Hudson - Giddy Up, Eunice: (Because Women Need Each Other)

Copyright 2016 by Sophie Hudson

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-4336-4311-8

Published by B&H Publishing Group

Nashville, Tennessee

Author represented by Alive Literary Agency, 7680 Goddard Street, Suite 200, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920, www.aliveliterary.com

Dewey Decimal Classification: 248.843

Subject Heading: WOMEN \ CHRISTIAN LIFE \ HUMAN RELATIONS

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture is taken from the English Standard Version, ( esv ) copyright 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. esv Text Edition: 2007. All rights reserved.

Also used: Holman Christian Standard Bible ( hcsb ), copyright 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee. All rights reserved.

Also used: New Living Translation ( nlt ), copyright 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Also used: The Message ( msg ), copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson.

Also used: The Amplified Bible ( amp ), copyright 2015 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, CA 90631. All rights reserved.

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For Mama, who has always loved, honored, and served so beautifully

I love Sophie Hudson. I love the way she thinks. I love the way she relates. I love the way she writes. I love the way she loves. I have the privilege to know her on the back side of the page where every writer lives real life. Sometimes the sides of those pages dont match. Im writing this foreword to let you know Sophies pages are true, front and back.

Shes in the thing. Life is what I mean. Shes fully engaged and out there where the heart is vulnerable and the winds can blow hot or cold. She risks loving even if it means losing. Sophie is a servant in a serve yourself world. She is a teacher in every aspect of life and I suspect the root of her excellence is embedded in the soul of an insatiable student.

I like a lot of things about Sophie, but two top my list: she loves Jesus and she loves people. I dont mean that in the dont we all? sense. I mean really. She studies Jesus like all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Him. (Col. 2:3) She studies people like each individual is a full-color anthology, bound up in a soft cover of human flesh.

There is a third thing I particularly like about Sophie. She is just plain hilarious. I could compile a list of quotables from simple texts I receive from her. You are going to have a blast with Sophie Hudson in this book. Youre going to sit next to her and see life through her spectacular and beautiful and sometimes mischievous eyes. And heres the best part: youre going to like life a whole lot better when you finish this book. It wont be because its gotten any easier. It will be because some people just make living on planet Earth a whole heck of a lot more bearable. Thats Sophie.

Enjoy,

Beth Moore, Living Proof Ministries

I dont know if itll make you feel any better, but I think I need to tell you that the book youre holding in your hands right now has, like, super Christian-y origins.

Oh, no kidding. Its just a hair shy of signing up for Bible drill and then participating in a choir contest featuring the hymns of John Wesley.

Because the idea for this book? The very first a-ha moment I had related to it?

I dont mean to brag, but it totally happened during my quiet time one morning when I was smack-dab in the middle of a Bible reading plan with my church.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thats a pretty earnest start for a book, dont you think? I mean, its not quite as good as if Id been in my prayer closet (I dont really have a prayer closet) and memorizing the entire book of Leviticus (honestly, I have a hard time making it through Leviticus; that is a LOT of rules, yall) while someone played Come, Ye Sinners, Poor and Needy on a four-string banjo in the background.

But it worked in a pinch.

And while I will spare you the tale of how I fell off of the Bible reading plan bandwagon a couple of months later thanks to a big ole looming deadline, that quiet time moment has stayed with me for the last year and a half.

Perhaps I should explain.

On that particular day of the Bible reading plan, we were in Luke 1, which, you know, didnt necessarily seem like the most significant or exciting passage to be covering that morning. However, I fought the urge to resume my Parenthood marathon on Netflix and plowed ahead. For a whole host of reasons, Im so glad I did.

Now you may know this next part already, but Ill go ahead and spell it out since I am the reigning queen of overexplaining. In Luke 1 we hear all about how Gabriel visited Zechariah with the news that his wife Elizabeth, who was advanced in years, was going to have a baby who would be filled with the Holy Spirit even in the womb. Since we have the benefit of history, we know that baby was John the Baptist, but Zechariah didntwhich is why he openly doubted Gabriel and then had to deal with the unfortunate consequence of not being able to speak. Thats a tricky thing for a priest.

Sure enough, Elizabeth turned up pregnant (thats the lesser-known Mississippi translation of the Bible). She kept herself hidden (Luke 1:24) for about five months (so would I, by the way, if I found out I was expecting in my sixties), but she was grateful for what the Lord had done.

Meanwhile, up in Nazareth, Gabriel paid another visit to a young woman named Mary. He informed her that she was going to have a childthe Savior of the world, no lessand after Gabriel finished with his big announcement, Mary responded with one of my favorite understatements ever:

How will this be, since I am a virgin? (Luke 1:34)

After Gabriel told her precisely how it would be, he gave her the sweetest news in verses 3637:

And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.

When I read those two verses last February, I underlined and starred them with my purple pen, and I wrote myself this note at the top of the page:

God gave Mary someone who would understand.

Think about it. Mary and Elizabeths circumstances were oh-so-similar, but they were at vastly different stages in their lives. Two completely different generations. To put it in modern terms, Mary was super-excited because she just updated the apps on her iPhone, and Elizabeth was looking through her AARP magazine before she double-checked Zechariahs 401K account.

But as C. S. Lewis once said, Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: What? You, too? I thought I was the only one.

That C. S. Lewis was a pretty smart fella.

I had no idea at the time, of course, but that February morning was just the beginning of my time with Mary and Elizabeth. In fact, theyve been hanging out in my head ever since. And last fall, when I transitioned into a new job as Womens Advisor at a Christian high school where Id previously worked as an English teacher for fourteen years, it dawned on me that there were Marys everywhere I turned. There were Marys at the lockers, Marys in the lunchroom, and Marys trying to plug in flat irons in my office because MY HAIR, MRS. HUDSON, DO YOU SEE HOW BAD MY BANGS LOOK? Granted, the specifics of their lives dont necessarily resemble those of Elizabeths young cousin in Nazareth, but their need for support, affirmation, and confirmation in the midst of uncertainty?