Al Carraway: Finding Yourself in the New Testament

Al Carraway is a bestselling and award-winning author and speaker. But more than that, she's a teacher of things that matter most. Jason is honored to have her stop by The Book Drop Mic to discuss her groundbreaking release, Finding Yourself in the New Testament.

Buy Al's  book:
https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Yourself-New-Testament-Carraway/dp/146214361X

Learn more about Al:
https://www.alcarraway.com/

Follow Al on FB:
https://www.facebook.com/AlFoxCarraway

Follow Al on IG:
https://www.instagram.com/alcarraway/

Learn more about Jason:
http://www.jasonfwright.com

About the book:
Award-winning speaker and best-selling author Al Carraway presents an in-depth study of the life of Jesus Christ and how it relates to our own in an intimate and personal way. Written by someone who truly knows God, Finding Yourself in the New Testament skillfully and sincerely introduces its readers to the Savior and shows them who and what He really is. Not only does it illustrate how deeply involved God is in the lives of His children, but it also provides an excellent guide to the history, culture, and context of ancient Israel and the Jewish religion.

Drawing directly from the four Gospels of the New Testament, this book will lead you to the Being who can give you the power to change; the God “who goes to the hated, the forgotten, the different, the outcast, the sinner, and the excommunicated and befriends them; the God who calls them to great things and blesses and loves them; the God who forgives in the act, reaches for those sinking, and stops for those buried in the crowd or alone in the heat of the day.” See yourself in every aspect of the Savior’s ministry and in the lives of the people He blessed.

Understand that Jesus Christ truly did come that we might have life—and all else—more
abundantly.

This podcast is brought to you by InkVeins, your source for book publicity, promo, press releases and more. Text 540-212-4095 for more information.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hello friends, welcome to the Book Drop Mike, brought to you by Ink Veins, your source for publicity, promo and press releases. This is, of course, your host, jason Wright. Hello, so glad you are here for this episode. You're going to love this episode. Reminder tickets for the Christmas show are on sale. The show is heading to 20 cities between Black Friday and December 23rd.

Speaker 1: 0:26

I saw the travel schedule a couple of days ago and my back hurt. Just looking at the travel schedule of 30 days of travel across the country is wearing me out. But I'm excited. I'm excited, jenny, and I are excited to see you on the road. That's Jenny Oaks Baker. Of course, you can find ticket information at JennyOaksBakercom or on my website or social media, or we will send a flair to you with ticket information. But, jenny and I do hope to see you on the road. We hope that one of our 20 cities is near you or city.

Speaker 1: 0:57

All right, I am excited about today's guest, so excited. She is a busy, busy, busy person and we have snuck under her schedule, sneaked, snuck, weaseled our way under her schedule. She is a speaker, an author, a world traveler. She is, I think, kind of a super mom. Actually, she might not admit that, but I think she's kind of a super mom. But I think most importantly and this will come through in our discussion today she is a woman of deep faith. Her name is Al Caraway and I'm so honored to have her here at the Book Drop Mike. Hello, al, how are you?

Speaker 2: 1:34

Hey Jason, I'm elated to be here. I am doing awesome, Doing great.

Speaker 1: 1:40

You look elated to be here and you know my regular listeners to this show and to my last show, right where you are. Know that I often use Zoom to capture these interviews and that allows us to kind of look at each other and have a little bit of a connection, even through technology, and I wish the world could see you smiling and beaming and you are such a joyful human being. Anyone ever told you that?

Speaker 2: 2:04

Yes, all the time. But you know what? Yes, because I love myself too much to have like a lousy life.

Speaker 1: 2:13

You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 2:14

I refuse to let it happen. So I'm going to work really hard to figure things out and just, yeah, why not? Why wouldn't we?

Speaker 1: 2:21

Yeah, let's be joyful. Well, our listeners know that this show focuses mostly on new books, but when we launch the show, I had you on my wish list because I have loved everything you've written. But this title that we're going to talk about today, this book, it is extraordinary. It's called Finding Yourself in the New Testament, and we are going to let you walk us through that journey a little bit in a minute, but first, maybe some of my listeners don't know who you are Shocking. I know they should know who you are.

Speaker 2: 2:55

But if they don't Al.

Speaker 1: 2:57

What do we need to know about you to understand your journey in this book?

Speaker 2: 3:01

I am a New Yorker through and through. Although now I'm living in this house, I still claim the title, proudly, of a New Yorker. That comes through pretty quick, with how loud and how quickly that I speak. As soon as I turned 21, though I had my life unintentionally I mean, I didn't seek it out Like I just God he stepped in on his own, without me seeking, and he became very real to me. And it wasn't until he became real to me that my life seemed to fall apart.

