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    Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted
    Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted
    Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted
    Audiobook7 hours

    Falling Free: Rescued from the Life I Always Wanted

    Written by Shannan Martin and Jen Hatmaker

    Narrated by Ginny Welsh

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    “Shannan’s story feels at once familiar and spectacular, ordinary and exceptional. You will discover that at the same time her words make you squirm, you will wish you lived next door to her. You will want her wisdom and you will want her pickles.” —Jen Hatmaker (from the foreword)

    Shannan Martin had the perfect life: a cute farmhouse on six rambling acres, a loving husband, three adorable kids, money, friends, a close-knit church—a safe, happy existence.

    But when the bottom dropped out through a series of shocking changes and ordinary inconveniences, the Martins followed God’s call to something radically different: a small house on the other side of the urban tracks, a shoestring income, a challenged public school, and the harshness of a county jail (where her husband is now chaplain). And yet the family’s plunge from “safety” was the best thing that could have happened to them.  

    Falling Free charts their pilgrimage from the self-focused wisdom of the world to the topsy-turvy life of God’s more being found in less. Martin’s practical, sweetly subversive book invites us to rethink assumptions about faith and the good life, push past insecurity and fear, and look beyond comfortable, middle-class Christianity toward a deeper, richer, and ultimately more fulfilling life.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThomas Nelson
    Release dateSep 20, 2016
    ISBN9780718084851
    Author

    Shannan Martin

    Shannan Martin, known for her popular blog Shannan Martin Writes, is a speaker and writer who found her voice in the country and her story in the city. She and her jail-chaplain husband, Cory, have four funny children who came to them across oceans and rivers. They enjoy neighborhood life in Goshen, Indiana, a place they fall more in love with every year.

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    Reviews for Falling Free

    3.5/5

    10 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Very conversational and warm reflection on the journey from what you wanted to what you needed. I listened to this audiobook right as I was making a massive career change and it felt like having a kind big sister or wise aunt taking the time to share her story with you over a long road trip. I’m grateful for Martin’s work and her generosity of heart.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Delightful and eloquent challenge. Well worth the time to listen.
    • 1/5
      There are a lot of people out there who would like to be published writers. And many of those people actually succeed in writing and getting their book published. I think this was one book that should have been halted. What sounded like a great story, an interesting premise- a woman and her family who achieve their dream life on a farm and then end up in the city with all the accompanying city problems- ended up instead a long blog-like ramble. I could tell right away this woman writes a blog. (not all blogs are bad but many are, IMHO) And the woman who wrote the foreword is guilty of the same sensationalist, perky, unwitty style.
      From the description of the book, I was expecting a story of how Mrs. Martin came around to selling her farm house, how she came to accept her new life, her new family, her husband's new job, etc. But Martin chooses instead to give little snippets here and there and then weave in little sermonettes, abound with "insights" everyone's heard before, then another little detail of her story with more tangents after. I don't mind a writing style that goes back and forth in this way, but it has to be done right, convincingly and without preachy, threadbare christian platitudes. Martin likes to reword what Jesus says in the Bible, with paraphrases like "Dude, if you thought that was impressive, you'd better go ahead and tighten up those sandal straps.". Ugh. She also likes vapid expressions, like "been there, done that, bought the shirt" .. Seriously? How does this get overlooked by an editor I wonder?
      What I can only guess is that as I get older, as I see endless blogs and vlogs and you tube videos of people pontificating, and news stations airing Facebook comments and calling it news, standards are blurred, perhaps even obliterated, and so as a result, we end up with a fluffernutter like this book.