Here, Now
Unearthing Peace and Presence in an Overconnected World
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4.8 • 10 Ratings
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- $6.99
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
What if our truest life is the one right in front of us?
Does life sometimes seem to be passing you by? Are you so busy—with email to check, Instagram to scroll through, and friends to be envious of—that you’ve become disconnected from your actual life? You know, the one you are living right here, right now?
With hilariously relatable confessions and profoundly beautiful insights, Kate Merrick invites us to stop running away from the lives we’re living today and instead walk in the peace and fullness God offers moment to moment. She shows us how to
kill your Wi-Fi, put down the tech, and find deeper contentment,redirect the FOMO so you don’t miss out on your own life, andgo on a diet of fewer choices to discover the blessings of the quiet, the slow, and the intentional.
Only when we look honestly at our hearts and have the courage to live truly present do we receive the gifts of God found in all of life’s seasons—the painful ones, the big and beautiful ones, and even the ordinary ones.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Merrick (And Still She Laughs), cofounder of the Reality church group in California, speaks with passion and depth about "practicing presence" by disconnecting from unfulfilling activities to find God in everyday life. Merrick begins by explaining a night when she spent an hour searching for makeup online while her five-year-old daughter, Daisy, slept. The next day, she learned that her daughter had kidney cancer; the guilt of spending her time the night before on the internet became the seed of her search for "practicing presence." Over the course of three years, the family's trips to Israel to seek medical treatment for Daisy prompted Merrick and her husband to create a "new habit of being." She describes the value of going off the internet (and posting only monthly social media updates), ways to initiate community through attentive listening and acts of service, and strategies for weeding out unnecessary desires and thoughts. Merrick is forthcoming about her failures and her tough recovery from Daisy's death at eight. She writes of her deep sorrow but also firm resolve: "This moment is beautiful, will be beautiful, because I'm right where I'm supposed to be." By always returning to her axiom to "practice presence," Merrick provides inspiration for any Christian reader in need of support during difficult times.
Customer Reviews
This book helped me change my life
I’m not sure if I’ll be able to adequately put into words just how much this book has changed and impacted my life but I’ll try!
In 2018, after giving birth to my daughter, I had a near death experience that I can only describe as the miraculous work of God. Suffice it to say that I had a heavenly experience! Although I have been a Christian since the age of 4, I knew after almost dying and experiencing all that I did, that I needed to live my life differently, because what I experienced brought new meaning to life in such a profound way for me... but I am human and as the stresses of life have picked back up in the last year (life goes on, right?), I was struggling emotionally to figure out how to put everything that the Lord’s been putting on my heart into motion, and really start living my life the way I know God is calling me to. I prayed over it and this book literally popped up out of nowhere almost immediately. Kate, thank you for writing this book and allowing yourself to be a vessel for the Lord!