Melanie Springer Mock - Worthy: Finding Yourself in a World Expecting Someone Else

Every once in a while, a book lands on my desk that I wish I had read when I was in college. The book you now hold in your hands is one of those books.... This is theology at its best. It is both pastoral and personal.

CAROLYN CUSTIS JAMES, AUTHOR OF MALESTROM AND HALF THE CHURCH, FROM FOREWORD

Melanie Springer Mocks Worthy is so many things: memoir and resource, theological reflection and cultural critique. As a narrator, she is wise, cantankerous, charming. An astute cultural critic, Mock reads the narratives of North American Christianity for the ways in which they give and hinder life, and offers tools for challenging the forces in Christian and secular culture that insist that we are anything less than createdindividually, diverselyin the image of God.

BROMLEIGH MCCLENEGHAN, AUTHOR OF GOOD CHRISTIAN SEX

Melanie Springer Mocks new book, Worthy, truly matters. It matters, as Madeleine LEngle might say, cosmically, as the author tells her own story of untangling her faith from empty or showy religion and affirms that we are all image-bearers of God and are worthy simply because we exist. I love Mocks sensibility (and good sense) and her call to authenticity and love.

JENNIFER GRANT, AUTHOR OF WHEN DID EVERYBODY ELSE GET SO OLD?

Reading Worthy is like sitting down for a cup of coffee with a best friend you didnt know you had. Melanie Springer Mock both affirms the worthiness of every human being as one created in Gods image and gently leads her reader to consider larger questions of social justice in the context of individual worth. This book is a must-read for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider, watching the parade of haves go by while perennially feeling like a have-not.

ELRENA EVANS, EDITOR AT EVANGELICALS FOR SOCIAL ACTION

When we are truly, deeply loved, the way Jesus loves, our hearts and minds expand beyond all knowing. This book doesnt just describe that love; it takes you inside it through the power of story. Reading these beautiful, vulnerable stories will make you feel worthy in your very bonesand will inspire you to love others the same way. What good news!

SHIRLEY HERSHEY SHOWALTER, AUTHOR OF BLUSH

Melanie Springer Mocks Worthy uniquely weaves scholarly inquiry and good storytelling into a powerful witness. Through it she touches virtually every area of demeaning and destructive division in modern society and in evangelical Christianity. Her memoir, written in the tradition of spiritual autobiography, helps readers see that Jesus life and unconditional love have indeed changed the sentence structureand thus the power structure for all of us, from one of never being enough to one of being profoundly worthy just as we are.

BETTINA TATE PEDERSEN, PROFESSOR OF LITERATURE AND WOMENS STUDIES, POINT LOMA NAZARENE UNIVERSITY

Using her own life as a flashlight, Melanie Springer Mock wonderfully illustrates ways to discover worth when not enough is the message most often heard in Christian and secular cultures. If you are yearning to be simply and amazingly you in Christ and in community, read this book. It certainly touched me.

MARYKATE MORSE, AUTHOR AND SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR

Herald Press

PO Box 866, Harrisonburg, Virginia 22803

www.HeraldPress.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mock, Melanie Springer, 1968-author.

Title: Worthy : finding yourself in a world expecting someone else / Melanie Springer Mock.

Description: Harrisonburg : Herald Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017052092| ISBN 9781513802541 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781513802558 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Christian women--Religious life. | Self-actualization (Psychology) in women. | Self-actualization (Psychology)--Religious aspects--Christianity. | Identity (Psychology)--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Classification: LCC BV4527 .M565 2018 | DDC 248.4/897--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017052092

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part, in any form, by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission of the copyright owners.

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture text is quoted, with permission, from the New Revised Standard Version, 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America.

WORTHY

2018 by Herald Press, Harrisonburg, Virginia 22803. 800-245-7894.

All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017052092

International Standard Book Number: 978-1-5138-0254-1 (paperback); 978-1-5138-0255-8 (hardcover); 978-1-5138-0256-5 (ebook)

Printed in United States of America

Cover and interior design by Reuben Graham

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To those who have loved me, just as I am.
You know who you are.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Ralph Waldo Emerson