Mandy Arioto - Starry-Eyed: Seeing Grace in the Unfolding Constellation of Life and Motherhood

Between the blaring, always-on-duty world of mothering and our womans wistful yearning for personal time and space, Mandy Arioto wedges a place for us to be. Courageous. Ever honest. Present. Here is a lovely read that weaves hope in our here. I found myself bobbing along after Mandys musings, chasing her like a child after a firefly through inky nights, eager to capture her discoveries as my own. Dark. Light. Mandy convinces us that God uses everything to shape us into who we always wanted to be.

E LISA M ORGAN , speaker, author, The Beauty of Broken
and Hello, Beauty Full; cohost, Discover the Word,
www.discovertheword.org; President Emerita, MOPS
International, www.mops.org

Starry-Eyed will encourage moms of all ages and stages to embrace grace in the midst of their ordinary life. From the weary to the wonderful, the stressful to the sublime, God is there. We just need a little help seeing him. Mandy Arioto shows us how.

K AREN E HMAN , New York Times bestselling author of
Keep It Shut and Hoodwinked; Proverbs 31 Ministries
speaker; wife and mother of three

Mandys candid stories about what it means to be a woman, a wife, and a mother had me laughing out loud one moment and crying the next. Starry-Eyed is the kind of book you buy multiple copies of to give away to friends.

JJ H ELLER , singer/songwriter

I first heard of Mandy when I was a pastor at MOSAIC in Los Angeles. Our campus pastor in San Diego kept saying, You have to meet Mandy! He would tell me, Shes the future, man. I finally got to know Mandy in an RV by the beach on a speakers retreat that turned into a surf session. I was struck by her quiet power and her depth of insight. When Mandy leads, people grow. When Mandy speaks, hearts open. When Mandy cares, our world heals. Mandy is an amazing mom, leader, speaker, and woman of faith. As I read Mandys book, I thought of my own mom, my wife, my sisters, and my daughters. I want them to be informed by Mandys bold and insightful words. I want my daughters to know they were created for the wild light and the beautiful darkness. Im getting this book for every mom in my life.

H ANK F ORTENER , founder, AdoptTogether.org; teaching
pastor, MOSAIC

By dignifying the darkness, Mandy Arioto leads us into the dark night as well as the jubilant light and reminds us there are gifts in both. Whether shes writing about motherhood, vocation, friendship, marriage, or family, we are invited to consider how we are formed by lifes changing skies. You are sure to find yourself and your journey in these pages.

L EEANA T ANKERSLEY , author of Brazen and Breathing Room

ZONDERVAN

Starry-Eyed

Copyright 2016 by MOPS International, Inc.

Requests for information should be addressed to:

Zondervan, 3900 Sparks Dr. SE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49546

ePub Edition April 2017: ISBN 978-0-310-34036-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Arioto, Mandy, author.

Title: Starry-eyed : seeing grace in the unfolding constellation of life and motherhood / Mandy Arioto.

Description: Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 2016.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015044542 | ISBN 9780310340409 (softcover)

Subjects: LCSH: Mothers Religious life. | Motherhood Religious aspects Christianity.

Classification: LCC BV4529.18 .A75 2016 | DDC 248.8/431 dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044542

Excerpt from Blessings for the Fast Paced and Cyberspaced: Parables, Reflections and Prayers, 2nd ed. (Phoenix: Tau Publishing, 2011) by William John Fitzgerald, 2000. Used with permission.

Excerpt from The Circle of Life by Joyce Rupp and Macrina Wiederkehr, 2005. Used with permission of the publisher, Sorin Books, an imprint of Ava Maria Press, Inc., P. O. Box 428, Notre Dame, IN 46556, www.sorinbooks.com.

Excerpt from Our Vanishing Night, National Geographic, November 2008 by Verlyn Klinkenborg. Used with permission.

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.Zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Any Internet addresses (websites, blogs, etc.) and telephone numbers in this book are offered as a resource. They are not intended in any way to be or imply an endorsement by Zondervan, nor does Zondervan vouch for the content of these sites and numbers for the life of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Cover design: Curt Diepenhorst

Interior design: Denise Froehlich

First printing February 2016

Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook

Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

For Cindy and Charley:
Our roots will always be tangled. I am glad for that.
And for the A-team:
Joe, Joseph, Ellie, and Charlotte

Ally Condie, Matched (New York: Speak, 2011), 216.