Ten Years Since A Heart Set Free Released

Ten years ago my first book, A Heart Set Free, was released. It was a book born out of my wrestling with hard things—of coming to the end of myself and finding God as my refuge and strength.

I had read the Psalms my whole life, but it wasn’t until I found myself in the pit of despair that I found the psalmist’s words to be a guide to learning the way of lament. In studying and learning about the structure of laments, and then following the pattern myself, I found hope. God heard my cries and answered me. He helped me see that He was the answer to the cries of my heart. He restored my joy. And out of that journey, I wrote A Heart Set Free.

Since then, I’ve written nine more books and participated in many multi-author projects. I’ve spoken at retreats and conferences in twenty states and in Canada. I’ve done some freelance editing and enjoy mentoring other writers wanting to grow in their craft.

It’s been a blessing to watch God use me to help others see Jesus.

Over the last ten years, my journey with the Psalms, and particularly the laments, has only grown deeper and richer. I continue to learn more about my heart and how God works in my life. I’ve experienced more of God’s faithfulness and steadfast love—two characteristics of God that the psalmist always points to.

I’ve also had more reasons and opportunities to lament over the last ten years. There have been losses and griefs to bear, huge transitions and changes to navigate, and worries and fears to bring to the Lord. Many of my plans have been disrupted or changed altogether. I’ve also faced great uncertainty, where the path ahead was completely dark and unknown. More recently, I’ve stepped into a new season of life as an empty nester and am still wrapping my head around that. We’ve moved twice in the last two years, moves that were both good and stressful. We are still finding our place and seeking to develop community (the topic of my second book!). In all these circumstances, the practice of lament has been a regular rhythm to my life with the Lord.

As I think about all I’ve navigated since A Heart Set Free came out, I find that the truths I learned in writing the book still shape me. They still give structure to my prayers. They continue to draw me to God’s Word and His promises. They remind me that God hears, He knows, and He responds.

If you haven’t read the book, click here to learn more about it.

Coming Soon: God Hears Your Heart

Last year, my first children’s book released, titled Tell God How You Feel. My intention for the book was that parents would use it as a discipleship resource in helping their children learn how to lament—how to bring their emotions to the Lord in prayer.

I’m excited to announce that a follow up to that book, God Hears Your Heart, will release on May 13. This book follows the same family from Tell God How You Feel. In this book, children will see how Josh and Mia learn how to talk to God about feelings such as: anger, disappointment, failure, and more. Discussion questions help parents talk about these emotions with their children.

Here’s what readers are saying about the book:

“If emotions are complex for adults (AKA, me!) to understand and respond to appropriately, how much more for children? This is why I’m so glad Christina has given us a helpful tool for guiding our kids through emotions like disappointment, anger, and failure. Best of all, she roots each lesson in biblical truth, particularly in the psalms which give voice to our hearts. I recommend this book to you!”

—Kristen Wetherell (Author of Humble Moms, Fight Your Fears, and co–author of Hope When It Hurts)

“… a wonderful resource for children. It accomplishes the difficulty task of turning children toward the Lord with their hard and unruly emotions without moralizing or excusing. Especially good on the disappointments every young human struggles to deal with and full of good advice and easy engagement for parents, this book is a must on every child’s bookshelf!”

— Alasdair Groves (Executive Director of CCEF)

God Hears Your Heart is available for pre-order now. Reserve your copy today!

Celebrating the Launch of Tell God How You Feel

Launch day is almost here! Tell God How You Feel: Helping Kids with Hard Emotions officially releases on Friday!

This is my first children’s book and I’m excited to share it with you. Tell God How You Feel is a discipleship tool for parents to use to help their children learn to bring their emotions to the Lord in prayer. It helps children learn to identify and verbalize their emotions. It helps them learn that God cares about their emotions. It helps them learn to see God as their place of refuge in all the cares of life.

The book contains separate stories, each focusing on a specific emotion all children feel: fear, sadness, rejection, loneliness, and gratitude. The characters in each story learn about what God’s word says about these feelings. They learn about people in the Bible who felt those emotions. They learn how to tell God about their emotions and ask for his help. Each story contains discussion questions which help parents talk with their children about their feelings and about the God who loves and cares for them. If you are familiar with my book, A Heart Set Free: A Journey to Hope Through the Psalms of Lament, then you’ll recognize that this book is inspired by it. It plants a seed in the hearts of children, giving them a beginning understanding of what it looks like to lament to God all of their feelings.

