Have you ever read a life-changing book? I just did.

Late last year, I saw several of my friends posting about the book Present Over Perfect by Shauna Niequist. Okay, not just posting. RAVING.

I’m friends with a lot of writers and readers, so I see book recommendations come across my social media feed quite frequently. Still, I decided to give this book a try. I asked for it for my birthday and my husband gave it to me.

And let me say, it lived up to the hype.

I have read this book in chunks, a little at a time. It has changed my thinking in so many ways. Its subtitle is “Leaving Behind Frantic for a Simpler, More Soulful Way of Living,” but it’s really about so much more than that.

Every time I read a section, I underline like crazy (those of you who don’t believe in marking up books, avert your eyes!!). Then I write the underlined words in my journal, to cement them in my mind.

Like these: “When I practice silence for just a few minutes, when I practice allowing myself to be seen and loved by the God who created me from dust, I start to carry an inner stillness with me back into the noise, like a secret. There’s a quiet place inside me that I bring with me, and when I start to feel the questions, the fear, the chaos, I locate that quiet, that stillness, that grounded place.”

I have always lived a busy life. Go, go, go. That’s just me. Except, what if it’s not? Or what if it doesn’t have to be? What if I spent my time instead pursuing things I’m passionate about, things that really matter to me? What if I gave priority to God, to family, to friendships, to my writing? How vastly different could my life be if I made space in it for those things?

The book is also largely about expectations, and how we seriously need to fling them off if we’re ever going to live a peaceful life. That’s hard for a perfectionist like me. But as the title suggests, I’d rather be PRESENT in this life than PERFECT. Perfection is overrated. It’s unrealistic and a nonexistent ideal, to be honest. It’s unattainable.

And yet, I’ve lived my life as if it was attainable.

This life-changing book has been a vessel of hope and light in my world. God has used Shauna’s words to reach me and teach me, and I’ll be forever grateful.

YOUR TURN: What life-changing book have you read lately?