Speaker 2: 3:35

And so I have made it my lifelong quest to find him in new ways. And we have this limitless God, and my life quest is to not limit him of where we can see him, how we can feel him, where we can find him, and to share that in the dark times and in the unwanted and uncharted. And so everything I do in every aspect of my life, I hope, is a reflection and a response to, like you know, palm Sunday, when Jesus is riding in on a donkey and everyone's yelling Hosanna, but then someone in the scriptures like who's this? And the response is this is Jesus. And so, yeah, ever since my 20s, I want everything I do and learn and say to be in response of who is this Jesus that is ours and who is this God that disrupts and interrupts and magnifies.

Speaker 1: 4:30

Well, I think that's it. That kind of sums you up, doesn't it?

Speaker 2: 4:34

So I started yeah, about 14 years ago I've been public speaking. I started with a blog back before blogs were even a thing.

Speaker 1: 4:43

What's a blog? Yeah, yeah, another, not a thing anymore.

Speaker 2: 4:46

But I started with a blog and I just started to respond to my hard times and finding him in new ways in my hard times. So the blog got bigger than I ever thought it would, which turned very quickly into public speaking. This goes back, yeah, 14 years ago I've been public speaking and then that turned into almost 10 years ago was my first book and I have been writing and publishing and speaking still ever since.

Speaker 1: 5:12

Yeah, it's been fun to follow that journey. I have been familiar with you and your work longer than we've known each other and it's it has been an interesting journey, watching you sort of take what has been a deeply personal journey and say I'm going to share what for many people might be very personal with the world, Because I think what I'm experiencing might actually be what you're also going through. Like I'm going through these hard things but why keep them to myself? Why not open up and and anyone that follows you on social media? And of course we'll have links to all the good things you're doing in your social media and the show notes. But if you follow Al, you're going to see a pretty transparent view into her world the good days and the hard days and the tears and the laughter and the parenting and the wife thing and all the things that you do in a way that I think sort of draws people in and says, yeah, that's kind of my life as well, that's my journey to Jesus as well. What?

Speaker 2: 6:14

do you think it's the New York way, jason? I don't know anyway, but transparency and blood, to be honest. And it wasn't until I moved to the West Coast, shortly after I got baptized, you know, when I, right before I turned 21, I moved to the West Coast and I realized, oh, you know what, no one is talking about the things that they need to be. No one's. I mean, I feel like we're doing a better job. Over the years, we've seen, I've seen, you know, a shift in that people are being a little bit more willing, but they weren't.

Speaker 2: 6:46

And I realized that to bring people in, people saw themselves in my writing very quickly, and it's not because they were experiencing the same things as me, but it's because we all feel the same and so we can bring people in and they see themselves in you and you can help them and build community by touching, based on these feelings that we all feel. We've all felt mad at God, we've all felt like we weren't deserving and we all felt like we weren't getting what we were asking for. So what does that mean with my walk with God and how can I keep showing up? And do I even want to Like, yeah, I'm going to write about those things because, well, no one else was. But like why wouldn't? Why wouldn't we help each other out and build community, if we all feel those things?

Speaker 1: 7:30

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 7:31

And if we, if we feel those things and, in your case, if, if we're willing, if you're willing to share those things, to say things that other people are feeling and thinking but maybe aren't as confident or comfortable yet to say, the idea is, I would think that well, if I can say it and share it and engage with people, particularly online, through social media, maybe that gives you courage next time to to be the owl, to start sharing your experiences more openly and to find the confidence to say the things that you're thinking and feeling.

Speaker 1: 8:01

All right, I love this book. I told you that. I told you when we were texting last night how much I love this book. I want, first of all, for you to set up a little of the origin story for finding yourself in the New Testament, and I know that, of everything you've written, this has the most of you poured into it. I would assume you spent more time on this than anything else you've written, because it is so heavily sourced and anchored to the scriptures. So tell us a little bit about that, and then I'm going to share my favorite little nugget from the book.

Speaker 2: 8:35

OK, people are like you can't pick your favorite child, so you can't possibly pick your favorite book you've written. I'm like, no, I can't pick my favorite book, it is this one. Now, I've always loved everything I've written, or else why would you write it? But I really truly feel, among all of the good I've done, I feel like I was born just to write this book. That is how much I love it. So a lot of my other books before this one I you know it was a lot, but I could write it three weeks or less. That was a full-time, sun-up, sundown I'm not leaving the house kind of three weeks, but this one was a nine-month full-time labor of love. I really it's all history and context. I talked to Jewish rabbis to really understand what the life of the boyhood of Jesus would have looked like, what it would have been taught and working towards, and really it's not just a dry, bland history and context of the life of Jesus. It is finding yourself within it all. So not only am I going to give you all of the historical context, what they would have done, what this would have looked like, what the things that they would have been used that would be relevant to whatever story I'm telling, but what does that even mean for you? And I think that that is how it's different From most of the things Bible-related or scripture-related is like I'm going to tell you these things that they happened, but there's no like what does that mean for me? Which is exactly what that is and I don't know. There's just it's, it's so.

