Chapters 10-12

Well, we did it. We made the last video for Strong Women, Soft Hearts. It is worth watching the whole thing - not only is Charlotte in it the whole time, but we end it well. :)


Strong Women, Soft Hearts - Chapters 10-12 from angie smith on Vimeo.

Like we mentioned on the video, we are going to be transitioning from using ning for our discussions to Facebook. The "like" page is VERY bare bones right now, but we would be grateful if you would go ahead and "like" us now! :)

We will be taking a break for the summer, but have big plans for the fall, so keep in touch!

We love you and are thankful for you.

xo
Jess and Ang

Strong Women, Soft Hearts, Chapter 5

We are SO happy we filmed what we did before Charlotte came! Oh the irony that today we are talking about being overwhelmed...

Here is our discussion of chapter 5.

Strong Women, Soft Hearts Chapter 5 from angie smith on Vimeo.

Check out the Shattered Dreams series that we mentioned here.

Here are our questions:

Are you like Angie and I - do you have a problem with control?

What happens when you get overwhelmed?

Do you equate waiting with control? Why or why not?

Waiting is a time to let go of our God. When you are waiting, what do you do to spend time with God? What verses do you meditate on?

What is the biggest dream you have ever had to surrender?

What do you struggle with controlling that you need to hand over to God?

Quick update: We will be filming the last two sections next weekend and wrapping up this study by the end of June. We apologize for the delays in video and discussion, but we pray that God is using this extra time for more of you to read and join us in this book. It is so rich!

Peace be with you today.

Jessica and Angie

And We're Back!!

Okay, Blossoms - we are back. We are so sorry for the delay in posting these videos. We shot the first five more than a month ago, and since then life has been wild, particularly with Angie's pregnancy - and the birth of sweet Charlotte!

So this is our plan.

We are going post chapter four today.

We will post chapter five next week (week of June 1)

And the week after we will post one video for 6-9 (week of June 6)

And the week after that we will post the last video for 10-12 (week of June 13)

We are so sorry that this has not gone as anticipated, but we trust that everything happens for a reason. We hope you are loving the book and getting a lot out of it, even if our conversation leading hasn't been as stellar as we hoped.

But, you must admit, this sweet girl is a pretty good excuse. :)

Okay, on with chapter four!

Strong Women, Soft Hearts Ch 4 Discussion from angie smith on Vimeo.

With love and grace,

Angie and Jessica

SWSH: Chapter Three Discussion

So sorry for the delay in chapter three, but it turned out to be a good thing because we are a bit behind in our filming, so hopefully this will help get us back on track. :)

Thanks for your patience.

Here is our discussion of chapter 3.

Strong Women, Soft Hearts: Chapter 3 from angie smith on Vimeo.

A few questions for us to discuss.
Share a time when you experienced sudden pain. How did you go on from it?

Share a time when you experience subtle pain. When did you recognize it?

What was a dream you had that you had to let die? When did you acknowledge it?

Did the concept of amplified pain resonate with you? How so?

Share a time that you were transparent. What did you learn in that moment?

See you Tuesday!

Chapter 2 Discussion

Are you loving this book as much as we are? We hope so. Join us for chapter two.

Strong Women, Soft Hearts Chapter 2 Discussion from angie smith on Vimeo.

Here are a few questions for us to discuss on Ning!

Do you ever think that your desires are wrong?

Desire is something that is biblical. Have you ever thought about this? In what ways?

What in your life sometimes overtakes your desire to pursue God?

Have you ever deadened a desire in an effort to be more "godly"? (Take a look at the list on the bottom of page 27.) Why did you do this?

What are your desires and how can you use them to know God better?

xo
Jessica (and Angie)

Strong Women, Soft Hearts - Chapter One

Angie and I are so excited to kick off our discussion of Strong Women, Soft Hearts today. We have had a very crazy week - Angie was really impacted by the Nashville flood, and I spent the week in the Dominican Republic with World Vision. Thankfully we filmed this video a couple weeks ago! :)

Please take 10 minutes and join us in Angie's kitchen as we talk about chapter one.


