Book Review: "The In-Between Place: Where Jesus Changes Your Story" by Kat Alexander

If you have been hanging around here for any length of time, then you already know what a fan I am of Kat Armstrong and her work. Naturally, then, when the opportunity arose to read and review Kat’s latest book I jumped at the chance!

Here is the book’s official description, and then I will dive into my thoughts at the end.

Official Book Description:

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.

We all have in-between places, don’t we? Maybe we are in-between babies, in-between jobs, in-between college and getting married, in-between chemo treatments…you name it, and one of us has likely experienced it. This is because life is made up of one in-between place after another. And while it is so easy to hate these in-between places (which are often rather painful and leave us feeling discontent!), what I am coming to discover is that it is specifically in those in-between places where our God is at work the most in our lives!

This is Kat’s message in her beautiful new book. Centered around the story of the woman at the well in John 4, Kat shows us how the Lord can redeem our past, bring purpose to our present, and give hope for our future.

Not only does Kat do a masterful job of offering us all some much-needed encouragement for out in-between places. She also provides insights into the text of John 4 that I never knew before (for example, this well where the Samaritan woman meets Jesus is the same well connected to the horrifically sad story of Dinah in Genesis 34!). Kat also points out and refutes various myths surrounding the woman at the well – i.e., that she was a prostitute, that she was a serial divorcee with no respect for marriage or morality, etc.

If you would like a better understanding of the John 4 woman or need to glean some encouragement for your current in-between place, I encourage you to check out Kat’s brand new book!

In fact, click here to enter a giveaway to win a copy!