Unashamed and Beloved

Book Review Blog Tour – Unashamed by Tracy Williamson

I have had the wonderful privilege of reading a pre-publication copy of Tracy Williamson’s new book, ‘Unashamed’ which is to be released for sale this Friday, 8^th September 2023. (See details of the virtual zoom book launch below.)

https://tinyurl.com/OnlineBookLaunch

It is my honour to be part of this blog-tour and to now present my honest response as a review of her gem of a book:

Unashamed (Discover the healing power of God’s love for your wounded soul)

by Tracy Williamson

First published 2023 by Authentic Media Limited. Publisher ‎ Authentic Media Paperback ‏ : ‎ 336 pages ISBN‏ : ‎ 9781788932684 RRO £11.99, available from Marston, KCLC and Gardners

‘Whatever life has thrown at you, the truth is that your identity, the bottom line of the ‘Who Am I’?’ question, is that you were planned, thought of, lovingly designed, wanted and created in love’ (Tracy Williamson)

www.unashamed.org.uk

Book Review:

In Tracy’s own words in the introduction, she says – ‘where life has hurt us and left us feeling rubbish, God falls in love with us and takes us to His heart to restore and recreate the beauty He put in us – releasing us unashamed to our purpose.’

This sums up the message of inner transformation and healing with the particular gentle grace with which Tracy speaks into the heart of her readers.

Many of us go through life with wounds, pain and lies written deeply in our hearts – lies that tell us that we our bad and wrong in our very essence. This is shame. We bury this and pretend that all is well with us, but when we hit a rocky place, we see and hear the rubble, rubbish and lies upon which we have built our identity.

The truth, on the other hand, is that God, who made us and formed us in our mother’s womb, who knew us at the creation of all the world, He loves us with an everlasting love. But we don’t know this, we don’t believe it in the deepest recesses of our heart. He desires to woo us into healing and transformation with His truth.

The truth is that we are welcomed, wanted and beloved children of the living God.

This is the glorious message that God has been teaching Tracy and which she is sharing with the world in this profound treasure of a tool-book.

Tracy uses real-life stories – raw anecdotes from her own life and heart, and from others with whom she has shared her stories. This was great for me as I love story and testimony, as the authenticity is indisputable and reaches heart to heart.

Like the Master Himself, Tracy also uses delightfully accessible parables to illustrate and teach essential truths about God’s love and purpose. These help visual-thinking readers, like myself, to see, enter and remember the truths being spoken. It also keeps the teachings fun and non-threatening, making them even more powerful!

Another very powerful aspect of her book is the sharing of prophetic visions and invitations from the Holy Spirit – these spoke to me profoundly and knit the chapters together in a very wholesome way, each time inviting the reader to reflect and respond, even as God responds to our yearnings for Him.

In these times of reflection, I sensed the presence of God shining His light into those hidden places of shame, and felt the soothing balm of His healing touch as I opened up some of the wounded places revealed through the prophetic messages.

Within the chapters, Tracy invites the reader to rest, reflect and respond, but I didn’t tarry long enough! I want to go back especially to the prophetic messages and the personal testimonies, as I know that I rushed it and would do well to rest and meditate more in those places of healing truth.

As you can see, I love this book and I recommend it to anyone seeking greater healing and freedom in their lives.

I shall certainly be reading it again and lingering on the reflections and the prophetic.

If this does not tempt you to go straight to her website to order a copy of the book and read it for yourself, then listen to her speak about the book herself at her online book-launch this Friday 8^th September 2023

NB: One is required to register for the online launch – so click the link below and register.

You can join them on Zoom this Friday for the virtual launch – Details can be found by visiting .www.unashamed.org.uk

To order a copy of Unashamed, please go to the website above. You may need to use a pc or laptop when ordering and paying, because of a temporary glitch .

You can also order by emailing the administrator on info@mbm-ministries.org

Tracy Williamson, who is deaf and partially sighted, and Marilyn, who is blind, head up the charity MBM Trust – Restoring Lives Through Intimacy with God, which is based in south-east England.

For more information about MBM, please visit www.mbm-ministries.org or their Facebook page www.facebook.com/mbmtrust.