Strong Women, Soft Hearts: Chapter 1 Discussion from angie smith on Vimeo.

Here are a few questions we would like to discuss on ning. As special thanks to Sara who will be helping guide conversation in our Bloom community.

What is a dream you had at one time in your life that didn't play out as you hoped? How has God still used that dream?

How do you approach relationships? Do you choose to not have relationship or dive in 110%?

Sometimes do you pull yourself back emotionally for fear of what could result if you gave 110%?

How does your personality impact your relationships with others?

Have you ever built a monument to woundedness in your life? How has this impacted you?

May you feel the spirit chasing you this week.

Peace be with you. See you Tuesday!

Love,
Angie and Jess

Important Update: Books, Schedule and More

This update pertains to EVERYONE, so please read the whole post

When we chose Strong Women, Soft Hearts, we immediately approached Thomas Nelson to be sure that enough copies were in the marketplace, and they assured us there were.

Well, you all blew our expectations out of the water.

And apparently, there is shortage.

Such a shortage in fact that Thomas Nelson is unable to provide the 100 books that they thought they would be able to until the first week of May (they are doing another print run because of Bloom!!)

We are so very sorry about the delay. If you were part of that group of people, we will be getting you an email confirming this.

Schedule
Because of this book not being available hiccup we have decided to push back our schedule two weeks. But, this is a good thing because

1. The book is really meaty and you will want to take your time with it;
2. An extra couple weeks will hopefully give the people that still need books a way to find it and receive it;
3. Angie's book's official release is in less than two weeks, so she is swamped with that; and
4. Jessica is leaving for the Dominican Republic in less than two weeks with World Vision, so she is swamped preparing for that. 

We have also decided that since the chapters are so rich, we are going to do a mini 6-8 minute video for each chapter and post them on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. That will hopefully keep you motivated to keep going and keep the discussion rich in the forums. This book has so much to discuss! We are very excited. Hopefully you don't get sick of us. :)

The new schedule is as follows:

Sunday, May 9: Chapter 1: Awakening
Tuesday, May 11: Chapter 2: Desire
Thursday: May 13: Chapter 3: Pain
Sunday, May 16: Chapter 4: Losing Heart
Tuesday, May 18: Chapter 5: Control
Thursday, May 20: Chapter 6: Trust
Sunday, May 23: Chapter 7: Vulnerbility
Tuesday, May 25: Chapter 8: Forgiveness
Thursday, May 27: Chapter 9: Sexuality
Sunday, May 31: Chapter 10: Loving Beyond Reason
Tuesday, June 1: Chapter 11: Living Beyond Fear
Thursday, June 3: Chapter 12: Longing for Resolution

Where Can I Find the Book?
If you haven't purchased your book yet, we have put together a list of online retailers that currently have the book. We also encourage you to check your local library, used bookstore, bargain bookstore or favorite local bookstore. You may have even better luck there.  You can also download the Kindle version of the book on Amazon - even if you don't have the Kindle, you can read it on your computer or your phone. If you know of somewhere that isn't listed, please leave a comment! It is on backorder at Borders, ChristianBook.com, etc.

ChristianBookbag.com  IT IS CHEAP here right now!!!!
Amazon.com
Barnes and Noble.com
DeepDiscount.com
Cokesbury.com
Mardel.com
BetterWorldbooks.com
Keenzo.com
ABEbooks.com 

Literally, as we have written this, the status on a few other sites has changed. It's selling pretty fast so if it's something you want to join us on, we recommend grabbing it where you find it!

If you are not able to purchase a book, we encourage you to still watch our video posts and participate in the discussion on ning. This book is so rich in content, we are confident you will still glean something from the conversations.  

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for joining us on this wild ride. We are just two women who want to love God and love people well. We hope you know that each of you are a blessing. We are humbled by this group and are honored to serve you as best as we are able.

