Kellye Fabian - Holy Vulnerability: Spiritual Practices for the Broken, Ashamed, Anxious, and Afraid

With disarming vulnerability, Kellye Fabian points those willing to own their woundedness toward intimacy with a God who heals. The pathway? A surrender in our bodily life [that] leads to surrender in our spiritual life. Fabian gently encourages us to draw near to God by engag[ing] with the world physically through reframed classical practices like embodied prayer and sharing a meal. But she also winsomely introduces the reader to fresh, inviting avenues of healing, like laughter (our protest against suffering) and digging in the dirt, which helps us humbly ground ourselves in the sovereign arms of the God who created it. Theres no shame and guilt here; only a grace-filled invitation to the arms of a Father who loves us freely and forever.

J. KEVIN BUTCHER, executive director of Rooted Ministries, author of Choose and Choose Again and Free

Whenever Kellye Fabian has something to say, I listen. Her wisdom and pastoral guidance shine brightly in Holy Vulnerability. Immerse yourself in these beautiful words and practices, and let the Holy Spirit teach you how to be both fully human and deeply loved.

CATHERINE M C NIEL, author of Long Days of Small Things and All Shall Be Well

NavPress is the publishing ministry of The Navigators, an international Christian organization and leader in personal spiritual development. NavPress is committed to helping people grow spiritually and enjoy lives of meaning and hope through personal and group resources that are biblically rooted, culturally relevant, and highly practical.

For more information, visit NavPress.com.

Holy Vulnerability: Spiritual Practices for the Broken, Ashamed, Anxious, and Afraid

Copyright 2021 by Kellye Fabian. All rights reserved.

A NavPress resource published in alliance with Tyndale House Publishers

NAVPRESS and the NavPress logo are registered trademarks of NavPress, The Navigators, Colorado Springs, CO. TYNDALE is a registered trademark of Tyndale House Ministries. Absence of in connection with marks of NavPress or other parties does not indicate an absence of registration of those marks.

The Team:

Caitlyn Carlson, Acquisitions Editor; Elizabeth Schroll, Copy Editor; Olivia Eldredge, Operations Manager; Julie Chen, Designer

Cover photograph of hands by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash. All rights reserved.

Author is represented by The Christopher Ferebee Agency, www.christopherferebee.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.

Some of the anecdotal illustrations in this book are true to life and are included with the permission of the persons involved. All other illustrations are composites of real situations, and any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Tyndale House Publishers at , or call 1-855-277-9400.

ISBN 978-1-63146-932-9

ISBN 978-1-63146-934-3 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-63146-935-0 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-63146-933-6 (Apple)

Build: 2021-06-10 09:35:09 EPUB 3.0

For the broken, ashamed, anxious, and afraid...

for all of us.

O ne time, Kellye invited me to speak to her small-group leaders. Kris and I sat comfortably at one of the tables as Kellye spoke to her leaders. While sitting, I had what many at Willow Creek Community Church call a prompting. These are not common experiences for me, so I knew I had one. I told Kellye that evening that she should go to (our!) seminary, so Kellye and I met not long after at a favorite coffee shop, and we talked. I should say Kellye ever the lawyer asked me questions, good questions, questions not normally asked by future seminary students. Her questions were about what goes on in classes and why she should take classes and what she would learn. I dont remember details, but what I have said to many is this: You will like seminary not for what it will do for you but what it will do to you.

The book you are holding in your hands, Holy Vulnerability, reveals in part what the Lord has done to Kellye in the last four years as she has pondered the Bible and theology. I cannot tell you what an honor it was for me when she asked me to write the foreword. In reading this book, I see through her clear-as-glass prose to her vulnerable heart before God and now vulnerable before all of us. Kellye sat in classes with alert eyes, taking notes but pondering (in her inimitable manner) what was said. She was a quiet student, but when Kellye spoke, students listened. She spoke out of an authentic life, out of a deep pondering of the Lord at work in her life, out of a clear mind with compelling arguments, and out of a holy concern for the church where she found faith and where she is nurturing the faith of others. Willow Creek has a gift from God in Kellye.

Kellyes authentic vulnerability percolates in this book in a disarming manner. She speaks from her own brokenness, which she has at times confessed to me. She speaks about shame and about anxiety and about fear. Because shes been through so much, she speaks almost fearlessly and unselfconsciously about her own struggles. She doesnt thunder with prophetic words about how wrong these are, nor does she offer any simplistic solutions. No, she disarms us by explaining how she lives with these kinds of experiences as she prays and walks with the Lord and communes with her husband and with friends. Many will find in Kellye, simply by reading this book, a mother-confessor because she gently leads others to see their own reality. Our class flew to Istanbul and visited, with a couple more flights, biblical sites in Turkey, Greece, and Italy. Kellye explained to me with a disarming honesty her dread and fear of flying. She didnt back away from it, she just moved forward into yet another experience of trusting God in the midst of anxiety and fear. Her persona is put together, but she knows whats in her heart and she will tell you honestly, vulnerably.

While this book is personal, it is not at all self-absorbed. One of the gifts of good writers of familiar essays is that they tell their own stories in a way that tells our own story too. This book does this on every page: Her story is the story of others. Time and time again as I read Holy Vulnerability, I thought of the Psalms, by far the most vulnerable and personal book in the Bible. In the Psalms, there are more than fifteen hundred uses of first-person pronouns: I, my, and me. Thats not counting first person plurals: We, our, and us. The Psalms map for us a path into a personal experience of God as well as our personal experiences with God. Our experiences with God are often discovered in the presence of others, a major focus of Kellyes book. Spiritual formation that is entirely individualistic fails the basic test of the Bible: The