Interview with Christa Black Gifford About Her New Book: Heart Made Whole

Agency client Christa Black Gifford is our guest interview on the blog today. Christa is a dynamic worldwide speaker, author, and bestselling songwriter. She was the keynote for Women of Faith’s Revolve Tour as well as a popular blogger and a writer for The Huffington Post. Her life-goal is to provide resources for those broken by the pain of life, leading them into wholeness of heart and intimacy with Jesus.  She’s married to the love of her life, Lucas Gifford. They live in Nashville, TN with their son, Moses Grae Lionheart, a daughter in heaven, Luca Gold, and their newest addition, daughter, Birdie James.

Christa, your second book, Heart Made Whole released today and I know it’s been quite a transforming journey that has led to this day. A journey you’ve been excited to share with others so they too can experience heart wholeness. Tell us a little about why you wanted to write Heart Made Whole.

I don’t really write books; I kind of drop bombs. I’ve learned the hard way over the years never to let something come out of me that I’m not fully living, so this book begged to be written, pouring out from an overflowing heart that couldn’t stay quiet any longer. 

When my daughter Goldie died on March 5, 2014, I treated my shattered heart very differently than I had in the past when tragedy would crash into my world.  I started treating my bleeding heart like it had been in a bomb blast--because it had. And as I learned to care and tend to my heart with kindness, patience, grace and understanding, the strangest thing happened.

I found God smack dab in the place I had avoided my entire life--He was living in the middle of my broken heart, waiting to nurse me back to life through connection, acceptance, grace, and love.

In the book you write, “If our hearts are not anchored to the goodness of God when tragedy strikes, we lower our theology to match our pain.” Can you walk us through what that means?

For years, horrible things would happen (or persist) in my life, but because I couldn’t find breakthrough, healing, or release, I would alter my theology to match my circumstance. 

Surely, God doesn’t want to heal me of this eating disorder or sexual addiction because I’ve cried out to Him a million times and He hasn’t zapped me into wholeness. 

Surely God wants me to stay single because He hasn’t brought my husband.

Surely it’s God’s will that I can’t find financial breakthrough because it keeps happening. 

Surely God wanted to give me a ministry to the sexually assaulted since He allowed my sexual abuse and rape.

Instead of looking at God’s perfect theology with skin on--the person of Jesus Christ--I would alter my perception of God and His will dependent on my life in a fallen world, instead of continuing to press in and find out why my life wasn’t lining up with His word. 

Most times when we go through trials in a wounding world, we put God on trial. But the more I built my inner case of offense of God, the more I pushed Him away--separating parts of my heart from the solution. It becomes very difficult to experience the love and healing of God when deep down you’re stiff-arming Him away in distrust.

I love the story in Matthew 17:14 of the demon possessed boy. When the disciples couldn’t get the demon out of him, they didn’t lower their theology to form belief systems around how God wants to heal some and not others. They realized there was a disconnect to the will of God and what was happening in the natural, so they brought the boy to Jesus and he was instantly healed.

When my daughter died, I refused to create cheap theology around my experience with lack and loss, especially since I am convinced that if my Savior had been standing in front of me in the flesh, her disease would have been instantly healed (as evidenced in scripture; John 10:8-10).  

When God is discovered to be the good guy, and the adversary is seen as the bad guy, it becomes very easy to move toward intimacy with God--especially when all hell breaks loose in your life. You realize your dependency on heaven’s perspective is critical to surviving hell in a fallen world.

One of the core messages of the book is that pain is not a bad thing. How did you ultimately come to an understanding that pain is something to experience, rather than resist? And how did you invite God into your pain?

Our Western Christian culture is in total denial about internal pain, and as a result, the church has become a bleeding mess of wounded people, hiding their secret shame to preserve their Christian reputations and ministry platforms. We beat ourselves black and blue with scriptures, spouting out how we should have deeper faith, acting as though we should never fear, or how we should put away our tears because God will bring something good out of the current tragedy.

But why would Jesus have given us a Comforter if He never intended us to mourn?

Denial about my childhood sexual abuse wounds left me as a Christian adult working overtime to hide them. But pain never goes away on its own with time, neglect, or shame. Pain must be felt, embraced, and brought into relationship with Perfect Love.

When I stopped denying the mess of my heart--that it was broken in parts, naturally fearful, insecure, diseased with shame and condemnation--that was the point of ultimate breakthrough. I stopped running from the mess, and in turn, realized that the mess was the ENTIRE reason God had chosen to make my heart HIS home.

He wasn’t overwhelmed with my heart like I was. He wasn’t ashamed or disappointed in it. He was patiently waiting, with oceans of grace and love, to start the process of inner restoration and transformation as I learned to stay connected to Him. 

Because you started this road to wholeness a few years ago, you have experienced the benefits of what it’s like to begin living with a whole heart. What words of encouragement can you give readers who are facing what can look like a painful road as they forge ahead?