I asked a couple of questions of Tracy:

1) For whom did you write this book – who do you want it to reach?

Tracy: I feel Unashamed can reach everyone, as we all go through times of struggle and pain in life and also many of us would love to be drawing alongside and helping those who are struggling. Its a great resource for such people. But my primary aim is for those who feel they just can’t hope for change and transformation as their needs and hurts run so deep. I want it to be a book that brings hope that change is possible for all however deep the hurt as God’s love is bigger than the deepest wounds.

2) How long has your own spiritual healing journey been and do you think we are ever completely healed during our earthly lives?

Tracy: My own healing journey began before I discovered the Lord’s love for me. I was 18, at college and in a place of suicidal despair because of years of abuse and rejection. God drew me to him in an amazing encounter which I describe in Unashamed, and my healing journey began to crystalise and lead me to true wholeness. I’ve been on that journey ever since. I do believe we can experience full healing in this life because of the fact that Jesus died taking ALL our guilt, wounds, pain and shame on the cross with him. However, we do have to learn to live in its truth and life can be a roller coaster at times. My own experience is that I’ve made very significant steps to knowing, for example that I am beloved, rather than unwanted and shameful, and I really do know that now.  But nevertheless, a difficult situation or unkind word can easily send me back into the old mindsets, so I have to keep close to Jesus and listening for his voice of truth and being willing to let my deeper self come into the light of his love.

3) You speak of Ellel Ministries’ impact in your life; have any other ministries or resources had an impact you would recommend to the reader?

Tracy: Yes Ellel were powerful to set me free from many satanic strongholds. My own church was also greatly used and lovely friends who had listening hearts and believed in the power of Jesus to heal wounded hearts. ‘Beauty from Ashes’ ministry taught me a great deal about drawing alongside and praying for hurting people too, as well as countless books from those in healing ministry.

Tracy, thank you so much for being raw and honest and for allowing God to shine through the cracks into your heart. Thank you for trusting Him to put you back together laced with His pure gold healing. Thank you for sharing your story!

May this book and all your ministries spread the healing power of the truth of God’s love for every wounded heart.

Who are you?

FMF: Have

15:40

You do not have because you do not ask God. James 4:3

Who are you?

If we were born into a loving, nurturing family, we naturally build a strong sense of identity, validated and encouraged by our parents, and out of that identity flow our talents, strengths and purpose.

Our destiny is encouraged by and flows out of a solid identity.

It flows from a secure, peaceful heart and a strong foundation.

When this does not happen, when we are not nurtured as children, and our needs are not validated and met, we fail to develop a strong sense of our God-given identity and so we try to please others and take on whatever shape we think that others around us demand or expect of us.

In this deficient scenario, when our sense of identity is weak, our destiny tends to become dependent on what others expect us to have or what they expect us to do.

We become a ‘human-doing’, or a ‘human-having’, instead of a human-being.

We rely on our having and doing to become our status, our esteem, the value by which we measure ourselves.

We measure our importance by how many possessions and latest gadgets we have, or measure by what we do for a living and how hard we work, or how ‘successful’ we are.

We become performance oriented, workaholics, or materialistic seekers of wealth and fortune.

If we did not get a secure foundation as children, we are not lost. There is always abundant hope. Our Father God, who designed us for a purpose, will still work in and through us if we let Him.

Ask Him.

He can and will heal our broken hearts, demolish the lies we have believed about ourselves and will transform our identity and our destiny. He will create in us a new heart – a heart of flesh – and dismantle our heart of stone.

We will learn to measure our value and true success by having a secure heart – a strong identity in who we are in Christ Jesus.

We are children of the living God and we belong to Him.

We are loved, protected, provided for and cherished by our heavenly Father.

When we spend time in the presence of Him who created and designed us, we become who we were created to be and we can nurture the gifts and talents He purposed for us since the beginning of time.

We can truly reach and be fulfilled in our God-given, purpose-made identity.

Who are you?

Who does God say you are?

Stop

Beware: May contain nuts!

Before I set the timer on today’s prompt word, I am going to tell you a little something about myself – a sort of confession perhaps, but one which has amused me about my processing.

