Barefoot - Sharon Garlough Brown

In all of her books, Sharon Garlough Brown has brought something new - something different yet specific that carries throughout each instalment.

The first book took me months to read. It was reading it in a time of my life where I was, for the first time, confronting my past and acknowledging that there were some hurtful things that I could not continue to ignore. I used Sensible Shoes almost as a cheat. Many of the things these four women were facing were reflections of my own life. I could read and see how they dealt with these issues without having to confront it straight on. Then, after seeing how they dealt with these issues, I could turn to my own life. There were moments where I had to hide the book because I knew it was beckoning me to keep moving forward, keep "progressing" - whatever that term means. And I got there. With tears and a huge sigh of release, I closed the last pages of the book hoping that the worst was over. From here on out I could just enjoy the story.

And for me, the second book, Two Steps Forward, felt like that. It felt like a story. I stood by as Hannah, Meg, Mara, and Charissa continued with their lives. I cried at injustice, I laughed alongside them, I rejoiced with them. I read this book in a few days. I just could not put it down. It was beautiful.

But now I turn to Barefoot, the third instalment of the Sensible Shoes series. Barefoot combined the experiences of the last two books. There were tears and there was pain, but much more, there was joy, but to an even greater degree. Brown's juxtaposition of these two emotions weaved throughout the narrative to create the intense rollercoaster of a book that Barefoot was.

The narrative picks up where Two Steps Forward ended. Mara is confronting her personal life where a divorce looms yet her crutch of a councillor is absent. This forces her to turn to God in ways she had never previously been able to. Though this book unfolds moments where she feels like she is taking those two steps backwards again back to her life of jealousy, pain, rejection, fear, and disappointment, as she explains the last few months of her life to her councillor at the end of the book, Mara is able to reflect on how far she has indeed grown. Though at the time it felt as if she was drowning, instead she was learning to trust not in her own understand or the understand of the few in her life she counted upon, but rather on Jesus.

Charissa too is in a similar position. She is grappling with letting go of control over her studies and the pregnancy not allowing her to function to the capacity she normally operated at. But when the opportunity to teach is offered to her and she instantly accepts, she learns that the very thing she had idolised for years was her greatest trial. In light of Meg's News, Charissa is forced to question the significance of her life. If she had 40 days left to live, would people remember her as the academic, the teacher who made a contribution to academia? Was that enough for her? Or did she want her life to be more significant? Charissa learns that letting go of her expectations in her life and appreciating what God has done is both the hardest thing, and the most rewarding.

Hannah is finally confronted with that which she had feared for the past two books. Though she had previously struggled with resisting the urge to turn into pastor-mode with her friends and learn to be a friend, she is now confronted with her looming return to Westminster. Her relationship with Nate is becoming more serious and she must question what she will do to honour her commitment to the church who graciously gave to her this Sabbatical and her commitment to these women and man who has become her new life. With rumours sparking in her old church when she bumps into an elder at the airport who sees her with Nate explains to the church that Nate was just a friend in order to protect her reputation. However, when [SPOILER] Nate proposes and she must tell her church that they will marry in a few weeks [END OF SPOILER], her reputation and the image she believed she had created at the church is ruined. Hannah learns to surrender her idolatry of her self-worth to God and accept that she cannot change what other assume to be the truth.

And then there is Meg. Beautiful, loving, selfless Meg who learns the true art of sacrificial love. Receiving The News caused Meg to question what really matters in life. She must turn from a Mother who is looking out for the wellbeing of her daughter to a Mother who must savour every moment that she has left, even if it means sacrificing her dislike of a man she believes is corrupting her daughter. Meg walks through Jesus' last days and learns that even through persecution, even through hardship, Jesus wept, He loved, and He never gave up. Meg and Hannah's friendship grows closer every day as they cry out of both happiness and sorrow. Meg's tale is one of complete and utter hopelessness and misery intertwined with joy and contentment at the cards she has been dealt.

This book made me cry but it taught me to be still. The events of this world are not in our control, yet our reaction to them is. Though we may pray for protection and healing, it may not come. We may pray for joy and happiness, and it may not come. But it also might. What matters, is what we do with it all. Will we forgive despite the injustice? Will we submit control despite the consequences? Will we love even when we feel we have no love left? This book taught me what it means to stand barefoot - vulnerable - before our Father through all that this life brings.

My hat goes off to Brown. As hard as it was to read this book having walked with these women through what feels like everything, it must have been even harder to write this story.

Michaela.