The In-Between Places – JustRead Tours – The Adventures of a Travelers Wife

Welcome to the Blog Tour for The In-Between Place by Kat Armstrong, hosted by JustRead Publicity Tours!

ABOUT THE BOOK

Title: The In-Between Place Author: Kat Armstrong Publisher: Thomas Nelson Release Date: January 5, 2021 Genre: Christian Life/Spiritual Growth

Jesus’ journey to the woman at the well in Samaria offers insights and hope for women today to make peace with the past, find hope in the present, and step into the future. God wants us to move toward the goodness He has planned for us. But what do we do when challenges stop our forward momentum? What’s the next step when we fall into a pit of despair with the determination knocked right out of us? On his way from Judea to Galilee, Jesus traveled through Samaria, a broken place everyone knew to avoid. In Samaria he stopped in Shechem, where evil had gained such a foothold of power that it eventually reigned. Yet the place once condemned as somewhere no one wanted to visit—let alone hang out in for a while—was the location of one Samaritan woman’s most hope-filled encounter with the Savior. The In-Between Place offers deeply important insights to anyone who feels stuck and can’t see a way forward. It is for the person who feels that if she looks left, her face will be scraped by an immovable boulder, and if she looks right, she’ll see nothing but hard to handle. It’s for the person who feels lost and is not sure she is worth the effort to be found, for the person who feels overlooked and unfulfilled. Because sometimes Jesus saves our greatest spiritual breakthroughs for our in-between places.

Guest Post from Kat Armstrong!

Y’all are in for a treat! This is one of the best Guest posts I’ve ever read before!

Kat Armstrong shares her favorite memory:

In a remarkable feat of cunning and self-control, I hid my pregnancy from my husband, Aaron, for ten weeks. By the time he found out, I was past my first trimester and had visited the doctor twice. Having prepared an answer for anything that could tip him off, I was able to keep him in the dark about my changing body, moodiness, and new eating habits, even though he called them to my attention. I told him my breasts looked bigger due to a new push-up bra. I said they’d really come a long way in technology, and my bustline was going to be super impressive moving forward. Lies. I assured him that my new eating habits corresponded with my workout program. Little did he know I was on the eat-everything-in-sight meal plan that aligned with my walk-at-a-snail’s-pace workout regimen.

When he commented about my moodiness, I whipped back that menstruating was hard and he should tread lightly. Aaron also didn’t know I was leaving work at two o’clock every day to go home and sleep for three extra hours, then waking up to an alarm to reapply my makeup and pretend I had just arrived home at the same time he did so he wouldn’t notice the plummet in my energy level. That would have been a dead giveaway.

Why all the secrecy? After the pee stick confirmed we were going to have a baby, mystified, I looked at the calendar to try and determine conception, only to realize that our ten-year wedding anniversary was ten weeks away. Since our celebration trip was already planned, I wondered if I could conceal the surprise to make for an epic ten-year anniversary present. When I pitched my ob-gyn the idea to wait two and a half months to tell my husband I was pregnant, she snort-laughed. She said it was unlikely I could pull that off, which sounded like a challenge to me. I left her office determined to prove her wrong and to secure wife-of-the-year status, with pictures as a trophy. My next call was to a photographer. Besides my ob-gyn, the photographer was the only person in my life who knew I was pregnant before Aaron. Then I began devising a grand plan to capture the moment I told Aaron we were going to have a baby.

Right before we left for our trip, I casually mentioned to Aaron that I had booked a photographer to take some anniversary pictures. He scoffed. Why would we spend money on a professional if all we wanted was a few shots of us at the restaurant? I assured him to trust me; we would want these photos forever, and they needed to be frame-worthy. Although we had agreed to no presents, I joked that I did have a present for him, but not to worry, I didn’t buy it. It was homemade. Wink. One of his eyebrows practically broke away from his forehead and jumped up onto his bald head, because ten years of marriage had proved to Aaron that I’m not the homemaking type.

A week before leaving, I wrapped a set of three matching gift tins. The first, labeled “First comes love,” had a framed picture of us at our engagement. The second, labeled “Then comes marriage,” had a framed picture of our wedding. The third, labeled “Then comes a baby in a baby carriage,” had a framed picture of the baby’s sonogram. Aaron didn’t put it together until the very last box. While the photographer snapped pictures of him opening box one, Aaron snickered, “Thanks, babe, for the picture I already own.” By box two he was completely confused. He then began apologizing to the photographer for coming all the way out to the booking, saying, “I didn’t know my wife was going to make such a big deal of things.” Shade. The images of Aaron weeping over Caleb’s first picture will forever rank as the most important pictures we own. The plan was a success.

We cried, embraced, kissed, and got it all on camera, thanks to my “making such a big deal of things.” The only thing we could talk about at our candlelit dinner that evening was the future Caleb Armstrong. Together we replayed every single moment of the past ten weeks. Aaron started putting the pieces together; everything was starting to make sense.

Throughout the night I joked with Aaron that he should have trusted me about the photographer. After all, I had a plan. Every move was calculated and fit together to bring about this big reveal. He regretted poking fun at me and admitted he never saw this coming. To which I replied, “I know. We have pictures to memorialize your surprise.”

Behind each part of my plan was a desire to show Aaron how much I loved him. I wonder if God feels similarly toward us, and if the purposes behind all Jesus’ travels, conversations, healings, and revelations fit together in a way that brings him glory and works for our good.

I write about this in my newest book, The In-Between Place: Where Jesus Changes Your Story

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kat Armstrong has been emboldening women to be all-in for Jesus for twenty years as a speaker, Bible teacher, author, and podcast host. As cofounder of The Polished Network, a nonprofit connecting and gathering professional women to navigate career and explore faith, her mission is to create holy curiosity.

Kat holds a master of Christian education from Dallas Theological Seminary. She and her husband, Aaron, have been married for eighteen years, and live in Dallas, Texas, with their son, Caleb. They attend Dallas Bible Church, where Aaron serves as the lead pastor. CONNECT WITH KAT: Website | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter

TOUR GIVEAWAY

(1) winner will receive a print copy of The In-Between Place and No More Holding Back!

Full tour schedule linked below. Giveaway began at midnight February 22, 2021 and will last through 11:59 PM EST on March 1, 2021. Winner will be notified within 2 weeks of close of the giveaway and given 48 hours to respond or risk forfeiture of prize. US only. Void where prohibited by law or logistics.

Giveaway is subject to the policies found here.

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Follow along at JustRead Tours for a full list of stops!