I love John … I hate John – Emma Woodhouse
by Jane Austen
I love this book.
I hate this book.
Let me clarify. I love this book because it will not let me alone for 10 minutes with my own version of the Good Girl. I love that Emily’s words are shining the light of truth on my heart where my Good Girl hides.
I hate this book because it won’t let me alone for 10 minutes with my own version of the Good Girl. I can no longer hide. I am found.
So you see my problem.
I was halfway through part 1 before I could put words to how I was feeling about this book. I emailed Emily and said, “Is it just me?” She assured me, other Good Girls were struggling, too. So the book sat on my nightstand and I tried to avoid it. I wanted to stop. It was hitting too close to home. Normally, at this point with a book, I’d put it aside and come back to it later. But, I had made a commitment. I said I’d read it. I said I’d review it. I said, well, you know I had to finish it. I’m glad I did.
We live and breathe and move on this terrestrial masquerade ball, longing to display the prettied up, exaggerated version of ourselves to everyone else. Behind my pretty masks I was a worried, anxious wreck of a girl. p. 12
My Good Girl mask is fashioned by responsibility, should, and your expectations. I worry about what others think about me, like a lot. It isn’t that I sit around thinking, “Does she like me?” But, I worry that I will let you down and you will think badly of me. I wonder what I’m supposed to be doing at any given moment. Sitting still, and heaven forbid resting is truly hard for me.
What grabbed my heart in this section, was Emily’s discussion about Martha. Oh God thank you for Martha and her Good Girl heart! Thank you for loving her and responding to her in grace!
Martha’s desire to please clouded her willingness to trust. It isn’t that she wanted to be working. It’s that she thought she had to. She felt responsible. p. 64
Pierced to the heart. I want to please God. I want to please my kids. I want to please you. My willingness to trust God is clouded by this. I am busy, with oh so many things. And trust, well, just isn’t one of them.
But for this Good Girl, there is hope.
God’s desire is that we live in freedom and drink from the wide, deep, powerful River of Life. The masks we hide behind keep us from experiencing the fullness of life the way we were meant to live it. Do you dare believe it is safe to take them off and live like Jesus is a real God-man who really was and really is and really makes a difference? p. 121
Found.
Daring to believe it.
Care to join me?
*****
So, what is your mask fashioned from?
What grabbed your heart in part 1 of *Grace for the Good Girl?
*****
{I am a mess and more in need of Grace than ever. If you click the link below, you can follow my journey.}
*affiliate link
I got my copy of Grace for the Good Girl in the mail a few days ago and I am so excited, but a little nervous to start reading it, because I know I am a good girl and in afraid this book is going to mess me up! Ha!
Tay, do not be nervous! The best part is that Emily walks with you the whole way! It is such a fantastic book!
I don’t have my copy yet, but am looking forward to catching up and participating in the discussions here.
It was shipped yesterday, so it should be there soon!
My mask is perfection, the trying to be good enough to be loved and accepted. It comes on and off these days, more off than on with certain people. It’s most definitely a journey toward freedom.
I’m slowly making my way through the book…somewhere in chapter 3 or 4 now.
Thank you so much for sharing this Jessica. I love that you are seeing progress in your journey.
I am a good girl. Who secretly wishes she was brave enough to be a bad girl. I announce loudly that I am “rough around the edges,” and it’s true that I am, but I want you to believe that I am rougher than I would ever dare to be in real life because then maybe you will think I am more fun. I wear a bad girl mask to cover up the deeply good girl mask beneath because I’m afraid that the good girl mask is dorky and un-fun.
And beneath the good girl mask, should I remove it, too, is just a girl. With a little bad and a little good within her. A girl driven by fear and what will they thinks and what if I’m not enough…I MUST be enough.
I cannot pick one or two or three pieces alone from Part 1. My book is marked from beginning to end with statements that struck me and flipped me and stirred me. I am undone and a little nauseated at time 😉 But if I HAVE to pick one quote, this is it:
“As good girls, we subconsciously label ourselves as the strong ones, the responsible ones, the sweet ones or the right ones. We try to stand tall and capable as the good Christian, the good wife, the good mom, and the good one. But Jesus is calling us to a deeper, truer, freer identity.” [p.36]
Oh how I long to be free!
Emily, this is is rich. Thank you for pouring it out here. I am right there with you, wanting to be free. Coffee, soon, and our over-highlighted books would a great date!
Oh I can so relate to that bad girl mask with the good girl mask buried deep. Except I never wore the bad girl mask, but I desperately wanted to. Such great thoughts!
Yeah. Loving this book, trying to savor it as I drink it in slowly. I’m like you I love it and I hate it. It is painful to see myself on. every. page. of. this. book. But it’s good for me.
My mask is to appear perfect and never needing anyone, always being willing to give help, but never being willing to receive it. I’ve always had lots of friends, but never any really close ones, ones that saw my ugly days (both physically and emotionally). It was too risky to trust anyone with my “real” self. They might see that I don’t have it all together.
It’s just in the past few years that I have begun to experience true relationship with others. Letting down my guard, being real with my emotions (which is the part that I have most loved in the book so far), and knowing that if I put myself out there I could be judged (oooh, I hate that!). Living overseas in a community of women has forced me to get real…there’s nowhere to hide and nowhere to run. It has been the best thing that ever happened to me….but it’s still hard sometimes.
Blessings. 🙂
So worth the wait on this Joy!
Why does removing the mask feel so risky for us Good Girls? I just wonder, why trust is such an issue! I love that you have found a real community of women. God knew He had to take you to the other side of the globe to find it! He will go to great lengths to win our hearts Joy!
Praying that the unmasking of both of us is once and for all!
oh how i want to get my hands on this book! i held it for a few moments at the bookstore and it was divine! haha! next month it will be my treat, but i’m going to follow along as you read. i struggle. i grew up in a christian home, was a good girl, then went to college, became a bad girl…got married still was a really bad girl! haha! and now back to being a good girl (in a not so good way.) i need to remember the outpouring of forgiveness and grace that i experience and live in a way that IS pleasing to God but NOT because I want to please Him for the sake of earning approval…rather to be pleasing as an aroma to the Lord. Oh, the balance!
You always have such thoughtful insights…thank you, sister friend!!!
Melissa I am so in progress, and so far to go! Love that you dropped by today! We will talk about part 2 next Tuesday. Oh – you can read Chapter 1 on Emily’s blog Chatting At the Sky.