"So then, putting away falsehood, let each of you speak the truth
with your neighbor, for we are members of one another."

~ Ephesians 4:25

This summer the Saint John’s Book Club is back, and we are diving into two stories told by two very different women. In July, we will read and discuss Beth Moore’s memoir All My Knotted-Up Life, and in August, Brandi Carlile’s Broken Horses. Moore and Carlile both tell stories of their families, childhood struggles, love, loss, and how they learned to understand and get along in the world. Both have built successful careers with international acclaim. Both have deep love of God. Both have been hurt by people in the Church when living into the truth of who they were and what they believed.

One has spent her career writing and teaching over 23 Bible studies, eventually leaving her denomination and her publisher due to deep differences in values, and finding that God held her through it all. The other has written and sung her way through nine albums to win ten Grammys, along the way encountering the Spirit at work and being baptized as an adult.

Both women seek to share deeper truths about the holy and the human through their work, including their recent memoirs, that use personal storytelling to share profound lessons about who they, and who we, are.

In All My Knotted-Up Life, Beth Moore explains, “The burden in telling our individual story is ironically the same thing that made it bearable: we were not alone in it. Perhaps we felt we were, but the truth is, the threads of other people’s lives are inevitably knotted into ours even if only by their conspicuous absence. Who, after all, plays a bigger part in our story than one who—whether by sickness, injury, dozing, distraction, occupation, brokenness, divorce, or death—didn’t show up? Every life story entails a community of individuals who share one precarious common denominator in the narrative: you. Good or bad, you. Right or wrong, you… I’ve attempted, by the grace of God, to untie some knots in these pages. Several of these knots I’ve kept clenched in a sweaty fist all my life. They needed air and light perhaps even more than understanding.”

Whose lives are “knotted into” yours? What are the stories you would tell if you were to write your life?

Brandi Carlile shares, “Write your life. No matter how young or old, even if you feel like you're not interesting enough, do it. Believe me, you are. Your life is in fact twisted, and beautiful. And you'll find that as you peel back the layers, the unexpected side effect is that it feels wonderful to be known, even if it's just by you.”

I hope you will join us as we hear truth of love, struggle, grace, and more.

All My Knotted-Up Life by Beth Moore
Visit bit.ly/sjsummerbooksjuly30 to register for the evening class on Tuesday, July 30, 6:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Visit bit.ly/sjsummerbooksaug1 to register for the daytime class on Thursday, August 27, 12 - 1 p.m.

Broken Horses by Brandi Carlile
Visit bit.ly/sjsummerbooksaug26 to register for the evening class on Monday, August 26, 6:30 - 7:30 p.m. 
Visit bit.ly/sjsummerbooksaug27 to register for the daytime class on Tuesday, August 27, 12 - 1 p.m. 

Tags: writing, memoir, book study