We all have habits in how we respond to difficult emotions, many of which we developed as children. Some of us distract ourselves from what we are feeling. Others pretend we are feeling fine when in fact we are not. As a Weight Watcher’s commercial from a few years ago revealed, some eat in response to any emotion they feel—whether good or bad. Rather than develop unhealthy responses to emotions, my hope is that as children grow and mature, they will develop the spiritual habit of turning to the Psalms and using its prose to help them shape their own prayers and laments to the Lord.

Want to learn more about the book? You can view a sample here. It’s available for pre-order now and will officially release on Friday. Are you on social media? Be sure to visit my Facebook page and @christinarfox on Instagram this week to enter for opportunities to win a copy.

Join the Launch Team For Tell "God How You Feel"

I’m excited to share with you about my new children’s book, Tell God How You Feel: Helping Kids with Hard Emotions, releasing March 5.

We learn from an early age how to navigate the difficult emotions of life. Fear. Sadness. Worry. Loneliness. Rejection. For some of us, we learn to avoid painful emotions. Others of us may “feed” our emotions through various temporary distractions. Still others may hide or cover them up. Yet the Bible teaches us to bring all our hurts to God.

Tell God How You Feel is a discipleship tool for parents to use in engaging their children with their emotions. It is designed to help children learn to bring their emotions to God and tell him about all their sorrows, fears, and hurts. It teaches them the process of Biblical lament.

Tell God How You Feel contains stories about a set of siblings, Mia and Josh. Each child faces difficult emotions and throughout the stories we see their parents help them learn to identify and verbalize their emotions. They teach them about those in the Bible who felt hard emotions. Mia and Josh then learn to pray to God and tell him how they feel.  These read aloud stories are ideal for family story times with thoughtful questions and discussion starters at the end of each story.

Want to have access to the book before anyone else?

Want to join me in discussing the book with other readers?

Want to participate in fun challenges and giveaways?

Then join the launch team! You can click here to learn about all the details and to sign up. Invite your friends!

I look forward to seeing you on the team and sharing with you about this discipleship resource to use with the children in your life.

Blessings,

Christina

Holy Complaint

“I pour out my complaint before him; I tell my trouble before him” (Psalm 142:2).

Do you remember customer complaint cards? Businesses used to place these cards by the cash register for you to fill out and tell them about a problem or issue you had with their service or product. These days, we receive follow up emails with a questionnaire to answer about our experience with a particular company.

In the Psalms, the Lord invites his children to pour out their complaints or troubles to him in prayer. I think the phrase “pour out” is appropriate. The past couple of months, I’ve voiced numerous complaints to the Lord in prayer. Disappointments. Uncertainties. Worries. Troubles. Concerns. Questions. I’ve told him all my distracting thoughts and swirling emotions. I’ve bombarded him with questions such as: Why? How long? When? I’ve asked him to intercede in my troubles and concerns. I’ve asked him to provide comfort and hope. I’ve asked for provision for needs. I’ve asked for the Spirit to do a mighty work in my heart and in our land.

The Bible provides many examples of God’s people bringing their troubles and complaints to the Lord. We see this most notably in the Psalms, but we also see it elsewhere, such as in Job or Lamentations or Habakkuk. “O LORD, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear? Or cry to you ‘Violence!’ and you will not save?” (Habakkuk 1:2). These are examples of holy complaints. What makes them holy? The heart posture of the one complaining.

Central to a holy complaint is a heart that fears the Lord. Such a heart loves, honors, reveres, and worships God for who he is and what he has done. This heart is humble and acknowledges its utter dependence upon God’s grace for all things. That is why the godly cry out to the Lord. They come into his presence because he is the only One who can rescue and redeem. He is the great provider; all things belong to him and he generously shares his riches with his children. He is a loving Father who knows just what his children need and ensures they receive it. Therefore, the godly cry out to him for help and trust in his perfect and timely will to be done. These complaints are ones that honor God and he is pleased to hear and respond to them.

