Capture Unafraid: Trusting God In An Unsafe World Expressed By Susie Davis Shown As Script
had higher hopes for this book, The title attracted me immediately, as did the description of the author's trauma which triggered her panic disorder.
I'd expected Davis to tell more of her story, Instead she told snippets,going back and forth in time, from past to present, to recent past, etc.
. and then it was more advice, How to. Do this. Bottom line: love God more and you'll be fine, Kind of a short shrift here, I like Davis' writing style and her honesty was refreshing, I just wished she'd kept more to her story and let it speak for itself rather than revert to the usual self help kind of stuff at the end.
Extremely timely book for this day and age, . . Susie Davis does a great job talking about how fear can take us over and draw us away from intimacy with God toward shame.
Her personal experience gives examples easy to relate to the day to day situations we encounter living as Christians in a fallen world.
Susie Davis, author of Unafraid, witnessed the murder of her eighth grade teacher by one of her classmates.
Leaving her with deeply rooted trust issues, this experience became an obstacle she had to overcome, The loss of trust in her relationship with God created debilitating fears in her life, She felt as I think many of us have, if God is a good father and can keep bad things from happening to us then why doesnt he
I found this book to be well written and easy to read.
I was finished in a few days because I had to know how it all worked out for her.
Unafraid opened my eyes to see areas in my life that I thought were normal concerns, were actually fears.
To be brought to tears at the idea of a close family member taking my daughter to the Childrens Museum, thats fear.
To cry because a family member took my daughter down to the beach to play while I stayed up at the beach house because I was too tired to join, thats fear.
Ive let fear wreck my emotions because Ive held on tightly to Alaina, thinking that if I do then nothing bad will happen.
The truth is that God is a good Father and He can protect her, that He loves her more than I do.
If you struggle with anxiety and constant whatif scenarios playing through your head then this book is for you.
Susies story is comforting, shes been there, she gets it, and shes fought and continues to fight fear.
I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review, This book is written from the author's personal experience for all of us who have struggled with strongholds of intense fear.
This includes a feeling that God will not necessarily look after us, based on the observable experiences of ourselves and others.
Susie's started in High School, when a fellow student shot and killed a teacher in front of the class.
Others have different triggers, but share her feelings,
I like how she helps us face the fact that fear is an idol, We may think of 'idols' as only things which bring us pleasure, but they are simply things which consume our thoughts and attention, and take priority above God.
So even though we abhor our fear, it may be high time we're alerted to the fact that we may, in fact, worship it.
Davis has been there, and knows the lies we tell ourselves, all the while convincing our hearts that we're simply trying to be careful and informed.
We apply scripture like bandaids, not really believing in God's protection anymore, We may think of God as a pleasant gameloser, but honour fear as the stronger player, We may run up against fear's horrid sidekicks, named paranoia and hypochondria, which are personal acquaintances of mine.
Our extensive note taking and research, aimed to keep us 'informed' is, in reality, getting an education from the enemy about the world.
Indulging in these activities leaves huge openings for us to be pounced on with outrageous
ideas and ridiculous scenarios.
She outlined some of hers, apparently to make us shake our heads that she was so extreme, but I found mine have been a perfect match over the years.
As the only real solution, she urges us to train our minds to knock down subtle, apparently rational thoughts against God's truth.
If you're like me, we need a bit of plain talk like this, We need to be told that rather than being in our circumstances, as we imagine, our sickness is actually in our hearts.
We have to face the fact that rather than being like brave Caleb in the Bible, we'd be more likely find ourselves among the rest of the Israelites, who think it's safer to warn others about the giants.
I'd place this book on my shelf along with other faithbuilding testimonies and teachings about our true biblical grounds for relying on God's love and expecting healing.
Thanks to Blogging for Books and WaterBrook Multnomah for my review copy, I truly can't say enough wonderful things about this book, Susie Davis articulates about fear things I couldn't put into words for years, I knew i had a problem, I just couldn't define it,
I can now, I love God. I believe in Him with my whole heart, I just don't trust Him,
My father died when I wasin a hot air balloon accident, I learned at a very young age the world isn't safe,
Susie Davis walks a fearer like me through the winding road that is learning to trust God.
A journey full of His promises that ends with a huge bear hug from a loving heavenly Father.
I read this book slowly and purposely so that I could digest all of what God wanted to reveal to me that related to my own struggles.
I cannot say enough good things about how the Lord used it to open my eyes to areas within my own heart He wanted to heal.
Anyone that struggles with fear should read it, I loved this book so much, This is Susie's testimony of how God healed her from terrible fears, God is still in the healing business! I'll admit, I was a bit hesitant to start this book.
I have been having a lot of faith and trust issues lately, and this book seemed like it might be something that would really hurt me to read, because it would cause me to really focus on how "bad" I am.
