Over a year ago I came across a blog called i took the red pill.
It was beautifully laid out.
Iphy (Renee Altson) is a writer. I mean the kind of person meant to write, not the kind of person trained to. Some people are just meant to write. I’ve since learned that that is exactly what she does do for a living, and that her writing caught the attention of a publisher.

The posts were raw, painful, angry, sad, fearful, sometimes lost, and not at all your typical happy clappy god-blog material. Iphy was speaking up about abuse, one of those topics that we find easy to tuck away - familial abuse and spiritual abuse and sexual abuse.
All done in the name of God.

Now her life has been put into a book and published by Zondervan…stumbling toward faith.

So many of us have not come from healthy families, but few of us have had to face such cruelty and soul sucking sin carried out in the name of the church and of God. It is not an easy read, but it is a testament to life - to Iphy’s and to the renewal brought by the wounded Healer. There is a diagnostic scale of 1 to 6 used by the medical profession to rate abuse, with one being the least and six being death. Those that have experienced the horrors in the 5th set of criteria are often hospitalized and too broken to function in society. What the scale doesn’t factor in is faith, hope and love, whether it be from the abused or from the community around them. Nor does it acknowledge the hard, hard work and steadiness required to overcome.

When I heard that Iphy reached her dream to publish a book, I wanted to be one of the first to acknowledge her accomplishment. I guess because it is a miracle in the small ways dreams happen. I’ve been receiving emails from a blogger that is promoting this book for Renee (links are down) with a virtual-book tour. Glancing at the calender, this blog was scheduled for August 20th, and apparently Zondervan is offering a copy to those of us who promote the book on our blogs.

Thank you, but that’s not what this is about.
I don’t do conference calls and organized book marketing well.

Renee, I’d have let people know about your book anyway.
They need to hear how God loves through pain, finds us in hellish circumstances, and loves us in brokeness. Life isn’t pretty, but life can be lived with courage and dignity. stumbling toward faith. Indeed. God bless you Iphy.

Update: For those of us outside the US or not near a Zondervan outlet, stumbling toward faith is available through Amazon.
Update: I was able to get through to the virtual-book tour site once the blogger helping sell this book clicked over. If you’d like to help, here is the link.