A few years ago, in 2011 to be exact, this writer named Ann Voskamp showed up in all our lives and taught us how she learned to live fully by counting One Thousand Gifts. Maybe you took the dare that year, or one of the years that followed. Counting out One Thousand Gifts of your own and recognizing God in the tiniest of moments. My counting came in the year after my deep, dark desert, and my one thousandth gift transcribed in the notebook was my husband, who arrived in my life that year.

In these years since, Ann's been writing away on her blog, teaching us from her well of wisdom in her recognizable, lyrical voice. And as you might have heard, just a few weeks ago, she released a new book: The Broken Way.

I was eager to see this new book and discover what Ann had been learning in this meantime between books, and I wanted to read slowly so I could fully digest and savor. This wasn't a book to fly through, and I knew that going in. Ann's style is careful and thoughtful, and to read too quickly is to miss out. So I've been snacking on a chapter at a time, underlining, considering, contemplating, and learning.

The first words I underlined were from page 15: "Maybe this broken way is making something new. He is making all things new." And oh, how I learned that firsthand in my desert. That brokenness doesn't lead to the end, but it leads to something new. And if He could make all things new for me, I know He can do it for you. {And probably He will do it for me again after a desert I haven't yet walked.}

Here's the thing.

Most of us avoid brokenness. We don't want to look broken and needy in front of others. We don't want to look broken and needy to God. We don't even want to see broken and needy in the mirror. So we avoid our brokenness.

I did.

Before my desert, I avoided it. I wanted to be the strong one. The rock. The invincible one. But after the desert, I learned to own broken. I was incapable of hiding how broken I was, so instead of avoiding it, I embraced it. And the craziest thing happened: I learned that other people identified with my brokenness far more than they identified with my pretend wholeness. If I was brave enough to admit my broken places, they felt safe enough to join me there, and healing began. Broken people, gathered together to hurt over similar wounds began to heal together through seeking God's Face and receiving God's grace.

But it only happens when you are willing to let people see how and where you're broken.

And that's what Ann does in this book. She opens the doors to her heart and lets you see the things that have broken her. The pain of cutting. The disappointment of family dysfunction. The unrelenting sting of death. Watching her kids wrestle with hard things. Facing fears. Much more.

She says the things most people want to, but are either afraid to or don't know how to say. She gives permission to hurt. Permission to grieve. Permission to be broken.

A few other thoughts I underlined:

"Who knows why God allows heartbreak, but the answer must be important enough because God allows His heart to break too." - p. 55

"Don't waste a minute on anything less than what lasts for all eternity." - p. 95

"Love pries open your chest and pulls open the door of your heart so someone can walk right in and make this mess that remakes you into something more beautiful." - p. 131

"Be brave and do not pray for the hard thing to go away, but pray for a bravery that's bigger than the hard thing." - p. 167

"Don't we all have to unlearn fear before we can truly learn to love?" - p. 214

I had two main lines of thought as I read this book. The first was how I wished it had been written back when I was walking my own broken way. Seeing these words might have given me the courage to be braver sooner. At the very least, they would have given me comfort that I was not alone in my brokenness.

The second thought was that even though I'm not walking the most broken way right now, these words still break me. There are still things about my heart that are too calloused and need to be more tender.

So...if you are in a place of deep brokenness right now, and you need to know that it's okay to break, and you need to know that someone has walked a broken road and lived to tell about it, this book is for you. If you know someone who is broken in two right now, and you want to understand them, but their own words fail them, read this to get a glimpse of how they might be feeling.

And because we never live free from a future of brokenness, if you want to know how to break better next time, read this book.

I want to pause to say that I think there's a need to be careful with books like this...books that sail to the top of charts and are gobbled up by readers simply because the authors are best-sellers and are put on pedestals of faith. I've pulled back from reading some authors I previously read without question, because I've felt a conviction to be more careful about just automatically accepting teaching. I read this book with a guard up, hoping I wouldn't find anything untrustworthy from Ann, whose writing has taught me so much. I asked for discernment as I read, too, praying for the Lord to show me if there were patterns of thought taught within that I shouldn't adopt.

Personally, I did not find that to be the case with this book. I came away convicted about a handful of things that I need to work on, comforted in knowing I did some things well in my own previous brokenness, and I learned things about the Lord I'd never before considered. That was my experience with this book. But I urge you with this and all books you read, to read with discernment and not just accept ideas as truth because the person who wrote them has been given a platform. The Bible alone is the measuring stick for every word authors write.

I also want to pause and say that if you've never read Ann Voskamp before, her writing style is very distinctive. She crafts words in such a lovely and poetic way, but the style doesn't let you speed through the pages and grasp every word to its fullest. So, read slowly. Don't let the poetic nature push you away.

In recent years the churchs cry from pulpit and page has been authenticity. Share your burdens, be real, don't act like you have it all together...after all, no one has it all together. And so we share. We tell our friends and small groups. Our Bible studies. We listen to the heartbreaking stories. We go into all the world and witness gut-wrenching realities. And now we cant look away; we cant unknow. Dropping the facade has revealed the brokenness. We now know about the silent suffering of our neighbor. We see hunger and homelessness; anger and addiction. Heaps and heaps of suffering and brokenness permeate our communities, our world. And we ask, Lord, how do we shoulder the shattered? Now that we know, what do we do? How can we live? If youve ever asked yourself, what do I do with this broken life? This broken world? Where is God? This book is for you. Ann beautifully and practically walks alongside you as you discover a new way to live: The Broken Way. Its not easy or fluffy. Its not a quick fix or self help. Its taking a counter cultural dare to live a more abundant life. I cant adequately convey how this book has changed my life and walk with Jesus. Every word will lead you closer to Him. In fact, my ministry team purchased 144 copies and gave them to missionaries serving in Honduras, and we are reading it with them. I hope youll take the dare to live the broken way.

I watched the video of the first session twice, and cried both times. Watched it for the third time, in anticipation of showing it at our Women's Bible study tonight, and was even more fully impacted. The theme of "The Broken Way" has struck a chord with our women, and we have the highest registration EVER in the nine years of facilitating this group! 61 women! So, that says to me there is a lot of brokenness in our world, and people are looking for ways to deal with it! The videos are beautiful, reflective and thoughtful. VERY well done. The book is a bit of a struggle to adapt to Ann's writing style, but the content is rich, reflective and much depth! Rereading the first three chapters impacted me significantly, while the initial reading was a little harder to connect with. So, my experience is that the more one reflects on Ann's words and ideas, the richer they become! I am now thoroughly enthused by the entire book, as have read all but the last chapter so far, and as I told my group, 3 of the chapters alone are worth the price of the book! If one is willing to not just breeze through the book for information, but is willing to ponder, reflect and consider the themes and ideas, this book offers so, so much more depth than the average "read" in the Christian genre!

"The Broken Way" is so rich, so deep, so enlightening. Ann has an inspirational, poetic way of writing that causes me to read slow and underline often, to soak up all the beautiful truth she speaks. This book has been an eye-opening part of my journey to finding the beauty of being broken. I am truly grateful to Ann for being bold and brave, for getting this book into our hands, for such a time as this!

The central question of Anns new book is How do you live with your one broken heart? As Ann unpacks what she has learned, we see a fresh look at Jesus being broken and given for us. We learn not only to thank God, but also to live in the fullness of Jesus being enough. Enough for all our brokenness, enough so that we enter into the wholeness of koinonia, community. Communion with each other that happens not only when we are broken, for we all are in some way, but also when we trust each other with our brokenness.

I could have underlined this entire book. If you enjoyed Anns style of writing in One Thousand Gifts, you will appreciate the continuation of that theme in her latest book.