Tag Archives: giveaway

{Giveaway} Grace for the Good Girl

**10.06.11 Update: The winner (selected completely at random by a third party at 12:03 am) is … Carole Huck! Congratulations, Carole! Check your email for details. For everyone else who entered, thank you for leaving a comment! I still highly recommend this book to you, and it can be found here.**

My name is Emily, and I am a good girl.

“Grace for the Good Girl: Letting go of the Try Hard Life” by Emily P. Freeman.

I can’t fully express in words the impact and awesomeness of this book. If Jon Acuff got inside my head, than Emily Freeman (who also blogs here) got inside my heart and wrote the words that I had only wrestled with as concepts under the cover of darkness – many of which hadn’t yet been formed into coherent thoughts and hadn’t yet been reached with Truth.

From page one, I identified closely with the perfectionist mentality of the good girl. And as I continued to read, struggling between the desire to read slowly to soak in every word and the desire to read quickly to embrace the entirety of the message, I knew that this book would lead me to more deeply experience Grace because this book would remind me of and lead me to the truth and freedom in Christ.

To be honest, by chapter two, I didn’t know for sure that I could handle going on. I found myself becoming defensive – even a little raw – as Emily’s words, beautifully intertwined with Scripture, proved to be challenging, convicting, and exposing. I had assumed going into this book that it would affirm much of what the Lord had already begun to reveal in me, but it went so much further beyond what I had expected. In a good way. In a soul-satisfying way. Although challenging, the tone is never threatening, but rather always inviting. And the message is centered on Jesus Christ.

“Jesus is the radical, absolutely complete, living answer to all our if-onlys and if-I-could-justs. His unwavering, unchanging, unconditional love and acceptance of us is what we are really looking for.” (p. 215)

Even the questions at the end of each chapter are well-written, piercing, and enhance the message. Sometimes I read books in which the questions seem completely irrelevant, but I somehow feel compelled to come up with answers anyways. This book isn’t like that. The questions are honest and revealing, and the answers flow freely from my heart and my mind.

Resting on the foundation of Scripture, this book is life-changing because this book points again and again to the One who changes lives.

And it’s for that reason that I’m giving away

a copy of “Grace for the Good Girl” today.

To enter for a chance to win, all you have to do is leave a comment below (just be sure you leave a valid email address). You can tell me why you would like to read this book, your favorite flavor of ice cream, the last time you went to the beach, or just say hello.

For an additional chance to win, you can also subscribe to my blog via email (see sidebar to the right) OR via a feed reader, and leave a separate comment telling me you’ve done so (and yes, even if you’ve been subscribed for a while, you can still leave this additional comment).

You can comment until midnight next Wednesday (October 5, 2011). The winner will be chosen randomly and will be announced/contacted next Thursday (October 6, 2011).

**disclaimer: i was not asked to review this book or give away a copy. i just strongly believe the message is worth sharing. oh, and come back this saturday as i begin the new series 31 days to better understand our {God given} callings**

5 Things

1. As if you don’t get enough of my ramblings already, I joined twitter this weekend. You can follow me at @emily_gallimore. But only if you want to.

2. The big office reveal will have to wait until November. I know I said I was hoping to do it within the next couple of weeks, but a fun writing project will now be taking over the blog for the entire month of October (details in #4 below!), and the office reveal just doesn’t quite seem to fit the theme. At least not yet. Maybe I can figure out how to sneak it in there in mid-October when you’re tired of hearing from me. But I figure this way, by November all at least most of the small details will already be in place, so it will feel even more finished.

3. I’m having a giveaway on Thursday. You will NOT want to miss this. I am seriously SO excited to share the awesomeness with you!

4. A few blogs I follow (The Inspired Room, Nesting Place, Chatting at the Sky) have previously done 31 Day series during October, and this year, they’ve invited others to join in the challenge with them, so I’ve [somewhat hesitantly] decided to participate. So, as long as all goes according to plan, I’ll be posting daily in October under the topic of 31 Days to Better Understand our [God Given] Callings. I may have more questions than answers, and the series may not be quite as polished or refined as I would prefer, but I’m excited to explore this topic with you for a month, and I invite you to join in the conversation. A formal introduction to the series will be posted on October 1st.

5. Umm…October 1st is THIS Saturday. And I have no idea what that photo has to do with this post either, but I liked it.

Fun Find: Love Poster

It has come to my attention that I have failed to post anything in my “fun find” category for over six months.  So that changes . . . right now.

But this is a different sort of fun find.

I have been following Shannan’s blog, Flower Patch Farmgirl, for some time now and absolutely love it!  She has a genuine and refreshing style and a beautiful heart.

Well about a month ago, for her blog’s two year anniversary, Shannon hosted a giveaway for an 11”x17” poster from Jerusalem Greer.  To enter, we simply had to check out Jerusalem’s etsy site, Jolly Goode, and leave a comment noting which poster we liked best (preferably providing a reason why).

So I left this comment:

My favorite is “Love has come to walk among us.”  It reminds me of the line from Michael W. Smith’s song “Anthem for Christmas” and that makes me think of the powerful message of “Emmanuel”!  Happy 2-year Anniversary!!

  

And I actually won!!!  I was SOOO excited!

Especially considering how much I love words (I’m pretty sure my Bible Study girls from college can vouch for this…) and recently I have become quite in love with art that revolves around words.

My evening-photos-in-bad-light do NOT do this poster justice.  It is a beautiful shade of red!

And to make it even sweeter, profits from Jerusalem’s etsy shop goes toward her family’s desire to adopt!  Love that!

A huge THANK YOU to both Shannan and Jerusalem for the giveaway/poster!!  I love it and cannot WAIT to frame it and get it up in my study!