Fondly,
Angie and Jessica

A Note from Author Paula Rinehart

So… I hear you are reading Strong Women, Soft Hearts for your online book club.

I’m writing you from Raleigh, North Carolina where I live a wild mix of counseling and writing and speaking to women’s groups…and entertaining small grandchildren. I’m hoping we can have a bit of a ‘chat’ as you begin to read.

First off, Strong Women, Soft Hearts changed my life. I know that’s a strange thing to hear an author say. But, really, the content you are reading represents a huge swing on the inside or me, one that took place over a decade where I could (almost literally) sense God reworking my framework of what strength…and softness, as a woman, actually is.

Now that didn’t happen easily, as you can read between the lines of this book and figure out! I had barreled through my twenties and most of my thirties like someone training for a race. Being a strong woman, for me, was like being the Everready bunny battery—only powered by Jesus. Somehow you just kept going. And softness…why softness was suspect because softness could get you hurt.

Toward the end of my thirties, I ran into a couple of huge, blindsiding losses. I couldn’t keep going and going—at least not in the same way. And God, in his mercy, began to do some deeper reconstruction inside my heart. Which, then, reshaped dramatically my notions of strength and softness as a woman.

My favorite parts of this book (and indeed, the parts that women email me most about) are the chapters on vulnerability, control and trust. It takes some real courage to put your heart out there with people and sometimes, even with God. There is a true sense of letting go of control, a deep invitation to trust him with the uncertainties of life and relationships.

Since I’ve written Strong Women, Soft Hearts, both our children have gotten married, three grandchildren have been born, my aging mother is slipping away by the day. I’ve had even more practice in this delicate art of trusting God. As I wrote in the book, he’s not predictable, but he is utterly faithful. I believe that even more than when I wrote this book.

You might enjoy knowing how the title for this book came about. I sent the proposal off to a couple of publishers and the consistent feedback was, “Hey, you are on to something here, but can you be a little clearer, more concrete?” It was so frustrating. One day in the shower I thought, Okay, how hard can this be? I just want to write about what it means to be a strong woman… with a soft heart. The title, Strong Women, Soft Hearts, came like a flashbulb going off.

I don’t say this glibly, but scads of women have written me about this book. Mostly what they say is they don’t understand how I could climb inside their mind and read the thoughts they were having. What that really means is that we are all telling the same story.

Truly, it’s no easy feat to make it through what life can throw your way and come out with a genuine strength rooted in God with the beauty preserved on the inside. In reality, my deep conviction is that the gospel of Christ uniquely makes this possible. Not guaranteed, but possible. I hope—so much I hope—that as you read, you will sense God stirring in the longings and losses you’ve experienced, and the dreams he’s placed in you.

If you enjoy Strong Women, Soft Hearts you might also like Better Than My Dreams, a follow-up book that looks at how the gap between our dreams and reality becomes the actual place where we experience real relationship with God. Or Sex and the Soul of a Woman, updated and due to be republished by Zondervan this coming fall. Feel free to stop by my website where I do try to blog what might be considered something vaguely insightful twice a month.

May Strong Women, Soft Hearts lead you to a solid sort of strength that grows out of really knowing Christ, with an even greater capacity to give your heart to others in his name.

Many Books Still Needed

The extraordinary Sara Frankl has spent hours sending emails and matching people up on our behalf. After all the emails have been sent, 116 requests have not been fulfilled. That's right.

116 people have submitted a request saying, I cannot afford to buy a book at this time, will you help?

And right now, we can't help them. 

But you can.

Please consider filling out the form below if you can send a book to someone. Sara will get you the name of a fellow sister in Christ in need. 

Our prayer is that we don't have to turn anyone away. We will close this request on Saturday to allow time for people to order and send the books. 

Thank you for your generosity. 

Amazon Sold Out, But Books Can Be Found!

Though Amazon seems to be sold out of of Strong Women, Soft Hearts, you can get it on AllBooks4Less.com.

Click here to order it for only $5.49.

Where have you gotten your book from?

Can You Help?