True You

Overcoming Self-Doubt and Using Your Voice

by Adele Ahlberg Calhoun and Tracey D. Bianchi

Spiritual Growth

True You

ebook

Number of Studies: 12
Formats: epub, pdf, and mobi
Published: December 18, 2014
In stock

ISBN: 978-0-8308-9764-3
Item Code: 9764

Act like a lady.

Land a career.

Find a man.

Learn how to cook.

Rear amazing kids.

Oh! And be sure you stay thin.

Pressure to perform and conform starts early in a woman's life and never stops. In attempts to compensate and keep up appearances, we lose our ability to keep in touch with the truest parts of ourselves. We put on masks and hide the painful parts of our stories. If we get a quiet moment, we are ambushed with doubts: Who am I?

This book serves as a companion as we find ourselves, our sense of community and our identity in God. Designed to take you deeper with God on your own or with a group of sisters, journey alongside experienced ministers Adele Ahlberg Calhoun and Tracey Bianchi into some of the places where women struggle—no matter what their age or life-stage. Personal resources like journaling questions and a small group guide help women support each other on the way. These pages offer a reminder that there is a beloved, "true you" waiting to be known in each of us and that a world in need awaits the unique stories that each of us were made to tell.

REVIEWS

"A refreshingly honest and encouraging book! You will laugh and cry. You will be comforted and challenged. You will be sobered by all the ways women are held back and hold themselves back, and yet hopeful that women can yet become all God created us to be. While I long for the day in which such books will no longer be needed, I am grateful Adele and Tracey have teamed up to write this one."

Ruth Haley Barton, Transforming Center, author of Longing For More

"Every woman has a story, but not all of us know how to take what we have experienced and learned and known and tell that story. This wonderful book helps a woman find her voice—one that is neither too loud nor too soft; one that is truly God-given and unique. Through stories, experiences and very practical applications, Tracey Bianchi and Adele Ahlberg Calhoun help women 'lean in' to all that God has for them. A great book to share with a friend or a study group and one that every woman will find uplifting and helpful."

Dale Hanson Bourke, author of the Skeptic's Guide Series and Embracing Your Second Calling

"True You does better than provide the 'right' answers: it asks the right questions. This book is a must-read for the thinking woman, one who wants to live out fully who God created her to be."

Caryn Rivadeneira, author of Broke: What Financial Desperation Revealed About God?s Abundance

"'Your life matters and isn?t just about you.' This sentence is a good summary of what Calhoun and Bianchi have to say in True You. These are words of dual truth that all women need to hear and believe—and they?re rarely spoken in our world. With empathy and sisterly candor, these two women call us to what we already want to be and give us the courage to pursue our true selves."

Amy Simpson, author, Anxious: Choosing Faith in a World of Worry; editor, Christianity Today's GiftedforLeadership.com

"When I put this book down, I felt like I'd just come from coffee with Tracey and Adele—the best kind of coffee with friends, where you stay for hours and tell the truth, where you're given a gentle but challenging vision for the path ahead, where vulnerability and wisdom clear a space for better ways of living."

Shauna Niequist, author of Bread Wine

"I experienced True You as a call to authenticity, weaving together the vulnerability of story-telling, bold vision, plus, a quality often missing among visionaries, common sense. The authors' wisdom reached to the soul center, from which our work in the world can best be unleashed."

Helen LaKelly Hunt, co-founder of Women Moving Millions

"The book was a positive, refreshing read that I will reference in the future when ministering to or caring for women of all ages (including myself). In my friendships and deeper conversations, I have yet to meet a woman who has not wrestled with some form of self-doubt or identity struggle at some point in her life, and this book is a very poignant answer to that questioning."

Michelle Sumpton, Presbyterian Outlook, October 15, 2015

"Eschewing conversations about having it all or finding the perfect work-family balance, True You invites readers to 'catch our collective breath, and discover the true you.' Adele Calhoun, author of the Spiritual Disciplines Handbook teams up with Tracey Bianchi in this book written explicitly for women. Chapters address competition between women, our ongoing struggles with technology, and how to face who we are when we aren't busy."

The Covenant Companion, January/February 2016

"Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, True You should be considered a critically important and enduringly valuable read for young women ages 16-26—and has a great deal of useful information for women of all ages—especially as mothers raising girls of their own."

Helen Dumont, Midwest Book Review, March 2015

Introduction
Part I: True Relationships
1. Your One True Story
2. True Sisters
3. Competitors or Comrades
4. "Call The Midwife!"

Part II: True Life
5. The Things that Distract Us
6. Inner Truth
7. How to Give—and Receive Yourself
8. 24/6 Living
9. Approaching God

Part III: True Influence
10. True Wisdom
11. Justice for All
12. True Image

Appendices:
1. Small Group Guide
2. Resources
3. For the Men

Adele Ahlberg Calhoun (MA, Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary) has worked in Christian ministry for over forty years, and she and her husband, Doug, currently work with Highrock Church in Arlington, Massachusetts. As certified Enneagram instructors, they enjoy resourcing spiritual leaders and pastors through spiritual direction and teaching the Enneagram. Adele is the author of Spiritual Disciplines Handbook, Invitations from God and the coauthor of True You and Women & Identity.

Previously, Adele and her husband copastored Redeemer Community Church in Needham, Massachusetts, and she was formerly pastor of spiritual formation at Christ Church in Oak Brook, Illinois. A retreat speaker and trained spiritual director, she has taught courses at Wheaton College and Northern Seminary. In the early 1970s she helped pioneer student work with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. She has also worked with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in New England and Canada and with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students in the West Indies and South Africa.

BY Adele Ahlberg Calhoun

ABOUT Tracey D. Bianchi

Tracey Bianchi (MDiv, Denver Seminary) is a freelance writer, speaker and pastor. She serves as Pastor for Worship and Women at Christ Church of Oak Brook, where she leads a team that creates contemporary worship each week. She is the author of Mom Connection: Creating Vibrant Relationships in the Midst of Motherhood, the featured MOPS International book of the year, and Green Mama: The Guilt-Free Guide to Saving the Planet . Tracey has been serving in ministry ever since college and is a featured author and speaker for MOPS International and a member of the Editorial Advisory Board at Christianity Today’s Gifted for Leadership. Her work has appeared in a wide variety of publications including Leadership Journal, The Washington Post, MOPS International's MomSense, Proverbs 31 Magazine, FullFill Magazine, and more. In 2012, Christianity Today noted Tracey as one of "50 Women to Watch, Those Most Shaping the Church and Culture." An active participant in faith-based environmental conversations, Tracey serves on the Synergy National Advisory Council as well as the Board of Directors for the Evangelical Environmental Network. Her hope is to engage in the hard but good conversations about grace, peace, and all that is possible if we let God lead the way. She lives in Chicago with her husband and three kids.

True You

Overcoming Self-Doubt and Using Your Voice