Tripping Over Typeset

This summer I’ve read some amazing new books and today I want to share with you the last of the book launches I’ve been a part of this season.

Melanie Shankle is one of my favorite bloggers and author friends.  I love her writing style and way with words.  I have all of her books and I recommend them all!  Seriously!  She is so funny and does a great job of sharing her life with humor.  You will laugh… and cry… and both will be beautiful!

Another great way to connect with her is with her podcasts with her friend, Sophie Hudson.  I’m telling you… I listen to these while making dinner and it’s like having them sit in my kitchen and chit-chat while I cook. It’s fun and adds some laughter to my cooking time.  Their newest podcast can be found here. In fact I’m listening to it right now while I write to you.

Now to her book, Church of the Small Things. I love what Melanie has to share about The Million Little Pieces that Make Up a Life.

Sometimes we can think like Kathleen Kelly in You’ve Got Mail, “I live a small life.”  But in reality, our day-to-day coming and going impacts us and others in bigger ways than we imagine.

Melanie writes in this book:

We are a generation of women who have never worked harder to have it all, yet go to bed most nights worrying that we aren’t enough. We are constantly asking “Why?” We are constantly measuring. It doesn’t matter if you’re single, if you’re married, if you’re rich, poor, old, young, in college, or out of college. Every human heart struggles with this. We are always looking around to see how we measure up to everyone around us and usually focusing on all the ways we fall short.

It’s our internal voice that whispers we will never be enough, so we work and worry and feel like we must do something big, something huge to prove our worth and to make sure our life matters. We have to host a conference, start a movement, adopt fifteen kids, or fight human trafficking to really matter. Which are all great things, but can cause us to lose sight of the small things that can also change a life; bringing dinner to a sick neighbor, smiling at a waitress who’s having a bad day, reading to your kids before bed, and simply praying for someone going through a rough time.

I learned over the years that it’s usually not the big moments that make up a life as much as it is the small ones. It’s not the wedding ceremony that makes you a married couple, but the daily commitment to stay in love even when someone is seemingly incapable of throwing away the wrappers from the York Peppermint Patties he eats every night… It’s not giving birth or signing adoption papers that makes you a mom but braiding hair and kissing scraped knees and walking the floor at night with a feverish baby in your arms as you whisper a silent prayer, or listening to someone sound out the word “cat” until you want to gnaw your arm off to make it stop.

I’ve learned that the best way to live is to look for God in the church of small things. The church of small things is where God does his best work. The church of small things is where the majority of us live every single day.

I love how Melanie reminds us to focus on the small things of our everyday life. It’s in the small everyday faithful living that we see the large impact of God’s grace in our lives.

Church of the Small Things releases today!  I encourage you to pick it up on-line or at your local bookstore!  It’s a great read and a wonderful encouragement for those journeying through the everyday life because “what if it’s the LITTLE things that make a BIG difference?”

Melanie wrote a blog post today about this book, the heartbreak in Las Vegas and all the crazy happening in our country today. She sums it up well and you can read it by clicking here.  I encourage you to follow her blog, pick up her books, and read them!  You will be blessed!

Have a great day, friends!

***********************************

Linking up with: #HeartEncouragement