Speaker 2: 10:28

I wear many hats. I have, like this Etsy shop it's called More Jesus and all of my stuff that I sell sweatshirts, shirts, stickers it's all Jesus-related. And I had this one shirt it said ask me about my Jesus, and it had really cute like character, character, whatever graphics on it. And no one bought that shirt. They saw the graphic before I printed it and everyone, like I had thousands and thousands of people on Instagram say we need that graphic, we love that shirt you designed, but they didn't see what the type, like the words that were going to go with it, and so I printed it. I added asked me about my Jesus, to go with the graphic that they overwhelmingly wanted to wear on a shirt. And then and then no one bought it and I was wondering like, hey, what happened? You guys left me out there. I bought all these shirts you asked for, and then I realized through all of their responses is that they were afraid for people to actually ask them about Jesus.

Speaker 2: 11:35

They felt comfortable with their faith. They felt comfortable in their relationship with God. They knew who he was, what he does, how you talk directly to Him. They knew of and felt comfortable with the relationship with the Spirit. They have felt it before they have learned how to be able to hear it. You know what I mean, but people didn't know what to do with Jesus in personal ways. I know of Jesus, but what does that mean in a personal relationship? What do I do with any of that? And that was when I realized like there is a big gap of how we can make Jesus personal to us. And so that's really the concept behind this book is, yes, everything you need to know, history, context, all of that it's in there, but it's also like, because of those things, that means what for you?

Speaker 1: 12:37

Yeah, therefore what? Yeah, I love that question. It is interesting. As I've read through the book, it feels like it almost feels a little bit like this discussion. It is deeply doctrinal, but it's certainly not a textbook. That's not your intention. It feels like you're in Al's living room and you're having a discussion about the New Testament and you're back and forth, finding one another in the stories of Jesus and learning from his life and his ministry and those that he served with and ministered with. It feels, though it is obviously books are I mean by their very creation and mention of one way conversation.

Speaker 1: 13:22

Right, here's my book, Read it of thousands of people around the world taking this thing that you've created and consuming it on their own. But this feels very much like a two way conversation where you're kind of interacting a little bit with you, which is not easy to do. And I tell you why I say that I read. So I love Christmas stories. I love Christmas. Half of my books, almost half my books, are Christmas related. I particularly love the Christmas story, obviously. But there's an anecdote in the book where you're talking about the Christmas story and the star and the savior and you tell the story about teaching a Sunday school class and putting a star on the wall. I would love for you to tell our audience that story.

Speaker 2: 14:14

Yeah, I've done this a few times actually to different people. I were teaching and it happened the same way each time. And before my lesson would start I would hide a star no, it was pretty big size star, about the size of my hand, and it wasn't hidden that well, I just would pop it on the ceiling. If you looked up you would see it and I would give my lesson and it was fine. And at the end of the lesson I would ask how many of you noticed the star? And they'd be looking around, they were like what star? And I'd point up and they're like oh my gosh, no one had noticed the star. But it also didn't change the fact that the star was there and it had always been there. And so we kind of I talk about that in a few different ways that just because we may not see things doesn't change the fact that he is there. I don't know what did you love about it? That was the story.

Speaker 1: 15:10

Yeah, I love it. Well, it feels like so, something I would want to do in a class. I'm going to do that at some point when I teach a lesson even remotely related to this. I'm going to do it. Maybe, if Jenny will let me do it, in our Christmas show, I'll just take a star to every city and hang it up in the theater somewhere.

Speaker 1: 15:30

I love this idea that when our faith wanders a bit, when we feel like we're being battered around by the storms, when it feels like we're praying and not getting answers, he's still there. He does not leave us. The star does not diminish or hide. Maybe we're not looking in the right place. Maybe we just need to be a little bit more patient. Maybe we need a new prescription to see his light and his star. I posted yesterday, a couple of days ago, about just the power of light and staying in the light and following the light, even when the light only gives you a couple of feet at a time, and that's what I thought of as I read that anecdote again last night Just this idea that the star is there. Maybe your eyes aren't even open to see it. It could be as simple as just opening your eyes, right.

Speaker 2: 16:27

Yeah, I mean back then some people. They were looking, but sometimes they were looking for a baby, to know that Jesus were born and not a star. So maybe good intentions, We've limited him down subconsciously and we're just looking for him in a very specific way that we're dismissing everything else that he can come to us with.

