are usually books of people I know, or a book I’ve discovered in my own attempt to learn. Those are pretty much the only exceptions to “the rule of no blog tours.” It’s not that I’m completely opposed to them, it just doesn’t always line up with the purpose or the way I need to steward my time and the bit of platform I have been given.

However, for kicks and grins, I thought I’d try an experiment, and your email just happened to land in the right place at the right time.

I have a book releasing at the end of August with Thomas Nelson Publishers called Permission to Speak Freely – Essays and Art on Fear, Confession and Grace.

Since we’re probably in similar boats – each with a platform, each with a message, and each not really knowing the other person, I’d be willing to do a trade off…I’d be happy to share my thoughts on your book with my audience if you’d do the same (with whichever of your platforms is similar to size of reach and depth of influence as mine – it may be online, or perhaps your main audience are the people sitting in your church).

So–whaddya say?

Sincerely,
Anne Jackson

(PS – I emailed this from my personal email address, so feel free to respond here as I check this box more frequently.)

Sometimes I worry so much I make myself sick to my stomach.

Physically sick.

Not able to eat anything for days sick.

Sometimes I get in my car on the way to a meeting or an errand and think, “I could just keep driving forever…it’s the only way out of this mess.”

The heart loses hope easily.

(At least this girl’s does.)

As I’ve found myself in precarious situations, I’ve started taking my own advice and speaking freely.

Opening up to friends.

Seeking wise counsel.

Listening…

Confession is never an easy thing.

It’s never easy to look someone in the eyes and say, “I screwed this up,” or “I have no idea what to do,” or “I’m totally losing my mind here,” or…

“I.

Need.

Help.”

But the freedom that follows, that washes over our worried, tired hearts gives us a sense of peace.

Confess to each other, so you can live together whole and healed.

It’s not a physical healing.

It’s a lifting of a burden off one’s spirit.

That’s actually what that verse in James 5 means.

So…

If you’re feeling heavy…

weighed down…

alone…

ashamed…

confused…

afraid…

helpless…

tired…

Confess.

Be healed.

(Trust me.)

Worry, be lifted. Be carried by others. Be carried by grace.

I went to a movie by myself the other night. It was the first time I’ve done that in a long, long time.

Intentionally I slid through the doors late, after the movie had started, and was out and in my car before the first credit rolled.

If people saw me alone, what would they think of me?

Friendless?

Unlovable?

Awkward?

Even though now, more than maybe any time in my life, I feel the arms and hearts of friends around me, sometimes I still feel lonely.

My friend Jamie posted this video on Twitter last night. And it helped me realize that sometimes being alone is okay. In fact, it’s more than okay.

Lonely is a freedom that breathes easy and weightless.

I was having a discussion with a friend recently about how, when we share our stories, we often refer to things that have taken place in the past.

I used to be addicted to drugs.

My marriage almost fell apart.

I was an alcoholic.

My kids were headed down the wrong path.

I was the most selfish guy you’d ever meet.

Our stories are important. Nobody can argue the power of God’s faithfulness shown in our past.

May I make a suggestion?

Let’s also begin sharing The Story of Now.

Let’s share the brokenness that is happening in our lives at this very given moment — The places we aren’t sure how God will heal, if he will heal them. The places that frighten us. The places that we think will make a great story in the future…but we don’t want to talk about them in the present tense.

Do you recognize your Story of Now? I’ll go first.

I am learning I am a terribly prideful person in a passive-aggressive way, so it’s not easily noticeable. It has been catching up to me in my relationship with God (“I don’t need you”) and others (“And I certainly don’t need you!”)

Although I’ve never actually verbalized those words with anyone, my actions have spoken them. I need to find humility and express it in loving ways to the people around me.

So, what’s Your Story of Now?