Book Review:

Thanks to Jessica's bloggy book giveaway I was enticed to read yet another book I might not have chosen on my own. Cathleen Falsani shares a sampling of her life experiences in Sin Boldly-A Field Guide for Grace. I really enjoyed how she took the reader from her backyard in Chicago, where she discussed grace in the form of a mulberry tree named Henry, to the shores of Lake Victoria in Kenya where she vividly describes grace being fleshed out within The Purple Mamas of Asembo Bay; a group of widows who care for orphans. Falsani is such a descriptive writer I felt as if I had journeyed along with her.

About halfway through the book, in the chapter titled Sin Boldly, Falsani brings up Martin Luther and the letter he wrote discussing the idea. Luther says:

If you are a preacher of Grace, then preach a true, not a fictitious grace;
if grace is true, you must bear a true and not a fictitious sin. God does
not save people who are only fictitious sinners. Be a sinner and sin boldly,
but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. For he is victorious
over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here he have to sin.
This life in not the dwelling place of righteousness but, as Peter says, we
look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells...Pray
boldly-you too are a mighty sinner.

Falsani, through Martin Luther, reminds us to live. Live out loud. But not in defiance of God's law. She simply states, "if you're going to screw up, at least do it with feeling". And I love this idea. Earlier in the book Falsani describes an epiphany she had in her faith journey where she basically stopped worrying all the time if she was making the right decisions or thinking the right thoughts or dancing the right "religious" steps. She realizes that she was trying desperately not to lose her salvation and God's love by doing something wrong. And she decides this is crazy, that nothing she can do will change the way God feels about her. So she decides to live boldly. Wonderful idea. Simple, yet so life-changing.

While I'm certain I would flounder if asked to define grace, Sin Boldly gives many beautiful illustrations of it in it's many forms. I believe Cathleen Falsani's viewpoint of grace opened my eyes to see it clearer in my everyday experiences. I will be on the lookout for it and hopefully be more able to extend it as well.

There are many great things to say about this book, I enjoyed it alot. I would definitely recommend it to anyone desiring to see grace in many new ways. I'll admit some ways I wouldn't have ever thought about and I think that is what makes this book so great!