Connolly - You are the girl for the job: daring to believe the God who calls you

SIX STEPS TOWARDS ABUNDANT OBEDIENCE

Nick: I feel so uniquely privileged to have a husband who preaches the gospel to me through his words and his actions every day. I am so freed up to encourage others because you continually point me to His truth, His love, and His grace. Also, your early morning Scrabble messages were the fire that fueled this book.

Anna: You are the girl for the job. Thank God you were and are! Im so grateful for what weve gotten to build together, and I cant wait to keep going, you poetic and noble land mermaid. You opalescent tree shark. I love you, and I couldnt do this without you (or your feet).

Hannah W: Thank you for living with me through the summer of 2018 and living out these words with me. Thanks for always holding tight to His promises for us. Im so grateful God wrote our stories together, to dream and to work and to love and to learn. Your strength and softness have changed my life.

Mom: There are so many things youve purchased for us in the spiritual and the physical with your obedience and your desire for abundance. This message and the belief in it feels like a part of that parcel. Im so grateful for you!

Jenni, Stephanie, Alicia, and Harmony: You are the real MVPs. Thank you for handling this book with care and compassion always. Thank you for leading me, guiding me, and always bringing the best gifts to the table.

Meredith L: God used your wisdom and care to turn one of the most bitter seasons in my life into one with some pretty sweet fruit. Thank you.

Kristen Ezsol, Lauren Pavao, Britt Corner, Hannah Arnold, Helen Brooks, Sarah Lacour, Chalice Howard, Caroline Hopper, Annie Downs, Rach Kincaid, Connie Wood, Gabby Lane, and Kennesha Poe-Buycks: Thank you for being the women I get to know and be known by, thank you for being my co-laborers and friends.

Connolly Kiddos: We did it again! Thanks for caring that I write books and getting excited about them. Thanks for putting up with a pretty sleepy mom during the summer of 2018. Cannon, thanks for cuddling with me when Id write. Glo, thanks for being the woman I most want to be. Benja, your wit keeps me on my toes and keeps me trying to be funny. Elias, watching you fall in love with Jesus has been an inspiration.

Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2013), 92.

Maurice Casey, Jesus of Nazareth: An Independent Historians Account of His Life and Teaching (London: T & T Clark, 2010), 193.

Bart D. Ehrman, Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2006), 229.

Susie Davis, Unafraid: Trusting God in an Unsafe World (Colorado Springs: WaterBrook Press, 2015).

I ll never forget the day I decided I wasnt all that pretty.

It was early in my freshman year of college, a bright fall day, and I was walking from my class to the dorm. This first semester of college Id taken all morning classes, as I was attempting to get school finished early in the day, work a part-time job in the afternoon, and study or hang with friends in the evening. Fall in South Carolina means its still unthinkably warm, so I was walking and sweating and hadnt attempted to dress nicely or put on makeup. I felt great about that decision as the perspiration just dripped down my face and neck, pooling into a moist spot between my shoulders.

And then I saw her.

She had short, dark, straight hair that hit just at her shoulders in a beautifully natural way. Her outfit was similar to mine, just somehow better: a T-shirt and shorts, tennis shoes, and minimal jewelry. But her face was like something Michelangelo would choose for a museher bone structure was flawless, and I wondered how cheeks could be so pointy and pretty all at once. Her olive skin was tight, as though someone had pulled it back and tied it with string beneath her hair. Even her eyes sparkledliterally sparkledas I passed her, me on my way to the dorm, she on her way to wherever impossibly beautiful people go.

Sixteen years later, I can still describe the face of the girl who convinced me I wasnt all that pretty. I can still see her in my minds eye. For all I can remember, I dont think I ever saw her again, but if she walked into a restaurant here in present-day Charleston, Im almost positive I could ID her in a second.

That was the moment when I first thought to myself that some people just have beauty naturally. That thought has stayed with me for sixteen years.

My kind of beauty, on the other hand, is the unnatural kind. Some people look stellar in their husbands sweats with no makeup on. When I dont wear makeup (which is roughly four out of seven days of the week), everyone asks if Im tired/depressed/sick/okay. I cant fit into my husbands sweats because hes super fit and trim, and while I get after it in the gym, too, my hips and booty are about twice the size of his, so we can just throw out that scenario altogether. My hair started going gray in my late twenties, but not in a distinguished way. Were talking squirrely, wiry, disobedient wildfires of gray that sprout up all along my part, so I dye those suckers regularly.

Dont misunderstand meI feel great about how God made me, but I am not what youd describe as a natural beauty. It takes about forty-five minutes on average for me to look my best, and that doesnt mean I actually spend forty-five minutes getting ready every day. Im just down with not looking my best most days because its my quiet rebellion against the confines and constructs of our society that say women cant be useful unless theyre flawless.

But back to that day during my freshman year in college: my perspective shifted because I realized that, on the natural beauty scale, I would essentially never rank. But heres what I want you to catch: I wasnt devastated or dismayed. On the contrary, it was as if a fresh wave of freedom passed over me when I realized I was out of the running.

OR THAT GREAT OF A MOTHER

I became a mom in a season where most of my friends were still in college, much less thinking about marriage or starting families. I was twenty-one when I got pregnant, had been married for eight months, and honestly, I didnt even slightly mind being the one in my group of friends to go first. My oldest child is now rounding the corner to twelve years old, and half my friends still dont have kids. But I love that we share our lives with people in diverse stages of life and always have. Our kiddos have grown up with the best spiritual aunts and unclessingle or newly married friends who have the margin and passion to invest in thembut what they dont have is a plethora of playdates, since we dont spend time exclusively with other families who have kids our age.

My first child was born into a community where we were literally the only people our age having children, but we made a move (across the country) to Seattle just before our second was born. Then we had our third baby just a year after the second. So we were twenty-four and twenty-five with three children under three, living literally as far as we could be (while staying in America) from our families. God provided abundant community quicklyfriends who are still some of our closest to date, and to top it off, they were all our age and having kids quickly, like us.