In her latest book, I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet, Shauna writes about life after death––death of the life she thought she would live. “This is not about what I’ve been through; this is about what remains . . ..”

“This book you’re holding is one I’ve been writing and rewriting for years, and as much as I’ve struggled with it, the struggle has healed me, helped me, and forces me to make sense of my story and our world––as much as anyone can. Being a writer means being committed to paying attention, to walking through the world as a noticer. It means finding language for the seemingly unspeakable, using words to bridge the divides between us, telling stories that narrate and renarrate who we are in the world and what the world means to us.”

(from the Introduction)

If you have read any of Shauna’s other books,[1] you are already acquainted with the conversational style of her writing and how she relates ordinary aspects of life to her devotional and spiritual life.

The title for this book comes from her family’s experiences as new residents in New York City. Shauna tacked the words she wrote on computer paper around the wall of their living area––“I guess I haven’t learned that yet”––to describe learning how things in New York differed from the Midwest. It became a game. Each evening, she, her husband, and their two sons shared something they had learned that day. Adapting to life rhythms entirely unfamiliar, things ranged from how to use the subway (vs. jump in the car and go), walking everywhere, adjusted expectations of school, to eating different foods, buying groceries, and creating a social life. And all of this happening during the pandemic.

So, what’s Shauna’s backstory?

Way back in November, I heard an interview with Shauna on a podcast. Shauna’s father is Bill Hybels, architect of the mega-church phenomena that has characterized “growing churches” of the past 25 years. Founder and Senior Pastor of Willow Creek Church near Chicago, Hybels stepped down in 2018 because of alleged sexual misconduct that proved credible. Afterward, Shauna and her husband and their two sons moved to Manhattan, where since then, they have lived––in a two bedroom, 875-square-foot apartment on a seminary campus.

Shauna’s book chronicles her recovery from what I would call “betrayal trauma,” (which concerns much more than whatever her father did or did not do), because the effects of dislocation, loss of the life she expected she would live, and unforeseeable experiences have helped her to grow and change and gain a wider view of her story.

Her book is subtitled “Discovering New Ways of Living When the Old Ways Stop Working.” Shauna shows and tells how her life hadn’t turned out the way she expected, how she got help, kept learning, stayed curious, and just kept going. Kept believing and exercising faith.

In a chapter she titled “How to Stay,” Shauna writes:

” [my mother] showed me . . . that faith is something you tend to, something you nurture, something you dismantle and rebuild, something you wrestle with because it matters that much to you” (170).

Chapter Twenty-six, “Delete/Unfollow/Unsubscribe,” parallels the message in Bob Goff’s book, Undistracted.

“I’m not at all sure we’re meant to be interacting with and handling the feelings of so many people . . . Carrying the emotional weight of too many people––too many feelings and desires and expectations––flattens me . . . The sheer volume of voices is too much for most of us” (111).

Shauna compares that volume to the noise in a packed stadium, and that “For too many years in my life, there were too many voices, too many opinions, too much screaming and expecting and lecturing . . . and I’ve become much more conscious of the dangers of social media, realizing that over time we begin to internalize the cruelty and abuse we encounter there” (112).

To counteract this, consciously she has created more space in her life, more silence, listening to people who have earned her trust and invested in her. She has learned that she is responsible for who gets to enter her spaces, while at the same time acknowledging that she can’t change other people.

My Thoughts Engaged

Part of the anguish for people like me, and Shauna admits this too, we can assume that other people have figured out how to live and are as “successful” as they want others to believe they are. Facebook––the ultimate “image management” machine––has managed to make an inconceivable number of people believe that their own life lacks meaning and purpose.

No one gets to live their life in a straight line. No one gets to choose from a cafeteria line what to put on their plate or what to refuse. No one avoids every valley.

Three in a Row: Preorders in Order to Read More of Their Story

On a more recent podcast, Shauna talked about the responsibility to read if you want to write. “If you met a musician who was like, ‘You know what, I don’t actually listen to music.’ Wouldn’t you be like, uh oh, tiny flag? I don’t understand how you could be a writer without reading, reading like how a starving person eats.” [2]

It’s unusual for me to read new releases. Yet in each case, I preordered Bob Goff’s new book Undistracted, Ann Voskamp’s Waymaker, and now Shauna Niequist’s I Guess I Haven’t Learned That Yet. [3]

As a reader, I felt engaged in conversation with people whose voices I have come to trust. What I appreciate about each of these contemporary nonfiction writers is they are learners. They stay curious and want to grow beyond setbacks, disappointments, illusions and outright mistakes. They remain hopeful amid some of the most distressing, life-altering, course-altering circumstances life can bring.

Yes, a writer talks on the page. Shauna Niequist talked about change. About learning and growing and working through pain, while maintaining hope.

Authors who write from the soil of their own life experiences hope to engage readers in conversation. Though the exchange of ideas might seem one-sided, writers who keep readers thinking as they read can affirm, validate, and keep reminding us in our suffering as Christians, we are not alone.

1] Shauna’s previous books I have read: Savor (2015); Bread and Wine (2013); Present over Perfect (2016). Earlier titles are Cold Tangerines (2007) and Bittersweet (2010).

[2] Modern Mrs. Darcy, with Ann Bogel

[3] Amazon’s preorder option guarantees lowest price on the day of the book’s release.