Inner healing isn’t easy, and most of us stay away from it because we’re afraid of what we’re going to find inside. But living every breath to ignore, hide, or deny the reality of your old broken heart is FAR more exhausting than surrendering your inner land to perfect love. 

And I know this from decades of experience.

When you realize that God made YOU the landlord of your heart, and that YOU choose what stays inside or what has to go, you instantly remove your "victim role" and become the most powerful person in your world. Every day, I have the power and choice to either default to the Love who lives inside, or choose to guard my pain and fear, cutting myself off from the healing I desperately desire and deserve. When I finally realized that I hold the keys to my heart, I also realized that I was far more in charge of my life and its outcome than I once believed. 

You see, old Christa believed she was a victim of God and life--living every day in fear of what was lurking in the unknown future. But once I took the keys to my heart and said NO MORE, I choose whether or not bitterness, self-hatred, self-loathing, disgust, fear, and pain get to stay inside, or I choose whether or not to roll into the pain and connect with God who lives inside … that was the moment my life changed. I am a co-creator with God, and He isn’t at all insecure when I choose to stand up and be like Him. 

My job each day is very different than it used to be.

My job in each moment is to make sure I choose to keep my heart consciously connected to the Trinity who lives inside, defaulting to their wisdom, expertise, and ways. Denying love each day becomes my only problem, and embracing it is my only answer. 

When you learn to embrace love in every moment--even in the painful moments--I promise you, you’ve discovered the secret of life.

You’ve discovered how to live from a Heart Made Whole.

Order your copy here today!

Available Now: The More of Less by Joshua Becker

Most of us know we own too much stuff. We feel the burden of our clutter. We tire of cleaning and managing and organizing. Our toy rooms are messy, our drawers won’t close, our closets are filled, and we can’t fit our cars in our garages. The evidence of clutter is all around us. Meanwhile, this constant accumulation of stuff slowly begins robbing us of life. It redirects our God-given passions. It steals our greatest potential. It consumes our limited resources. And it distracts us from the very life we wish we were living.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

In The More of Less, Joshua Becker, popular blogger at becomingminimalist.com helps you …

•          recognize the life-giving benefits of owning less

•          realize how all the stuff you own is keeping you from pursuing your dreams

•          craft a personal, practical approach to decluttering your home and life

•          discover greater contentment, less envy, and more joy

•          recognize why you buy more than you need

•          experience the joys of generosity

•          learn why the best part of minimalism isn’t a clean house, it’s a full life

It’s time to own your possessions instead of letting them own you. After all, the beauty of minimalism isn’t in what it takes away. It’s in what it gives. You won't want to miss this must read resource from Joshua.

Available Now: Brazen by Leeana Tankersley

Leeana Tankersley’s new book, Brazen, officially launched this week and we couldn’t be prouder of her!

In her trademark lyrical style, Leeana asks the question: What if we trusted what God put within us on the day of creation? What if we lived from the idea that who we really are is enough? Wouldn't that be brazen? 

Brazen means without shame, and Leeana encourages us to live our lives based on love and belonging and the feeling of being comfortable in our own skin. We don't have to live from guilt or shame--and it's such a freeing concept!

And it goes without saying, but isn’t her book cover brazen? 

Also, we recommend checking out her guest post on Ann Voskamp’s blog this week.

How To Be Here Available Now!

We're so excited for the launch of Rob Bell's latest book, How To Be Here. Rob is the New York Times bestselling author of Love Wins, What We Talk About When We Talk About God and The Zimzum of Love.

How to Be Here lays out concrete steps we can use to define and follow our dreams, interweaving engaging stories, lessons from biblical figures, insights gleaned from Rob’s personal experience, and practical advice. Rob gives you the support and insight you need to silence your critics, move from idea to action, take the first step, find joy in the work, persevere through hard times, and surrender to the outcome.

And if you want to spend a day with Rob learning to take the ideas in How To Be Here even further, check out the How To Be Here Experience, coming to a city near you through June!

Good Faith from Gabe Lyons and David Kinnaman

Back in October 2007, Gabe Lyons, Founder of Q, and David Kinnaman, President of Barna Group, partnered on a book entitled unChristian. At the time, Gabe and David had a growing sense that the public perception of Christians and Christianity had shifted, and a research project by the Barna Group bore this out. unChristian presented this research to Church leaders in a compelling way, presenting a sobering look at how Christians were perceived by many outside the Church. That book became a bestseller and must-read for Christians everywhere seeking to understand what the public perception about them was.

Almost ten years later, Gabe and David have partnered again on Good Faith. Many Christians today feel overwhelmed as they try to live faithfully in a culture that seems increasingly hostile to their beliefs. Politics, marriage, sexuality, religious freedom--with an ever-growing list of contentious issues, believers find it harder than ever to hold on to their convictions while treating their friends, neighbors, coworkers, and even family members who disagree with respect and compassion. Good Faith seeks to offer a way forward.

