Book Review of ‘Enjoy’ by Trillia J. Newbell

Why do we sometimes have a difficult time enjoying the one life we’ve been given? If we’re not working harder, looking elsewhere or planning for what’s next, we’re feeling guilty about the blessings we do have.

These are the essential questions Trillia J. Newbell explores in her book, Enjoy: Finding the Freedom to Delight Daily in God’s God Gifts.  In plain and forthright language, she discusses our obligation to enjoy our work, relationships, sex, art, God, possessions, food, and environment.  She concludes each chapter with reflection questions and practical assignments, which she calls “The Enjoy Project.”

This book gives permission to relax and receive the good gifts God has given us.

What I Liked

Trillia seamlessly weaves Scripture throughout the book, supporting each point with several examples from the Bible. She seems very familiar with this material and the book often reads like a talk she may have given to a group of women at a conference or retreat. I most appreciated the chapter on sex and the one on work, because I think Christians often do not understand how God wants to use each of these to His glory.

How to Read this Book

Rather than reading this book in isolation, I believe it would be a better book to read with a group. It could be read over a five-week time period, reading two chapters at a time and then discussing the questions at the end of each chapter, doing the suggested activities, and using the discussion questions provided at the end of the book. The book and questions provide a great launching point for women to intentionally go deeper in reflecting on whether or not they are truly enjoying the gifts they’ve been given.

Not My Favorite

Personally, I would give this book three out of five stars. Perhaps it is because I have been a Christian for so long, but I don’t feel like I learned anything new. I also felt like the writing was a bit lackluster and cliché, with an overuse of exclamation marks. But in spite of its simplicity and predictability, I know I would have gotten even more out of it if I had read it with a group.

I recommend reading this as a light book to discuss with a group of women who want to take a break from a more structured Bible study format. I would also recommend it to a new Christian with questions about how we are to feel towards the blessings lavished on us in the west or to someone wrestling with guilt over how their hobbies, interests or artistic leanings fit into God’s plan.

If you like Christian self-help type books or need a reminder that God doesn’t want you to flee the world, but to enjoy the gifts He is extending to you, then Enjoy might be the book for you.

 

*I received a free copy of Enjoy from Blogging for Books in exchange for this honest review.

**Includes Amazon affiliate links

The Best Years of Our Lives {for The Mudroom}

I had the privilege of writing over at The Mudroom a week (or two) ago and with all the life shifts, I am just now getting around to sharing it here (quickly…all three children are sleeping!).  

Legs curled under my body, I stole a few minutes from studying to sit on the floral couch in the chapel hidden in the attic of Williston Hall, scribbling in my journal. I’d sometimes sneak in here for an hour of quiet between classes since it was in the middle of campus and my dorm was a much farther walk away. Suddenly, the door burst open and a woman in her early 40’s entered with her two school-aged daughters. She peered around the room, eyes wide. “I spent so much time here,” she whispered. “And it hasn’t changed at all…”

In her, I saw my future self.
What will life be like when I’m 40? Where will I have gone? What will I have done? I thought.
Later in the day as I crossed Blanchard lawn on my way to class, I passed some alumni visiting for their twenty year reunion and one of them stopped me to ask for directions. Before turning away, though, he said, “Enjoy this. These are the best years of your life.”
The “best”? So it’s all downhill after college? I thought. Sad.
Now that I am nearing 40, I understand more of what that man meant. From his life of mortgages, insurance, bills, retirement savings, car payments and parenting, what my dad’s description of college as “living with your friends and studying a bit on the side” sounds pretty amazing.

****

I now have two teeny children who I avoid taking to the grocery store at all costs. But when I do, I catch some grandmother fondly admiring my two blondies and I know what she is about to say. “It goes so fast. These are just the best years!” she’ll call over from the other aisle. And if she’s especially anointed that day, she’ll add, “Enjoy them!”
Another woman left much the same message on one of my blog posts about motherhood recently. In fact, I think she actually used the words, “Those years with little ones were the best years of my life.”

