The birth of beautiful things often comes through adversity.

August 27th 2009 my husband, Austin posted as a status in facebook "is so glad God loves with an everlasting love! never ending!!! Jer. 31:3" which provoked a 57 comment thread with the President of the Atheist club on the campus we serve on sarcastically making fun of God and the Bible. What the enemy intended for evil, the Lord used for good as many people had an opportunity to speak up about their faith.

Then November 2009 Austin posted, "Prayer night! We love you Jesus!" which Joel couldn't resist commenting on. 

Hundreds of people were following this conversation where Austin took the opportunity to share the gospel with Joel. I was shocked that we were having opportunities to share the gospel with more people on facebook than in real life.

At the same time I was answering emails for everystudent.com and Global Media Outreach where people from all over the world were putting their faith in Christ and wanting to grow. The spark of vision of what God was doing and could do began to grow.

I started dreaming of what it could look like, about what practical things could be done through social media in regards to the Great Commission. People, lots and lots of people were flocking (and still are) to facebook. They were spending their free time in conversations and it seemed people were more willing to talk about God online. After awesome personal experiences of seeing the Lord change lives, my passion for helping others see it started. I wanted them to catch vision for seeing social media as perhaps one of the greatest tools given to this generation to make Jesus known all over the world. 

Then this last summer the Lord united Angi (who came up with the idea for the book, co-authored it with me, is on staff with us and is one of the most amazing women I know) and my heart's desire in writing a book about it. Since then, every time I've spent time praying about this book the Lord has brought me back to Mark 6 where He feeds 5,000. And each time He highlights something new. Don't you just love that!? Reading something a hundred times and something new pops out and hits you between the eyes.  

A little boy gave Jesus an offering of 2 fish and 5 loaves. Jesus gave it out to some servant-hearted men to give to the people and caused it to multiply. Angi and I are just 2 girls who have 5 chapters, offering it to Jesus, with servant-hearted people who are helping us get the word out. And now we wait with anticipation to see what God does. 

Here's a little promo for the book. I hope it inspires you.

So want to use you social media platforms as a way to make Jesus known? Want some ideas of how? Want a copy of the book? 
I hope so since I'm going to giveaway a copy today. And not only a copy but a bunch of Angi and my favorite things. 

I will announce the winner next Friday. But for if you don't want to wait till then head on over to reacheBook.com to grab your copy. And why not gift one to your friend?

So all you have to do to enter the giveaway is to click what you want to do below. The more you do, the more your likely to win. You can share the tweets and a facebook status everyday.

We exist to glorify God, to display His heart and character. And I just love how we are all uniquely built to do that. So every Friday I want to give you, uniquely designed by God, an opportunity to link up your thoughts on God, art, baking, photography, parenting, marriage, homeschooling, writing or blogging and more if they tie into or display the the Lord somehow. 

So go ahead and link up below by clicking the link below and following the prompts. Please just let your readers know by including a link at the bottom of your post (or somewhere on your side bar) or put my button code (found on my side bar or the Faith Filled Friday Tab) so they can find these other great people glorifying God and we can continue to grow as a community.Thanks! 

And in effort to encourage others in their writing by faith, please take a minute to comment on the post linked up before you.