PIECES OF YOU by April Farlow

 PIECES OF YOU

April Farlow 

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GENRE:  Christian Living 

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BLURB: 

Knowing who you are has always been challenging, and in today’s world, more and more voices are coming from more and more places telling us who we should be. The result? A broken sense of identity that we’re struggling to put back together. 

In Pieces of You, April Farlow shares how she discovered her identity is formed by the God who made her. Along the way, she’s learned that if we want to put the pieces of who we are together in a real, lasting way, we have to look to who we are for help. 

It’s time to take a look at the unique pieces that make up who you are … 

The pieces you compare …

The pieces informed by the father figure in your life …

The painful pieces …

The pieces of your relationships …

The pieces on which you’ve built your beliefs …

The pieces that give you rules and boundaries …

The pieces that show what you value …

The pieces that give you purpose …

The pieces that help you build a vision for what’s to come. 

As we work to put those pieces together, we’ll look to the God who made us, knows us, and loves us to guide us. Because when you take all your pieces—the good, the bad, the broken, and the beautiful—and place them in your Heavenly Father’s hands, there, you’ll find peace. There, you’ll find security. There, you’ll find a real sense of who you are and Who you are. 

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I will always remember the growth chart in my kindergarten class.  The giant giraffe hanging on the wall tormented me each month as our teacher would have us stand against the wall to measure our growth.  I dreaded the day each time it came around because I knew I would always fall short… literally.  I was so short that I didn’t even reach the neck, so the teacher had to mark my height on the giraffe’s neck, and you better believe I noticed.  In my mind, I quite literally didn’t measure up in comparison to everyone else.  

We have been fighting our way out of the comparison trap since birth, and somehow, we aren’t any closer to winning because the goalpost keeps moving.  No wonder so many people are exhausted!  As women, we are constantly seeing how we measure up.  We compare ourselves constantly, here are 10 ways I notice it, and this just scratches the surface: 

·         How successful are you?  How are your grades?

·         How do you look?  Body type, fashion and the way you age.

·         Do you dress in style?  Are those name brands?  Do you have your own eclectic look that is creative?

·         How does your home look?  Is it well decorated, and tidy, and how many bedrooms does it have? 

·         How financially well off are you?

·         Do you cook, meal prep, and entertain better than me?

·         How do you parent?  Are your kids well behaved, and always on time for school?

·         Do you volunteer as the room mom, for the local non-profit and give back?

·         What are your friends like?

·         Do you show up for church?  Spend quiet time?

Comparison breeds rotten fruit.  It shapes your identity in a way that only tells us the bad, the negative, the failure.  It kills your joy and your confidence.  And truth be told, once these beliefs about who you are have taken root, they’re hard to remove.  Flipping your internal script isn’t a quick and easy task. 

To free yourself from the comparison trap, you must focus on who God says you are above all else.  You must believe God designed you to be uniquely and wonderfully who you are.  Every piece of me and every piece of you?  It’s exactly how God intended it to be, which should give us both a sense of relief.  No piece of you should make me question any piece of me.

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EXCERPT

Over just a few hours, my Kaleidoscopes began to lean into each other’s stories. Things got real fast. And I think that’s because we took a break from measuring ourselves against each other. Instead of comparing, we chose to share. 

And that’s a great place to start. 

To stand confidently in both who you are and Who you are, you must first learn to avoid the temptation to compare. Staying out of the comparison trap is an essential piece of the puzzle that is discovering and embracing our identity. 

After our meeting, my friend Angela went home and looked in her daughter’s school folder. There, she found a worksheet her seven-year-old, Elle, had filled out. “Color yourself and then write words to describe yourself in the circles,” the instructions said across the top. That’s precisely what Elle did. She coloured her hair and eyes to match hers and wrote six words to describe herself. 

Funny

Artistic

Pretty

Love

Kind

Smart 

For Angela, her daughter’s list was not only accurate, but it was also a stark contrast to the list she and the other women had made. Angela told me about it later: "I wonder at what age we stop believing the good? I wonder what happens to cause us to begin seeing the negative before the positive?” 

I wonder the same for all of us. 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links: 

April Farlow has spent the last 20 years motivating audiences to get out of their comfort zone, speak up, and represent their values. In corporate environments, one piece is missed—the ability to talk about forming your identity in God. Today, as a speaker, author, coach, and non-profit leader, April is changing this by sharing her faith journey and helping others do the same with clarity and conviction. 

In 2017, after speaking to a group of foster youth, April founded Lydia’s Place, a ministry serving young adults who have experienced foster care or homelessness. April and her husband have four girls and live on a mini-farm outside of Athens, Georgia. 

http://www.aprilfarlow.com

http://www.instagram.com/ 

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE 

The author will be awarding a $15 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. 

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