Several women have told me they’re planning to use my book, The Hats We Wear: Reflections on Life as a Woman of Faith, for their summer book clubs, and I wanted to develop a discussion guide for them. But you could also use it as a set of journaling prompts if you’re reading through the book on your own.
The book is divided into six sections/hats (Practical Theologian, Emotional Human, Embodied Woman, Wife, Mom, Homeschool Teacher), so I’ve structured the guide around a six-week schedule — although you could split sections into two and take longer if you wanted.
The questions are designed to get readers thinking deeply about their own lives, so a single book club meeting might not be able to cover all of the questions in each section — leaders will probably need to decide which questions to prioritize based on their particular groups. But the discussion guide can at least be a jumping off point for you!
And I’d love to hear about how your book club conversations go or see any photos you might want to share, so feel free to contact me privately with any questions or comments!
I open my hands at the end of this day To release the plans I’d intended to make, All the lists I’d intended to check, And the sweet relief of finishing it.
The clock ticks later, it’s time to move on, To leave my lists undone And transfer affection Away from work and back toward home.
I won’t fret o’er my troubles or my endless lists, For You’ll be there with me in every next day that I live. We’ll pick them up together when the morning comes, But right now in this moment, I am going home.
Like manna, You give me this day my daily bread As you have done every day of life. I trust you with the bread, I trust you with the work.
But deliver me from overwork, from ruminations and an endless supply of puzzles to solve. Help me to choose the better things As each day folds into night.
I walked in the pastures, I worked in the pastures, Now I walk to still waters and release unanswered emails. I pause unfinished work, take a breath, and remember There are enough problems for each day.
I brought my whole self to this work And now I take my whole self with it— To the husband of my youth, To the children of my womb, To the life I have been given.
I sought the Lord about a certain question. I brought it before Him every morning. I laid it before Him day after day. Silence. No answer.
I determined to wait. And pray. And wait. Still nothing.
Then I asked why He wasn’t answering. Why He wasn’t moving. I stayed stuck on that one particular request, circling around it like a hawk.
One Sunday during communion I went forward for the bread and the cup and returned to my seat. In doing so, my body remembered another Sunday communion meditation a few weeks before.
I had made a specific request to God and then forgotten about it. But as I sat with the emblems and looked back over the past few weeks, weeks I had been obsessing over a quite different request, I could see three very definite answers to that Sunday morning prayer.
And I realized that God hadn’t been silent. He’d been working, He’d been speaking – but on a different channel than I’d been listening to. My heart had been tuned to one frequency and one frequency only, but God was transmitting on another one.
And since God is God and I am not, I was the one who needed to adjust my frequency. To listen where He is actually speaking, not get stuck on the wrong channel just because it was the one I wanted to listen to.
I had to turn the dial to a different channel, and then all of a sudden God wasn’t silent. He was speaking. He was reminding me of life-giving verses I had forgotten about, like ‘Seek first the kingdom’ and ‘Do not worry.’ And He was answering that specific Sunday morning request I had made.
They weren’t the answers I was looking for – I still haven’t heard those – but it was the voice of God speaking. I simply had to adjust my dial. Tune my heart. Figure out which frequency God wanted to use to talk to me. And as it turns out, that’s not always the one I want Him to use.
For whatever reason, Jesus doesn’t let me pick the radio stations on the road trip of life. But that doesn’t mean He’s not speaking.
What is my job, and what is God’s job? I’ve asked this question a lot in my life. The balance of grace and works has often befuddled me. If God gets the glory for everything — and we know He should — then do I have responsibility at all?
I confess I have sometimes felt frozen in place, not knowing what I was supposed to do about a particular struggle, because I thought that somehow God was supposed to do everything. He fights our battles for us, right??
This question came up again last fall when I was in the middle of a mental health crisis. Was I just supposed to sit alone in my prayer closet, begging the Lord to deliver me from my anxiety and depression? Or was I supposed to do something about it? And if so, what?
I slowly realized that I did need to do something. And oh how many things can be done about depression and anxiety! It can feel overwhelming to a perfectionist like me. It feels like I need to do all the lifestyle treatments both perfectly and often enough while also depending entirely on God to save me.
I had forgotten that all the things that can be done to help myself are actually invitations from God to participate in my own healing. I’d been in that place before and even written about it, but we humans are such forgetful beings, aren’t we?
Interestingly, I first gained clarity on this question while talking with my therapist about my editing business — because I battle the faith-works tension regarding my job too. I often rely on a belief my hairstylist first expressed to me: “God brings me the clients I need.” Her example of faith was an inspiration to me, and her statement has proven true in my life over and over again.
But do I play any part in this?
My therapist said I do. It’s my job to do a good job, to bring all my dedication and skills to each project. It’s also my job to promote my services online (even though it feels awkward). “God can’t do those things,” she said. “Only you can.” God has given me a body and put me on this earth, and there are certain things only I can do.
In her book Field Notes for the Wilderness, Sarah Bessey writes about the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. The miracle didn’t just happen because Jesus multiplied the bread and fish. It happened because someone offered something small, which Jesus used, and because the disciples participated and handed out the food. The people wouldn’t have eaten without them passing out the food.
I’ve always loved the feeding of the 5,000, and I’ve always connected it to a child’s act of faith. I had never connected it to the attending and waiting skills of the disciples. The disciples wouldn’t have seen the miracle if they’d clustered around Jesus. Only in moving out from the center did they witness the miracle.
And so it is with us: Jesus invites us to participate in the healing He performs. The power isn’t ours, but we won’t see the goodness of God unless we take part. The man whose friends lowered his paralyzed body through the roof still had to pick up his mat and walk, after all. And in some mysterious, incomprehensible truth, we only partake of the miracle God is waiting to give us when we join Him in His work.
Jonathan & Elizabeth Trotter 