…continue reading at The Mudroom.

~~~

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When I Forget to Notice People

Lately, I feel like God is reminding me to notice.  Notice detail, notice people, notice Him. Because I haven't been.

Lately, I feel like God is reminding me to notice.

Notice detail, notice people, notice Him. Because I haven’t been. And noticing is a prerequisite to thankfulness, praise, worship and action. I’m bumping along life without recognition, like the blind man who wasn’t completely healed and saw people walking around that looked like trees. I need Jesus to restore my vision completely. Because I have forgotten how to SEE people.

As I reach around my one-year-old strapped to my front, searching for my wallet and watching for my three-year-old who is most likely pulling all the chip bags off the stand or smearing the display case glass with finger prints, it catches me off guard when the cashier behind the counter asks me, “How is your day going?” or “Have you had a good morning?” The first few times this happened after moving to Colorado, I’m sure I just looked at them with my mouth hanging slightly open. Chicago is not an unfriendly city, but perfect strangers didn’t usually ask me such personal questions. How was I supposed to answer?

But the question, though I now realize was not a true venture into how I am feeling at the current moment, rocked me, because I hadn’t even noticed a person was there until they spoke to me. Worse, I would have gone through our entire interaction without even looking them in the eye.

In The Weight of Glory, C.S. Lewis says, “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which,if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all of our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

People are eternal.  And every.single.one. is made in the image of God Himself.  So when I don’t see people, I don’t see God.

Lately, I have not only failed to notice strangers, but I have even forgotten to notice the people who are right in front of me–my children and husband.  Now, I believe in rest, alone time, naps and hobbies, but I have begun ignoring my children even during times when I could be fully present with them.  Scrolling Facebook during bath time, texting while I sit with them on the floor, and spacing out when they ask me questions, I spend the day lamely multi-tasking when I would be better off focusing on one activity at a time–mainly, my children.  And I’m missing out.   

And though love is not a fairy tale, how often do I take a second and really gaze into my husband’s eyes?  How often do I think about him during the day or sit and talk with him face-to-face instead of operating in survival mode, ticking off tasks as we work side-by-side?  When did I stop leaving him little love notes or sweet texts?  Have I prayed for him today, yesterday or anytime recently? 

The word I’ve chosen to focus on this year is “enjoy,” which begins with noticing.  When I set aside my phone and to-do lists and intentionally notice people, I can begin to enjoy the people all around me.  

If I would only ACCEPT that the pace of my life right now with two kids under three needs to be slower than I’ve ever been used to, I’ll begin to notice God in the details more than I ever have.  For nature, strangers, friends, family, my children and my husband are really displays of the splendor of God at work all around me.  If I will only take the time to notice. 


Do you notice people?

How do you notice God?

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Lately, I feel like God is reminding me to notice.  Notice detail, notice people, notice Him. Because I haven't been.


My One Word for 2016

Days before I ran across this new challenge (can you tell I’m an overachiever…), God seemed to be preparing me with a single word.


Enjoy.

I even wrote a post about it a day or so before I heard about #ONEWORD365, which is a challenge to throw out New Year’s resolutions to focus on just one word for the whole year. 

I didn’t want to just choose the word joy, because something about the word “enjoy” steals away the passivity and pushes you straight into action the way standing under a cold waterfall on a hot day startles you alive.  Or the way a sunbeam heats the floor under bare feet or a baby’s chubby newskin is the softest thing you’ve ever touched.  Enjoy cannot escape being in the moment.

And that is what God has been whispering to me on the days when I feel tired, overwhelmed, insignificant and bored. 

Enjoy. 

Just enjoy.

I am currently reading All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, and I just read a scene that is completely arresting.  Marie-Laure is a blind teenaged girl during World War II and has been holed up in her uncle’s house in an unfamiliar city in France that is occupied by the Germans.  She and her relatives are free to go out to run errands, but she has not been able to explore.  One day a woman she lives with decides to take Marie Laure outside of the city to the ocean, which she has never experienced before and didn’t even know was there.

“The ocean!  Right in front of her!  So close all this time.  It sucks and booms and splashes and rumbles; it shifts and dilates and falls over itself; the labyrinth of Saint-Malo has opened onto a portal of sound larger than anything she has ever experienced…She did not imagine it properly; she did not comprehend the scale” (p. 231).

How many times is God offering me blessings and glimpses of His grace and goodness that are right in front of me, but I am too distracted or even scared to notice?

The word enjoy means to “take delight or pleasure in.”  I love the synonyms:  cherish, relish, delight, admire, rejoice in, luxuriate in, revel in, appreciate, adore, savor, indulge in and treasure.

Jesus has been nudging me, inviting me to enjoy.  

To cherish Him, 
relish my marriage,
delight in my children,
admire where I live,
rejoice in writing,
luxuriate in simple moments, 
revel in nature,
appreciate daily tasks, 
adore reading,
savor resting,
indulge in exercising, and 
treasure people. 

God is calling me to live more in the moment.  It is so easy for me to think that I could be doing something more useful or world-changing than what I am doing at any given minute and I miss out on all the ways God is trying to alert me to His presence in the here and now.  But if I am actively enjoying, then it is hard to minimize the kingdom value of anything I am doing, regardless of how simple it may seem. 

I need to believe that God delights in seeing me enjoy what He has given me.

Here are some of my initial brainstorming questions that I may write about in the coming days and months:

How do I know I’m really enjoying something or someone?
How do I enjoy God?
Do I believe God enjoys me?
Can people tell I am enjoying them?  How?
Which verses speak to this word?
Which books can I read to urge me to enjoy more?
What prevents me from enjoying?

It’s going to be difficult for me as someone who loves control to allow God to work this word into my life in organic ways.  Maybe it’s the teacher in me, but I love structure, plans and goals.  But part of truly enjoying something or someone is not forcing yourself to do something that feels unnatural.  So I’m allowing this word to be more of a open-handed prayer as I wait for God to show me what He wants to show me instead of trying to manipulate Him (ha!) into doing what I think He should do. 

“Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be made full”  (John 16:24).

Anyone else want to pick a word and join me on this journey?  Visit this site for more information.

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Days before I ran across this new challenge (can you tell I'm an overachiever...), God seemed to be preparing me with a single word.

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