I am often amused and bemused about the differing and convoluted ways that my mind organises itself!

Today, I did something rather unusual. I decided last night that it would make sense to use the scaffolding to paint the stonework around the upstairs windows, which looked like they had not been painted since the original Victorian windows were installed!

It is a job I had never done before, but I used my brain and some advice from a B&Q shop-assistant and bought some suitable masonry paint, a good brush and some sand-paper…

This morning, in a dull, cold January, I climbed the scaffolding in my extra-layered overalls, and began to scrape away the moss and lichen, sand, wash, and then paint the arches and sills of the three big windows.

Four hours later, frozen to the bone, I cleaned the brush and work-station and came home to warm up.

I decided I then needed to do another rare thing – to immerse my cold aching body in a hot bath. I could probably count only a dozen baths I have taken in ten years, but in case you think my confession is that I don’t wash, let me reassure you that I usually take showers.

(This is due to speed, as I think I my three speed-settings are ‘day-dream’, ‘Dawn-speed’, and ‘hurried’).

As it is Friday, I thought I would first open the laptop to see what today’s FMF prompt word is and then go and cogitate in the bath. I took a candle and a book and began to think…

I didn’t read the book, but I think I could have written several chapters of a book about ‘FAKE’. I began with ‘fake it till you make it’, explored the trust aspect of the shepherd boy David when he faced Goliath and compared him with Gideon. I decided that the key was WHO we trust, but the thoughts span around my mind, coming and going like a rainbow, and, because writing and water do not go well together, I came out again two hours later with even less of an idea than before.

What I did come away with, was the title!

And I think I want to talk about the fake-self and trust.

Every Friday, I join an online Christian writing community, Five Minute Friday. We are given a one-word prompt and write – unscripted, unedited, pure free-write – for 5 minutes. The prompt this week is FAKE.

Go:

What my mind believes and what my heart believes, are not the same thing.

My mind believes the word of God. And I believe in the almighty power of God. As a Christian, I also believe that I am a ‘new creation’; that the ‘old is gone and the new has come’. I believe I am forgiven, healed, cherished and set-apart. I believe I have ‘a purpose and a hope and a future’.

But hidden in my heart is a different identity made of a great many lies. The little me that was wounded believes she is slow, stupid, rubbish. She believes that there is something wrong with her and it is her fault. It must be her fault, because God does not make mistakes. Little me believed the lies that she was told by those on whom she had to depend. She also made up some lies to make sense of the pain she was experiencing.

When I go to church and to work, people want to see me being strong in faith and successful and believing the word of God, which I do; but if inside I am falling apart and feeling devastated, does the Lord want me to present a fake image of myself with a totally-sorted identity?

I don’t think so.

Jesus says that he is the way, the truth and the life. He says that the truth shall set us free. Jesus wants me to be free of the lies that my little heart believed all those years ago.

He wants me to confess and bring those pains and lies to the cross, where His healing is.

He wants to break and reverse those lies, those fake identities one-by-one-by-one until I am free.

He wants me to partner with Him in being honest about my heart and allowing Him to transform the lies into the truth of who He made me to be.

He wants me to be rid of the fake identity in my heart and rid of my fake identity in the market place.

Jesus is on this journey with me – with Him and with some loving Christian friends and sound teaching, Jesus is setting me free to be the person He created me to be. It is not about who I am and what I can do, it is about Him. My belief and faith and trust are in Him, not me.

He has the power to demolish the fake and transform with his glorious truth.

End (Sorry, but even that took 10 minutes and I see lots of red wiggly lines!)

image of heart torn and damaged, but sewn and sticky-plastered in own strength

PLEASE:

If there is a lie that your heart believes about yourself, ask Jesus when and where the first wound was that tempted little you to believe that about yourself. Confess it and share it with a trusted Christian friend or Christian counselor. Come out of agreement with that lie and ask Jesus what the truth is. Repeat his truth over and over. Take captive that old lie every time it speaks out and remind your heart of the truth.

PS: I’m very happy that I painted the stonework. I have learned some new skills. I’m quite sure I would have forever regretted missing the opportunity had I ignored the thought!