I hear so many negative comments about social media and I get it, there is no shortage of negativity there — but I’ve come across some great opportunities as well. Several non-profits have posted Amazon Wish Lists on Facebook and you can just click, buy stuff they need and it’s shipped straight to them. It’s dangerous, but I love it. I’ve signed up to volunteer for several organizations around town to do some cool things like pick up donated bread from HEB for a local food bank. I can’t do a lot of things, but I can pick up bread! This summer I saw a link from a blogger I follow that said, “Sign up for my book launch team.” I never heard of a book launch team, but hey, it’s summer — I’m in!

So I join the book launch team for Jami Amerine’s new book, Well, Girl, An Inside-Out Journey to Wellness. I have to admit that I really didn’t look at the book title before I joined the team. I’ve enjoyed Jami’s wit and insight on her blog, LOVE the vandals, her affectionate term for her youngest kids and just finished her first book Stolen Jesus which I also loved. How could this go wrong? Then I get my info email about the team, then I read the full title of the book and think, “UGH, I don’t want to read about wellness or a journey, I done ready know I gotta fix the inside to impact the outside, but I signed up, I really got nothing better to do”, so I press forward.

What exactly is a launch team? It’s a group of people that agree to read your book before it is available to the public, help promote the author and their book on social media and be the first to post online reviews of the book. It’s been interesting to see how the whole process works and I’ve learned the most about how Facebook algorithms work and how people use them to promote their business. That’s one of the reasons I’m better about liking, commenting and sharing business posts from people I know — they need us! Plus I got to have a zoom meeting with the author and that was super cool!!!

The big thing though, is the book. I mentioned I signed up for this team without really knowing the title. I read the Well, Girl part but not the An Inside-Out Journey to Wellness Part. I was less than enthusiastic about that! But I committed to read it so I did. I was not disappointed.

Although I did not want to read another ‘this is how to make your life better by exercising and eating right’ self-help book, it turned out to be so much more. Jami encourages you to live your life for Christ, period. It’s not about the diet, the regiment, success or failure, it’s about living every aspect of your life for Christ and allowing Him to make you whole. Whatever you need to work on physically – you can do it – thanks to Beloved Living. As a dieter, you finally come to the conclusion that any diet will work once you set your mind to it and actually do it. In Well, Girl she examines our self-talk, self-doubt and inability to live as one treasured by our Creator that just left me so encouraged and built up.

All is not lost. There is no harm, no foul. He sees us, and He is pleased with us. You and I are His babies, His darling daughters, and nothing can separate us from His love. Nope, nothing, not even that. It is easy to mistake Him, for under the heavy hand of the law and the earthly understanding of “do good get good, do bad get bad,” we are often left with a broken heart. For if we are good, why is there bad? This is performance-based love that we often project onto God because it’s everywhere else in the world…and this keeps us trapped in old cycles because we’re sure we’re not doing enough right.”

Amerine p. 59

I loved the part in the book where she says, “I believe that the enemy uses shame to keep us stuck.” She bases this on the definition by Cary Scott that, “Guilt is being sorry for something you have done. Shame is being sorry for who you are” (Amerine p. 48). There is no shame in where you are, just be willing to improve and leave the guilt of bad decisions behind.

I still think I like Stolen Jesus a little better, but Well, Girl is well worth the read!

Get your copy here: https://amzn.to/3gaj5v6

Follow Jami at http://sacredgroundstickyfloors.com

or on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sacredgrounds.stickyfloors/