Scary Close (Book Review)

“I'm perfectly willing to be perfectly human.”  

 

Scary Close was easy to love.  Its a fast read with points that pressed into my thinking about the health of my relationships.  Author Donald Miller's tag line reads, "Dropping the act and finding true intimacy".  The book is about his quest to drop all pretense, step out of isolation, and be real with the people in his life both professionally and personally. 

 

He states, “I'm perfectly willing to be perfectly human.”   And that gets me.  I am closer to giving myself the freedom to be fully human-the real deal messy, flawed kind-but, I still have far to go.  I have made huge steps toward being vulnerable with others, but my weakness is me wanting perfection out of myself. 

 

“God is going to reveal me as a flawed human being as fast as he can and he’s going to enjoy it because it will force me to grapple with real intimacy.”  

 

Truth, truth, truth.  This is real in my life, and I am grateful for the way walking through the fires of hard times has burned away pretense in my life.  But here's why I enjoyed this book. I struggled a bit with Miller saying, "he's enjoying it".    I wasn't always sure I agreed, so the book forced me to think and process and not just read on. 

 

 

"Relationships matter.  They matter as much as exercise and nutrition.  And not all relationships help us reach our goals.  God doesn't give us crying, pooping children because He wants us to advance our careers.  He gives them to us for the same reason he confused language at the Tower of Babel, to create chaos and deter us from investing too much energy in the gluttonous idols of self-absorption."

 

 

This one got a hand in the air amen from this reader.  It pushes me to see my chaos through different eyes.  

 

"So I wrote.  I wrote as though God thought my voice mattered.  I wrote because I believed a human story was beautiful, no matter how small the human. "

 

 

Most powerful and thought provoking for me was his chapter, "The Risk of Being Careful", which focused on writing and creating.  Such important wisdom from Miller here on the barriers to creativity that we build in our minds.  His encouragement unleashes something in the writer in me. 

 

The last chapter closed and I'm still processing through how to move my relationships, the personal and creative ones, forward.  This is a book worthy of reading and endorsing.   

 

 



**I received a copy of this book from Harper Collins Booklook Bloggers.