Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?

 
Although the title is interesting what really intriqued me about reading this book was that I had read her previous book, Mennonite In A Little Black Dress a few years ago. In her first book Rhoda Janzen shares more about how she went back to her roots after a failed marriage and an accident forced her to heal physically and emotionally.  What Ms. Janzen brings to the reader in this book is the same laugh out loud humor right along side those heartwrenching sobs.   Ms. Janzen shares her personal life in a way that draws the reader into the story and we find ourselves rooting for this to become more than a story of survival.  She challenges us along the way to take a deep look at our own religious upbringing and to begin to look at what it means to make your faith your own.  Ms. Janzen, a university professor could have easily brushed aside the impact ones faith has on who we become but instead, she embraces a new church settting that was as opposite from her mennonite upbringing as dark is from light.  As she meets and begins a relationship with Mitch, a penacostal, the picture she writes about the healing services had me laughing so hard that my own family must have thought I had lost it (they think that sometimes anyway).   Just as soon as I was laughing about "throws up a lot" and "lady problems", I was soon crying over how these two insightful phrases would affect Rhoda throughout the course of the book.   As the author shares her illness, she doesn't focus on her illness, instead, we get to hear her passion for life.  She is able to recoginze gifts and gratitude, she is able to show us faith and trust.    All things that we can all grow from as we apply them to our everyday lives.   From "Little Black Dress" to "Double Choir Robes", you'll soon find that Ms. Janzen lives everyday to it's fullest and if the "church makes you look fat", maybe you need to reach back to your roots and see where they have planted you.