Two of the greatest fears in life come in the form of questions we often ask ourselves but rarely say out loud: “Am I okay?” and “Do you love me?”

The answer the Gospel gives us is both surprising and just what we need to hear: “No, you are not okay,” and, “Yes, I love you.”

Jesus holds these two truths about us together, and this is the good news we desperately need.

Don’t waste your awkwardness.

The most difficult subjects in our lives are also the ones that we find most uncomfortable to talk about: divorce, body image, sexuality, pornography, or depression. Our awkward silence reveals the gap that exists between what we are and what we know we should be. But God loves those awkward moments, Sammy Rhodes argues, because they are precisely where we find connection with God and one another.

In This Is Awkward, Rhodes talks directly, honestly, hilariously about the most painfully uncomfortable subjects in our lives. In chapters like “Parents Are a Gift (You Can’t Return Them)” and “The Porn in My Side,” 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.