Book Rec & Current Obsession: Stuff I’d Only Tell God

A friend recently helped me see a thread running through the story of my life: a desire for deep relationships. The unmasked kind where you’re brave enough to be really you so you can be truly known.

Sometimes you long most for what you lack. Such was the case with me. For most of my life, I held back. Kept most everyone at an arm’s distance. Cared far too much about keeping it together and not enough about letting people in anyways.

As a child I talked little. But I desperately wanted people to know that I was more than the shy girl who didn’t believe it was okay to just be herself.

One summer, I tried to change my name. Sat on my parents’ bed and battled in my head whether or not to write a made-up nickname on a mission trip application.

It was the first time I’d be somewhere where no one already knew me. If I went by a different name, I thought, maybe I can just not be shy. Not be me.

Embedded deep in that impulse was regret—that I’d kept people away when I wanted the opposite—and longing—for the kind of friends who make you feel like you are worth knowing just the way you are. Who make you better because they love you enough to tell the truth. Who drop the masking, one-upping, pretending, second-guessing, and over-apologizing and are instead bravely, beautifully authentic.

But I don’t think this is just a description of what I wanted in a friend. I’ve got a hunch your list looks a little like mine.

I’ve noticed the way you respond when I ask questions about your ideal friend. The way conversation about deeper friendship sparks your curiosity. The pain between the lines when you talk about what’s missing in your friendships.

If you’ve connected with me through Instagram, the blog, or the podcast, you may not know I also hang out on Pinterest. (Find me here if you like Pinterest half as much as I do!). Consistently, my most clicked-through pins are the ones about my top ten tips for deeper friendships. These pins win out by a long shot. It doesn’t surprise me, though, because we’re wired for community. Connection.

We feel the lack when our relationships are shallow. Safe. Impeccably curated.

We’re sick of building walls, hiding behind walls, getting stuck behind walls.

And THAT’s why I’m a bit obsessed with Jennifer Dukes Lee’s new guided journal, Stuff I’d Only Tell God. It dismantles the walls that keep you from honest, soul-bare conversation with God. Invites you to put actual words to what you’ve avoided or never thought to process. Helps you appreciate the way God made you—the crazy and irreplaceable alike. And it turns out that when you practice being real with God, you find it easier to also be real with other people.

My Rating of Stuff I’d Only Tell God: One Million Stars

Bring your questions and doubts because God already knows, and He loves you exactly the same. Bring the pain in your past because naming deflates its power. Bring your memories and dreams and humor. There’s space for all of it in the pages of Stuff I’d Only Tell God.

I need this!

Every page of the journal is unique. None of the prompts are prescriptive or formulaic. Think of them as a launch pad to the kind of conversation King David had with God in the book of Psalms (unashamedly emotional, negative, and ecstatic, at times all within a few lines). Or the way the prophet Jeremiah, who wept often and sometimes took a salty tone, talked real with God.

Stuff I’d Only Tell God has the most fitting subtitle: “A Guided Journal of Courageous Honesty, Obsessive Truth-Telling, and Beautifully Ruthless Self-Discovery.” It’s all this, and more. Because bring God your real and raw and ugly, and He’ll give you ample reason to name the ways He’s good. In a whisper and when others overhear. And the way I see it, we tap into our life’s purpose when we praise God in the presence of others.

When God heals, frees, moves in, there’s always a ripple effect. I’m wildly excited about both—the work God will do in you as you write your way through Stuff I’d Only Tell God, and the way the internal work will ripple into the rest of your life. Increase both humility and confidence. Provide the grace-lens of gratitude. Create capacity to trust. Deepen relationships. Spur organic God-conversations.

A Peek Inside Stuff I’d Only Tell God

There are many light-hearted, quirky, and whimsical prompts in this journal. I’ll show you a few in a moment. But first, here are my personal favorites:

These are my thin places
These are the things that confuse me about . . .
If I were a psalmist
What I wish people knew about me
Something I want to happen, but I’m afraid it won’t
A list of ways that I hold back in my life
The five most beautiful things I’ve ever made
The ten qualities I most want in a friend
My past, summed up in three words
These are the lies I have been told
I was most mad at God when
I don’t understand why God hasn’t healed
The best gift I’ve ever received was

Now, a few of my own filled-in pages (because I’m a work-in-progress learning it’s okay to let the messy show). P.S. Maybe I should have written in pencil.

a few of my own filled-in pages in Jennifer Dukes Lee's Stuff I'd Only Tell God

In case I haven’t convinced you yet, or you’re a little intimidated, this is a journal for journalers and newbies. Ones who think out loud and those who need to write to know what they think. How do I know? Well, between my husband and I, we’re both. I fill journals with barely legible cursive and he sells HVAC. And we’ve found that this orange book works for both of us.

After asking him some of the questions from Stuff I’d Only Tell God on our last date night, it didn’t take much convincing that he needed a book so we could write on our own and compare answers. And that’s exactly what we did, sitting side-by-side on a park bench while our kids played. Another benefit of this journal: marriage strengthener.

Whether you are most interested in self-discovery, your relationship with God, or your relationships with others, here’s where you can learn more about Stuff I’d Only Tell God:

This page on Jennifer Dukes Lee’s website
Her Instagram page for Stuff I’d Only Tell God (be sure to follow!)
Amazon

I’m ready to order!

Enter the Stuff I’d Only Tell God Giveaway

I’d give you each a copy of Stuff I’d Only Tell God if I could. I think it’s a life-changer, faith-grower, friendship-deepener, and marriage-strengthener—and I want all of that for you. So how about this? I give away a copy, and you do as well. We pay it forward. Invest in someone else.

You game?!

Here’s how to enter the giveaway: