It has become clear that we are living a lie, and it has brought devastating results: Bankruptcy among churchgoers is equally as high as those who don’t attend. Financial misconduct is destroying marriages, families, individuals, and churches. A record number of churches are in foreclosure.

The church teaches us it’s normal to have student loans, car payments, mortgages, and credit cards. It calls poverty a curse but isn’t doing much to correct the problem, and it focuses on tithing and the elimination of personal debt—but debt elimination is not enough.

Wouldn’t you rather thrive in your finances and live the life God has called you to?

One of the saddest realities of life is that the things we need to talk about the most, we tend to talk about the least—from bouts with depression to sexual struggles to parent-wounds that never seem to heal. Raise these issues out loud, and wait for the awkward silence. But those awkward moments are precisely where we find connection with God and one another.

In This is Awkward, Sammy Rhodes talks directly, honestly, and hilariously (because sometimes we need to laugh) about the most painfully uncomfortable subjects in our lives. In chapters like “Parents Are a Gift (You Can’t Return Them)” and “D is for Depression,” he boldly goes where most of us fear to tread, revealing that we can be liberated by the embrace of a God who knows the most shameful things about us and loves us all the same. Because nothing is too awkward for God.