If you’ve ever had a friend who is suffering something hard in life, you know the tension that exists between wanting to do something and knowing the right thing to do for them. In Just Show Up, Kara Tippetts and her friend Jill Lynn Butelyn share candidly with great grace what it means to show up for a friend who is hurting. You may recognize Kara’s name from the blog Mundane Faithfulness. Through this blog, Kara provided a window to the world of her suffering from cancer but more importantly, she threw back the curtains on what it means to live and die for Christ. 

Though death was nearly certain for Kara while she and Jill were writing this book, both women spoke at length at the need for community in the midst of struggle. Kara writes in Just Show Up, "giving and receiving get blurred in Jesus. We have received so much from others, but I believe if you were to ask them, they’d say they’ve been on the receiving end.” This book is all about how to give when it hurts and receive God’s ever present peace in return. I can think back to my own season of tremendous loss, when we discovered our unborn daughter Whitney had a chromosomal abnormality that was incompatible with life. Through the pain of this diagnosis, we clung to the Cross of Christ, and were able to experience the blessing of community. Friends brought us meals but didn’t expect to be entertained. When we got home from the hospital after I had given birth, our fridge was stocked with fruit, cold-cuts and other sandwich fixings. My very best friend who was hundreds of miles away (and very pregnant still with her own daughter) called every single day. At the time I just couldn’t pick up the phone, so she started calling my husband. Not to be annoying, but simply to check on me and pass the message along that she loved me. It took a couple of weeks for me to be in a place where my grief allowed me the energy to talk on the phone again. But you know what spoke volumes in that time I was silent? My best friend continued to call and leave a message with my husband. Every. Single. Day. I will never forget the way she selflessly loved me in that season as we were both hurting. 

Have you ever heard of a friend who was hurting but you didn’t know what to do? Maybe it was a woman listed on the prayer chain at your church. Or an elderly neighbor who has just lost his wife. Sometimes, it is people close to us who are hurting, but often it is someone we would only consider an acquaintance. The Spirit may move us to do something, but our own insecurities prevent us from stepping in to just show up. Jill Lynn offers some beautiful examples of practical ways to be present for a hurting friend. One of my favorite suggestions from this book is to offer specific means by which you wish to help. The generic “Let me know if I can be of help!” has become a catch-all phrase without much meaning behind it. Instead, offering up a specific service is much more likely to get a grateful response. Jill Lynn writes, “The beauty in offering a specific help instead of a broad one is that we get to help within our gifting.” I never feel like a good enough cook to offer meals to someone. But I LOVE cleaning & doing laundry. So when I offer to come run the vacuum and fold some laundry for a hurting friend, that is a specific request that they can then accept with confidence. 

While the difficult subject of this book may be intimidating to some, I can assure you that reading it will bless your life. You will come away from reading it with a greater understanding of what being a friend is, what living in community looks like and how to just show up. If you are interested in reading Just Show Up, you can purchase it here on Amazon. Also, you don't have to just take my word for it. Join in on the blog tour HERE to see what other readers have to say about this phenomenal new book. 

And now for the giveaway!