Speaker 1: 16:49

Yeah. Why do we limit him?

Speaker 2: 16:51

Why do we put these constraints on a perfect God and say, okay, I love you, I want a relationship with you, but I kind of need it to look like this yes, jason, there's so much irony, right, because I feel like all of us can confidently say we want God to participate in our personal lives more and yet at any bit of disruption or uncharted anything, we're like how could you, right, shake our hands up and we don't realize we want him to participate, but any bit of change or discomfort, we're like how could you, when we don't realize that is him participating, that is him loving you so much and caring so much, to come to you in personal ways to change course, course track, to disrupt, to bring you to those magnifications? But also in theory, yeah, jason, it should be really easy to give it to a perfect God who makes no mistakes. But for me, if I'm in control of my own life, then I feel like I could better manage the setbacks. Or for me, what I've known about God thus far was also like validating me, for him, showing me what else. God talks to me in this way, so that must be the only way he talks to me.

Speaker 2: 18:13

I've felt God in this way, so that must be the only way that I could feel him. So when we don't feel him in those ways that we've put that thought around him, we say he's not there, he doesn't care, I'm not deserving, when in fact, like that star, he never leaves. So in the times I don't see him, feel him, hear him, I have trained myself to not get upset but to be like, oh, he's showing me what else. What are the new ways? And when you stop and take a step back and really see him and allow yourself to look for him in those new ways, your relationship with him and your life and your soul they do. They just blossom in vibrant magnifications.

Speaker 1: 18:55

Yeah, oh, I love this book. I love this book. I hope people listening will devour not just these chapters that are sort of related to the Christmas story and to the birth and early years of the Savior, but the whole book. Pick up the book for yourself. Pick up 74 copies for your friends and family. What a great idea.

Speaker 2: 19:22

Right now it's Christmas yes, the Christmas gift by the palette yes, Give them Jesus for Christmas, more Jesus.

Speaker 1: 19:30

Yeah, it's a great way to kick off. It's not just a great Christmas gift, but it's a good way to be thinking about the new year, your goals for the new year, and what better way to kick off 2024 than to spend a little bit of time, yes, in the scriptures, but also in a book like this that will help you to connect to the scriptures, perhaps in a meaningful way, and to soak up some of Al's what I think are really unique and inspired observations about the life of Christ. Okay, what's next for you? What are you working on? What can we expect?

Speaker 2: 20:03

Oh, I'll say two things. One I have a children's book called my Dear Little, one that has won multiple awards. So I actually leave next week to go to Miami and pick up a nice plaque and metal for Gold Plug, gold medal, first place, christian Children's Award.

Speaker 1: 20:20

So that is super exciting.

Speaker 2: 20:21

So if you're looking for a Christian Children's book that comes highly recommended with multiple awards, but also I am taking this book Finding Yourself in the New Testament, and I am currently just started two days ago converting it into a children's book, so telling you about Jesus, kids formatted and what that means for you.

Speaker 2: 20:43

So kind of like a water to wine, like yeah, that's a great miracle, this is what happened. Here's where you can find it in the scriptures. But because of that that means you know. I mean I don't need to go on another tangent because I can go on forever, just to water to wine and what?

Speaker 2: 21:00

that means to you. But, for example, like kids version is like because of that, with him, something better is possible and is coming. Because of that, that he will, with us, make miracles of purification and holiness and change. So it's like kids version. Here's what's happening. That means this for you. So I'm excited to take this book and turn it into a kids version.

Speaker 1: 21:26

So that's what I'm working on right now, so maybe is that out by next fall, by next Christmas.

Speaker 2: 21:33

Here's to hoping.

Speaker 1: 21:37

Well, you've got a great publisher and a great team, and you seem to have endless energy, so I would imagine that we'll be plugging this book here from now.

Speaker 2: 21:46

I am, I am hopeful. Yes, I did miss the deadline for a fall of next year, but it is. You know, it's a kids book, so the editing process is very different. So I'm hoping, I'm hoping it will be here for a fourth quarter next year.

Speaker 1: 21:59

Yeah, Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool. Well, you are this kind of just, boundless, endless joy, and I love, I love being around you, I love hearing you speak, I love following you on social media and seeing the good things that you're doing. Again, folks, if you're listening, look in the show notes to links to all the good stuff Alice is doing. She mentioned the award for the children's book. I happen to know I think everything she has written has won something and several of her books have won many things. So don't just check out the children's book and finding yourself in the New Testament, but all the good things she has been producing over the last decade, al, you are an absolute treasure. Thank you so much for giving us time on the show today.

Speaker 2: 22:46

Thank you.