We're excited about the release of Good Faith today and hope you'll check it out.

Become Part of the Remarkable! Movement

Our clients Randy Ross and David Salyers have just released their new book, Remarkable!, an entertaining and enlightening business parable that has the power to turn any team around. But they're up to so much more.

Randy Ross is a master of cultural transformation, with a unique understanding of employee engagement. As a professional consultant and coach, he offers practical solutions for increasing both the morale and performance of your teams. David Salyers is the VP of National and Regional Marketing for Chick-fil-A. As a passionate student of life and business, he has spent over thirty years seeing the principles in this book play out corporately and in over 1,600 Chick-fil-A restaurants across the country. Together, they've launched the Remarkable! Movement.

Check out the book, and join the movement.

Live Free from Margaret Feinberg

Margaret Feinberg is not only an incredible writer, but a savvy marketer. When she approached me about doing some adult coloring books, I'll confess I was scratching my head. But she simply saw what was happening in the marketplace, and knew she could bring her own special brand of Bible teaching to the hottest trend in publishing.

Live Free released last week and quickly become a #1 bestseller in devotionals. This is the second in a 3-book series. Live Loved was published last November and has sold incredibly well. The final installment, Live Fearless, will be out this April.

Do yourself a favor and check these out. And if you're wondering what all of the hoopla over adult coloring books is, you can check out The New Yorker's thoughts here.

January Round Up

We've had a lot of things going on over the past month and wanted to make sure we shared and celebrated everything! From clients' publishing books this month to the addition of new agents, check out the links below. 

Client New Releases

Beginnings by Steve Wiens

Be You. Do Good. by Jonathan Golden

New Faces at the Agency

So thrilled to welcome Angela Scheff and Jana Burson to the team. Check out the press release to read more, and you can read more about our agents here.

New Release Giveaway!

Congrats to client Steve Wiens on the release of his new book, Beginnings!

We'd love to give a copy away to one lucky reader to celebrate. 

To enter, fill out the contest form by February 5, and we will randomly draw a name and contact the winner via email.

New Year Giveaway #3

Our third giveaway of the year is here and it was just released last week!

Are you interested in doing work that matters but not sure how to make a difference? Jonathan Golden is living out his unique calling to promote social, spiritual, and economic justice while providing a living wage to 2,500 farmers in Rwanda. Now the founder of Land of a Thousand Hills coffee company reveals how to embrace the meaningful life you were meant to live.

To enter, fill out the contest form by January 29 and we will randomly draw a name and contact the winner via email.

Find out more about Be You. Do Good here.

Check back next week to see what our final giveaway will be!

New Year Giveaway #2

Are you ready for our second giveaway?

Next up is a Bible that will provide you with a full year of daily scripture reading. Authors such as Shauna Niequist, Margaret Feinberg, Phileena Heuertz, and Leeana Tankersley share their thoughts on topics ranging from cultural issues like social justice, economic inequality, and social media addiction to personal needs like prayer, decision-making, relationships, infertility, career, and calling.

To enter, fill out this Contest Form by January 22 and we will randomly draw a name and contact the winner via email.

You can read more about the NIV Bible for Women here.

Check back next week to see what our next giveaway will be!

New Year Giveaway #1

Happy New Year from The Christopher Ferebee Agency!

We'd like to celebrate by giving away a few of our clients' resources.

Looking for a devotional to start the year off right? Our first giveaway is Savor by Shauna Niequist, who reminds us the importance of enjoying every day.

To enter, fill out this Contest Form and we will randomly draw a name and contact the winner via email.

You can read more about Shauna and Savor here.

And make sure to check back to see what our next giveaway will be.

Cheers!

When to Self-Publish

I'm often asked by both would be and published authors, if and when to consider self-publishing. For those unpublished, the question often comes from the desire to be published as quickly as possible and frustration with trying to break into the industry. Both are often asking because they've read of significant success coming to self-published authors and wondering whether they even need traditional publishers anymore. As a literary agent, I earn a living representing successful authors to commercial publishers, but I absolutely believe there is a place for self-publishing. However, whether successfully published or looking to publish for the first time, there a few considerations that apply across the board.

Audience 

Most publishers are looking more and more to the author to help sell their book. Publishers are having a harder time than ever successfully breaking out new authors. However, they can absolutely help amplify an existing audience. When you self-publish, there's no amplification. You want to know how big your "platform" is? Self-publish. Self-publishing may be a shortcut to selling your content, but there is no shortcut to building a following and an audience for your work. Self-publishing will expose how successful you've been at this faster than anything else. 