There are however, complaints that do not honor God. A prime example of this is when the Israelites grumbled against God during their desert wanderings. Though they witnessed God deliver them from the Egyptians at the Red Sea, they grumbled against God the first time they lacked food and water. “And the people spoke against God and against Moses, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food” (Numbers 21:25). The Apostle Paul referred to this account in 1 Corinthians 10:9-10, “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.” Their complaints stemmed not from a heart that trusted the Lord to provide, but from unbelief.

The Puritan, Thomas Watson, called such complaining or grumbling, “mutiny in the soul against God.” He wrote, “Murmuring springs from pride, thinking you deserve better at God’s hand, and when the heart begins to swell, it spits poison. Murmuring also springs from distrust, for men do not believe that God can make medicine out of poison, and bring good out of all their troubles.” Men murmur at God’s providences because they distrust his promises.”

May we turn to God and give him our troubles and cares because we know he is the source and fountainhead of grace. May our hearts trust in him alone to rescue and redeem. May all our complaints be holy complaints. “He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them” (Psalm 145:19).

Christ Our Rock and Refuge

I’ve spent a lot of time in the Psalms these past couple of months. Primarily, because we are discussing the laments in the virtual support group I facilitate, but also because it’s what my own heart needs right now. I need the psalmist’s raw honesty to help me give voice to what’s going on in my own heart. I need to know I’m not alone in my feelings of loneliness, isolation, fear, disappointment, and sorrow. I need certainty in these uncertain times and the Psalms point me to what is true and unchanging.

As I thumb through the pages, there’s a repeated theme throughout the Psalms. Whether the psalmist is singing praise and thanksgiving or crying out in lament, there is oft repeated word or phrase he uses to describe who God is. The psalmist refers to God as his shelter and refuge. He describes God as a rock, a fortress, a stronghold.

“The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold” (Psalm 18:2)

“For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me” (Psalm 31:3)

“Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come; you have given the command to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress” (Psalm 71:3).

In practical terms, a rock is a place to hide behind. Its clefts and caves provide shelter from beasts and storms and enemies. A rock is also a foundation upon which we stand or build. It is solid and sure. Rocks are used to build walls and fortresses to protect those within. A massive rock, like a mountain, is immovable; It stands firm through the fiercest storms and battles.

So it’s no wonder the Lord is referred to as a rock. It’s one of his many names found in Scripture: “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he” (Deut. 32:4). Used figuratively, this name reminds us that we can run to God when we are afraid. We can seek safety and security in him. He is our dwelling place (Deut. 33:27). He is our protector and refuge from the ferocious storms of life. He is our savior and rescuer. And while all around us is chaos, our God is unchanging and constant. Steadfast. Strong. Sure. Faithful. Everlasting.

It’s also no surprise that Christ is referred to as a rock as well. Paul tells us in 1 Cor. 10, that Christ was Israel’s spiritual rock during their desert wanderings “For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ” (v.3). Christ is also referred to as the cornerstone of the church. Just as a building’s corner stone holds two walls together, Christ joins the church together (Ephesians 2:20). “Therefore thus says the Lord GOD, ’Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion, a stone, a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation: ‘Whoever believes will not be in haste’” (Isaiah 28:16).

Christ is the fulfillment of all God’s promises to be our rock and fortress. He is our true shelter and dwelling place. He is the answer to the psalmist’s cry for salvation and deliverance. He rescued us from sin and death. He united himself to us through faith in his life, death, and resurrection. He made us his own. He is our place of safety. Our refuge. Our strength. Our fortress.

We don’t have to go far to seek refuge in Christ, for he’s made us his dwelling place. His Spirit lives within us. The same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead is the same Spirit who encourages our weary hearts, strengthens our faith, exhorts us when we sin, and transforms us more and more into the image of Christ. What an amazing thing to consider! When we need shelter and refuge, he is so near to us—just a prayer away!

This reminder has been such an encouragement to my heart during these uncertain times. Just dwelling on God as my rock settles my distracted mind. Knowing that Christ is my refuge and that he is always with me gives me hope. I pray it does for you as well.

Father in heaven, You are my rock. My shelter and place of safety. You are my firm foundation. You do not change. Nothing can move you. I thank you that in Christ, I am safe. He is my refuge and my fortress. Nothing and no one can snatch me from him. May these truths be my comfort and strength in these uncertain times. In Jesus’s name, amen.