A few days ago, I started reading the book Graceful: Letting Go of Your Try-Hard Life. I am so glad I did. It is not an ordinary Christian book for girls; it does not map out any dating rules, tell you to obey your parents, guide you in how to manage media, or teach you how to be a good Christian girl. This book starts with the good girl. The girl whose followed the rules her whole life. The responsible one with a good image. It takes the good girl and removes her masks. In this book, Emily delves into the many roles girls can play and shows that simply trusting God is much more valuable than having it all together. "Emily Freeman gives young women what they need to be set free on the inside, no matter what is going on outside."
Why am I so excited about this book? Because it is tying together what I've been trying to figure out for three years. Well, actually, it's not tying anything together. God is doing the tying, He is just using this book. When I was about fourteen years old, I realized something about myself. I wasn't myself! I had built up a reputation for being a good girl, but it was a mask and I could not remove it because I had no idea what I really looked like. "What a long time it can take to become the person one has always been! How often in the process we mask ourselves in faces that are not our own" (Parker J. Palmer). All my life I have been pretty much the same: kind, sweet, reliable, responsible, innocent. I wore a purity ring, went to church every Sunday, got good grades, obeyed my parents, and worked hard. I've never been beautiful or stunning, but I'm "cute"; the perfect good girl with a pretty smile. For the first fourteen years of my life, I pretty much went with the flow.