Market 

When you publish with a commercial publisher, your book is generally available anywhere books are sold. When you self-publish, you are typically locked into a specific ecosystem. For example, to sell your book electronically through Amazon, you have to agree to exclusively sell your book on Amazon. Most people don't consider that a big deal because Amazon controls 65% of the electronic book market. But only 19.5% of all books sold in the US are Amazon Kindle titles. In actuality, you're tapping into a small segment of the overall book market. If you self-publish into a different ecosystem, you're reaching an even smaller segment. All the more reason you need to have a robust following for your work to be successful.

Fulfillment 

A lot of authors will decide to sell their book directly from their own website to cut out the middle man and retain as much of their revenue as possible. But this means you'll have to figure out how to deliver your book in the format your audience wants to read it in. Does you audience read on a Kindle, or a Nook, or an iPad? Do they know what specific file format each device uses and how to load that file onto their device once they've downloaded it from you? What if your audience wants your book in a physical format? Do you have the means of producing, warehousing and fufilling physical book sales? When you become a direct seller, you have to take all of these things into consideration.

In short, there's no easy street to publishing, self or otherwise.  But if you decide to take the plunge, there can be significant benefits. For a published author, it offers you the ability to offer your audience something to tide them over between commercial releases. It can be an opportunity to generate revenue off of valuable content that makes sense for self-publishing, but that wouldn't make sense for a commercial publisher to consider. It can allow you to bring a resource to market to capitalize on a trend significantly faster than most commercial publishers will be able to. It can be a valuable tool used to gain fans and followers and build your platform. For a self-published author, when done successfully it can help gain the attention of commercial publishers and prove that you do, in fact, have a loyal following willing to engage with your content. For anyone, it can be an opportunity to try your hand at content that doesn't necessarily fit your "brand," but allows you to introduce your audience to some of your other interests and creative endeavors.

As a few examples, here are some books my commercially published clients have just recently released as self-published works for many of the reasons above: 

Charles Martin - River Road: A collection of short stories from Charles' early writing days. 

Timothy Willard - Shine So Bright: A beautiful children's Christmas story, successfully funded on Kickstarter and now available for sale. 

Margaret Feinberg - Live Loved: An adult coloring book encouraging scripture memorization, which has since been contracted and published by Bethany House. 

Rob Bell - Millones Cajones: A fun and surprising novel about a motivational speaker that suffers a crises of identity.

Latest New York Times Bestseller

A huge congratulations to Maurice Possley! His book Hitler in the Crosshairs, co-authored with John Woodbridge, found its way onto the New York Times Best Sellers list this week.

Congratulations to the team at Zondervan as well. This book was originally published in April, 2011. It's always fun when a little effort on behalf of a backlist title pays off.

Maury was also awarded the Pulitzer Prize for instigative journalism back in 2008.

Pre-order The Emotionally Healthy Leader by Peter Scazzero

Peter Scazzero is one of the best thinkers out there when it comes to the importance of emotional health. His first two books, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality and Emotionally Healthy Church have been significant books in this area and have helped to launch an entire Emtionally Healthy Spirituality movement in churches. 

Pete's latest, The Emotionally Healthy Leader, brings the principles of emotional health directly to leaders, showing them how to develop a deep, inner life with Christ, examining its profound implications for surviving stress, planning and decision making, building teams, creating healthy culture, influencing others, and much more.

The book officially launches June 30, 2015, but if you preorder between now and then you can get access to additional free content through Faithgateway.com. Even better, order the print edition through Amazon and for a limited time you can get the Kindle edition free through Amazon's MatchBook program.

Latest from New York Times Bestselling Author Charles Martin

Charles Martin is the New York Times bestselling author of 10 novels. In his eleventh book, releasing May 19, 2015, Charles' protagonist Charlie Finn had to grow up fast, living alone by age sixteen. Highly intelligent, he earned a life-changing scholarship to Harvard, where he learned how to survive and thrive on the outskirts of privileged society. That skill served him well in the cutthroat business world, as it does in more lucrative but dangerous ventures he now operates off the coast of Miami. Charlie tries to separate relationships from work. But when his choices produce devastating consequences, he sets out to right wrongs, traveling to Central America where he will meet those who have paid for his actions, including a woman and her young daughter. Will their fated encounter present Charlie with a way to seek the redemption he thought was impossible—and free his heart to love one woman as he never knew he could?

Here's the trailer for Water From My Heart

Water from my Heart by Author Charles Martin

Bestsellers - May 14, 2015

So proud of both Shauna Niequist and Dale Partridge. Shauna's Savor, released on March 10, 2015, hit the Publishers Weekly non-fiction bestseller list for the 5th week, while Dale's People Over Profit, released on May 5, 2015, debuted on the USA Today bestsellers list and the WSJ bestsellers list. If you haven't done so already, get your copy of Savor and People Over Profit today.