Here Goes Nothing

An Introvert's Reckless Attempt to Love Her Neighbor

Kendra Broekhuis

• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780718083328
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

What happens when you ask God, “What do you want me to do today?”

This is not a success story.

And it’s not one of those stories that has a beginning, a middle, and then a perfectly tidy hind end either. It’s really just a beginning.

For thirty days Kendra Broekhuis prayed “to maintain the joy of being wife and mommy amid the daily grind. To see the world through God’s eyes. To live intentionally. To build relationships and share Christ’s love with our neighbors. To learn what it really means to give. To collide ‘motherhood’ with ‘mission.’”

This became her motto, her credo, her personal mission statement.

Some days it led to actions the Lord gently nudged her to take. Other days it led to reflections the Lord gently whispered into her heart. Every day it led to a single word, one underlying theme that ties all thirty days – all thirty chapters – and their wide variety of topics together: giving.

These thirty days found Kendra and her husband and daughter in a strange time of transition. They had just moved back to the United States after teaching for three years in the beautiful country of Guatemala. They were in a new city, working a new job, living in a new apartment building, in search of a new church. And they wanted to put it all together: all of their experiences, all of the things they had just seen and learned and read and discussed. It wasn’t a clean slate but rather a chance to live intentionally.

When Kendra and her husband sought advice about the transition from fellow missionary friends, the advice was, “Get to know your neighbors.”

It might sound like strange advice, but it made sense. Jesus tells us to “Love God and love your neighbor.” Many times the word neighbor is meant to be vague, but it shouldn’t always be. Part of being mission-minded, no matter where you live or work, is being willing to love the people closest to you, people we often overlook. Kendra’s neighbors—as in the people who live in the other eleven apartments in her building—are whom she often found the Lord’s generosity overflowing to and from during these thirty days.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Before We Get Started
• 1. Five Quarters and a Tide Detergent Pod: Give What I Have
• 2. Mulligan Day: Give Obediently
• 3. Introverts Unite!: Give Through Relationship
• 4. Instead I’ll Say, “I’ll Be Thinking About You”: Give Prayer
• 5. Déjà Vu and the Car That Wouldn’t Start: Give It a Go
• 6. Don’t Focus on the Family?: Give and Take
• 7. No Bleachers, No Bench: Give Together
• 8. All I Wanted Was Some “Me Time”: Give Me a Minute
• 9. The Name Is Bond: Give Credit Where Credit Is Due
• 10. Mom Brain to the World: Give a Hoot
• 11. Why Apple Crisp and the Fragrance of Christ Smell So Good: Give Because He Gave
• 12. I’m Still Afraid of the Dark, Among Other Things: Give Me Jesus
• 13. Starved World: Give Anyway
• 14. My Affair with List Making: Give It a Rest
• 15. One Quarter Short of a Laundry Load: Give Us Our Daily Bread
• 16. Your Breath Smells Like Gospel: Give a Call
• 17. Don’t Be Surprised When He Answers: Give Him a Chance
• 18. “Love Ya”: Give It a Moment
• 19. Past the Scattered Feminine Hygiene Products: Give Attention
• 20. Golf and Power Outages: Give It Up, Ya Loser
• 21. Would the Neighborhood Miss Us?: Give Someone a Hand
• 22. Chicken Soup for My Soul: Give Freely
• 23. Give the Gift of Stress This Christmas: Give Gifts
• 24. Let There Be Peace at the Magic Tree House: Give Peace a Chance
• 25. Control Enthusiast: Give Way
• 26. The Sidewalk of Motherhood: Give Life
• 27. But Do They Deserve My Gift?: Give a Mouse a Cookie
• 28. Open-Soul Surgery: Give Me Twenty
• 29. Where’s the Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll?: Give the Gospel
• 30. Too Early for a Pregnancy Test: Give Patiently
• And Since Then?
• Acknowledgments
• Notes
• About the Author