Alia Joy - Glorious Weakness: Discovering God in All We Lack

The vulnerability and beauty found in these pages will leave you breathless as Alia wisely leads the weary on a journey into Gods goodness and grace, even in the midst of our deepest weakness, heartbreak, and loss. Her exquisite words are a tender touch that resurrect us in our brokenness to the knowledge that we are deeply seenand that even in our weakness there can be life-giving glory and reviving grace. These are healing pages for hurting hearts and ones I will return to again and again.

Ann Voskamp , New York Times bestselling author of The Broken Way and One Thousand Gifts

With a voice all her own, Alia Joy writes straight from the heart, holding nothing back. Her story is honest, raw, brave. Her prose is beautiful and utterly original. Her insights are deep, forged from years of living in places and spaces most of us try to avoid. You will quickly think of ten friends who need to read this book. Then you will realize the one who needs it most is you. Glorious Weakness eases past our practiced smiles and Christian platitudes to show us what Paul meant when he wrote, For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Cor. 12:10 NIV). By embracing the kind of strength that can be found only in admitting our weakness, Alia Joy has given us what we long for above allhope.

Liz Curtis Higgs , bestselling author of Bad Girls of the Bible

Alia does nothing without soulful intention, and this includes her writing. Her perspective of the world helps me think broader, humbler, and outside the norm, and Im grateful for it. She can weave words as only a skilled artist who has walked long paths to find the finest thread can. Alias words are a gift, and we are all better for her sharing them with us.

Tsh Oxenreider , author of At Home in the World

Alia uses her words to change people. She changes how we see and more importantly how we act. She gives us the gift of new eyes to see Jesus in ways and places we didnt expectand to follow him. Some people are beautiful writers. Some are powerful motivators. Alia is both. Her writing is a one-two punch, and we need more of it in the world.

Lisa-Jo Baker , bestselling author of Never Unfriended and Surprised by Motherhood

Glorious Weakness is a beautiful paradoxchallenging and comforting, heart-wrenching and heart-mending, devastating and hopeful. We are all broken. We are all beloved. We all forget both of these are true. Alias honest, gorgeous words will remind us. I will be thinking about this book for a very long time.

Holley Gerth , bestselling author of Fiercehearted

If your heart is broken, circle around. Alia Joy sets the table and saves a place for the sidelined, the marginalized, and the poor in spirit. Her vulnerable strength paints a compelling picture of Jesusfriend to stragglers, comfort for strugglers. Heres my best advice: lean forward and read this beautiful book with your palms up and your heart open.

Emily P. Freeman , author of Simply Tuesday and The Next Right Thing

This book achieves something incredibly powerful and rare: it heals as it cuts. Alia Joy wields her pen like a double-edged sword. For some, her words will inspire the most wonderful Holy Spirit conviction. For others, her message will be a balm of understanding and hope. For all of us, Alia preaches a better, fuller, truer gospel.

Sharon Hodde Miller , author of Free of Me

In her stunning debut, Alia Joy peels the shame from weakness and lights a campfire with the husks, inviting us to gather around and warm our hands. Her vivid, lyrical writing paints a place of solace where longing makes way for belonging and sorrow is a hidden passageway to wonder. I devoured every word. Read this book if you want to believe God is even bigger than you need him to be. Theres room for all of us in this wide circle of hope.

Shannan Martin , author of The Ministry of Ordinary Places and Falling Free

Glorious Weakness is stunningly written, wholly honest, and deeply theological. This book gives words to the feeling weve all had of believing were on the outside, only to find Jesus with us, beckoning us with a glint in his eyes. Alia Joys story will help you toss a clichd Christianity, exchanging it for a vibrant, robust, feet-to-the-ground faith. This is a gift to the body of Christ.

Mary DeMuth , author of The Seven Deadly Friendships

Christians worship One who came as a baby and lived a humble, rejected, and homeless existence. God came as a weak man. How we got to the place where we began to believeand marketthat his kingdom mostly comes through strength is beyond me. This book is a massive leap in the right direction and is long overdue. It is through weakness , not our perceived victories and strengths and accomplishments, that the kingdom of Jesus mostly comes in our world. And the sooner we listen to voices like Alias in her beautiful Glorious Weakness , the faster we can get out of the way and Gods will can be done here on earth.

A. J. Swoboda , pastor, teacher, and author of Subversive Sabbath

Alia writes with an aching eloquence, inviting us to excavate the places where we are wounded and to sit with our pain and the pain of others. In Glorious Weakness she reminds us that God knows where we ache, sees and understands our pain, and wants to heal the many places where we are wounded.

Amena Brown , spoken word poet, host of HER with Amena Brown podcast, and author of How to Fix a Broken Record

So often, when I realize sadness or scarcity or silence from God is my lot for a particular season, I find my ego looking for the exit ramp. I have to resist the urge to plead with that silent God for a way out or around. Anything other than through. But God is all about through . This book is a beautiful account of the gift of through. I am left speechless with wonder and deeply grateful for the incredibly rich gift of weakness in a world that would trick me into believing weakness is anything but glorious.

Deidra Riggs , author, speaker, and disco lover

Alia Joys literate prose and fascinating life story as a struggling missionary kid could hardly be more compelling. But it was her visceral honesty and wisdom, particularly about mental health, that pierced me wide awake. She asks, What if we started to see weakness not only as something to endure but as our spiritual gift? If we, the church, can catch this true vision, imagine what we could do!

Leslie Leyland Fields , author of The Wonder Years

Words are powerful, and Alia Joy wields that power with hard-won, unflinching honesty, patience, and love. She does not sugarcoat the injustices she and her family experienced but invites readers to sit with her in the margins, where so many of us claim to be but so few of us actually are.

Kathy Khang , author of Raise Your Voice

Breathtaking, moving, meaningful, and timely. Alia Joy writes with exquisite skill on topics such as mental illness, suffering, poverty, and weaknesssubjects we tend to turn fromand invites her readers in close to experience both the pain and the joy through her honesty, warmth, and hard-won hope in God. She strings words with excellence and beauty, balancing bold courage and humble strength. I highly, highly recommend this book.

Vivian Mabuni , speaker and author of Warrior in Pink

Alias writing is beautiful, but her content is even more so because it is dripping with counterintuitive truth. In this book, youll discover that God dwells in the places you least expect. Youll learn of Gods glory in the spaces you seldom consider: your weaknesses and deprivations. Alia is a trusted guide, for she knows of what she speaks. I trust the wisdom she has gained from suffering and Jesus Christ in her. This is a timely book, for it directs us to the timeless way of Jesus. May we all heed what she has to say.