If you got a chance to read the introduction and chapter 1, let’s chat! (If not, it’s not too late. Jump in whenever you can! Here’s more about our online book club for Just Show Up.)
Here are some questions to get us started. Feel free to answer any of them or none of them, and comment on something else. 🙂
- What thought(s) struck you as new or surprising?
- Any question come to mind as you were reading?
- How was it to answer questions 1 & 2 on page 31?
ScottandAngie.org 
Angie, thanks so much for facilitating this book study! This book hit me hard in the best kind of way. I have so many thoughts and things I am processing, but I will try to keep this post concise and on-point. 🙂
For me, the second question on page 31 was a much-needed probe for my heart. I can’t count the times in life that fear or anxiety/insecurity have held me back or hampered my ability to enter into other people’s lives fully. I think my fear looks a lot like what author Jill Buteyn said on page 23: “I was afraid of doing the wrong thing, and I didn’t have a clue where to begin.” Being afraid of doing the wrong thing and ruining whatever image I think I need to preserve has been a definite tether in my life and it is quite embarrassing to admit.
Even though this fear is easy to tag as insecurity, I think the most humbling thing is to realize that, actually, PRIDE is the deepest root. Pride is what ultimately hampers me from fully entering into others’ lives in a Christ-like way and it can rob me of the joy and richness of real community. And that same pride can keep me from letting others fully enter my life as well.
I am praying that God will help me to SEE who is suffering in my life and that He will give me courage to “just show up”. I can do the obvious things, like sign up to take a meal to someone in need or give to a fund, but I feel convicted that God wants me to be stretched out of those comfort-zone ways of handling others’ suffering. Simultaneously, I also want to be willing to let others more quickly enter in to any suffering I may experience and not let my natural self-consciousness get in the way.