But no, this book was GREAT and I found myself really enjoying it! Easy to read and I love the way she weaves truth into the story of the hardship she has endured.
I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads, I enjoyed reading this book, I will be looking for more books from the author in the future , Great book !! Susie Davis witnessed such a horrific event and it transformed her thoughts and actions.
As someone who feels anxiety and is a worrier over the most irrational of things, it was helpful to read about her journey, to hear the truths that really helped her.
I have heard a few interviews she's done with podcasters and was excited to read some of that wisdom.
If youve ever wanted an older women to mother you lovingly and kindly in the area of fear, this is the book for you.
I felt Susies warmth the whole time and had the sense that I could have been speaking with her about all of this during a mentoring meeting at her own dining room table.
Sadly, fear is the main factor in humans life, It dominates through trauma and bad experience, or even negative emotions, Fear grabs peoples mind and dictates the heart It paralyzes and kills creativity, freedom and peace!
Its time to get rid of the fearto show who is boss.
Through her book, Susie teaches how she overcame the fear in her life after witnessing the gruesome homicide in front of her eyes in the classroom.
Like her teaching, I still have fears in my lifebut the battle is on! Though I dont know where your fears started or how deep they sit in your soul, I do know this: Fear is a heavy burden.
One of the heaviest you can carry, Its exhausting and overwhelming. And its not from God,
Susie Davis, Unafraid
InSusie Davis watched as a thirteenyearold classmate entered her classroom and killed her teacher.
As a witness to one of the earliest school shootings in our nation, Susie faced years of paralyzing fear and an intense distrust of God.
But God relentlessly pursued her and, over time, broke Susies fear addiction,
In Unafraid, Susie offers her hardwon insights about how we can trust God in the midst of our fears about violence, disease, and personal tragedy.
With you, she asks, “How do we live unafraid How do we remain aware of world events without giving in to fear How do we make everyday choices to stop letting What if control us”
As Susie shows us, it is possible to break fears grasp on our lives.
We can be aware of the terrible without forgetting the beautiful, We can look up with joy and realize the remarkable truth: Jesus wants to take our fear and give us, in its place, true peace.
Walk this liberating journey with her and learn what it means to live unafraid, We have all, at some point or another, struggled with fear, Whether it has played a major role in our lives or minor, we as human beings, have learned our own coping methods for dealing with fear.
When you add into that mixture, being a Christ follower and believer, which methods we use and why, become very important questions to answer in our faith walk.
I love how Susie Davis tackles this subject matter with both candor and vulnerability, I was very thankful that she was willing to share how she learned from her life experiences and that she wrote this book so that others could start learning too and break their own fear cycles.
A great read that I would definitely recommend, Already a fearful child, the sight of an eighth grade classmatea neighbor boygunning down a favorite teacher in May ofproved to be too much for Susie Davis.
As a result, she developed irrational routines like hiding in her closet when she was home alone and later in life checking the whole house for intruders before taking her children inside.
For years she functioned this way, covering her coping mechanisms well, However, she did eventually break down and that led to a season of God peeling the layers off the fears that held her in their power.
With the help of her husband, friends, and especially God she was able to break fears chains.
Unafraid is the story of her journey from fear to wholeness and her message of hope to other fearful people.
Daviss writing voice is friendly and encouraging, though she does sometimes lapse into lecture mode.
She uses a lot of sentence fragments which I found distracting as they drew my attention away from content and to the writing itself.
The book does contain sound advice about how to counter fear, However, two flies in the ointment spoiled my enjoyment of this memoir,
In a chapter where she likens the trauma of a bad event to Good Friday and recovery from it to Easter Sunday, she calls the time between these things Saturday, writing these words:
“Saturday is the What the holy heck just happened kind of feeling” Kindle Location.
After seeing the word “holy” used often in this book in reference to God, I found its use here as a minced oath puzzling and disappointing.
It cast a shadow over the whole book for me,
In another chapter describing her “dark night of the soul” she waits to get one of Gods “love notes” to herperceived communication from Him through circumstances or His voice coming through her thoughts.
However, not once in that section does she mention the possibility of hearing from Him by reading the Biblethe place most Christians would go first to get a message from God.
These quibbles aside, there is also lots of wisdom and good advice for the fearful in this book, wisdom like:
“So many of the giants I face are in my head.
Fear whispers unspeakable things and I flinch, This is when its time for me to take captive, cast down, and throw those thoughts in prison.
And I do that by worshiping Jesus, Just as the wise men worshiped Jesus, I lay prostrate fore God and not before my fears” KL.
and
“, . . I must daily walk away from fear, And the only way I can hope to do that is to think of fear the same way my Father things of fear.
As an idol in my life” KL,
The book concludes with a set of Discussion Questions and a Study Guide, making it useful for book clubs as well as group and personal study.
I received Unafraid as a gift from the publisher for the purpose of writing a review.
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