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| BITTER: When Church Leaves That Not Too Pleasant Aftertaste and The Pregimony of Stephanie Josiah |
Both books are available on Lulu.com, if you click on the title of the books under the "Follow Me" tab on the right of this site, it will take you directly there. There are also links to the FaceBook pages for both books and the author/booksite. Stephanie will visit any church or conference to speak on the subject matter in her books / share personal testimony. You can book this speaker by emailing: speaker.steph@aol.com
Here is a brief summary for each book~
BITTER:
As a Christian, Stephanie Josiah has had many more unpleasant learning experiences come from being around other Christians... We are, afterall, still human and capable of making mistakes. There is no magic wand to wave or something that can keep us from being flawed individuals. But in this book, Stephanie shares some of those unpleasant experiences (ie. a corrupt pastor's spiritual abuse of his congregation, church fallout, and behind the scenes manipulation and deception) - as some recent events... and she shares her personal backstory dealing with bullying public school music teachers and an all-too-offensive, overbearing high school Sunday school teacher. Her humor, though sometimes dark and sarcastic, is spot on and she pulls no punches in stating that there are certain aspects of church life that are calling for immediate correction. She will pull you into a world of societal shadows and ripples/patterns of behavior and she will wrap it all up with a powerful warning to corrupt churches. Her belief, "If we say we are about being God's children, but we chase away more people than we welcome in... there is a problem! If we say we love as Christ loves us, but our church issues outweigh the importance of mission and ministry, and we cannot give each other grace... then we are committing the worst kind of fraud this world has ever seen!"
Stephanie encourages people to use this book as a tool to start opening up the lines of communication (that have otherwise been squashed) so that people can start addressing the issues and dressing some serious wounds. Stephanie's reasoning: "It is NOT ugly to admit there is a big issue in your church... it is ugly to pretend an issue isn't there and shove it under a rug called 'tolerance, unity, and peace'... In the Bible, it does say ' Blessed are the peacemakers...' but it doesn't say peace-FAKERS. To make peace, you have to be willing to see what you are working with."
Biblical Reference: Ephesians 5:8-14
The Pregimony:
Stephanie had a very high-risk pregnancy with identical twin boys. According to the books/ numerous odds against the boys, they should not have both survived the pregnancy but she knows that God kept His hands around them and protected them. This book is about her crazy rollercoaster ride of a pregnancy and how God managed to pull her and her sons out safely.
Her summary:
"The doctors gave us some seriously bad news but we prayed over the situation. We discovered that the twins had Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (meaning that they had an uneven distribution of blood flow, nutrients, and oxygen) and because of that, one twin would have died from lack of nutrition and the other from nutritional overload. There was only maybe a 60% chance of just one twin surviving. In most cases, both die.
But we fought for both boys.
We were given options for the pregnancy: abort the entire
pregnancy, cut the cord for the smaller twin (thus, only trying to save the
stronger of the two), amniocentesis (constant draining of the larger twin's
amniotic fluid), or we could try laser surgery to cut off the vessels which
were connecting the boys to each other (causing one twin to unknowingly take
from the other)"The doctors gave us some seriously bad news but we prayed over the situation. We discovered that the twins had Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (meaning that they had an uneven distribution of blood flow, nutrients, and oxygen) and because of that, one twin would have died from lack of nutrition and the other from nutritional overload. There was only maybe a 60% chance of just one twin surviving. In most cases, both die.
But we fought for both boys.
We prayerfully chose the last of the options because it would
be the only way to attack the actual cause of the TTTS.
The first surgery was not successful..."
And the rest you'll have to just check the book out for yourself!
You, or someone you know, could be going through a serious, life-altering battle... she wants you to know that you are not alone, keep the communication going between you and God because our adversary wants us to forget that God has our back and our front. "Keep your head up so you can watch God move."
You, or someone you know, could be going through a serious, life-altering battle... she wants you to know that you are not alone, keep the communication going between you and God because our adversary wants us to forget that God has our back and our front. "Keep your head up so you can watch God move."
Biblical Reference: Psalm 139:1-18
