GETTING TO KNOW THE MAIN CHARACTERS

You know them; don’t you?

Joanna and Chip Gaines? Those TV-home-flippers on that show called “Fixer-Upper“?

Of course you do; almost everyone in America seems to know them; especially if they hail from Texas!

LOOKING BELOW THE SURFACE OF THE TV SHOW

That is not exactly what I mean though.

Do you REALLY know them?

This perfect, post-card looking family that smiles and cuts up on the TV screen can be just as real and down-to-earth as you and me.

WHAT MOST PEOPLE FIRST ASSUME

I was having a conversation with my daughter the other day and I was telling her what newly formed respect I had GAINED (please excuse the little play on words) for the couple named Chip and Joanna Gaines since I had begun to read all of their books.

My aged 30+ daughter looked at me in disgust.

A LONG CONVERSATION ABOUT THE NOT-SO-OBVIOUS

DAUGHTER:  “You know; people can be whatever they want to be on TV and facebook and Pinterest.  There is no way to know if that family you see on television is for real.

I smiled; thinking to myself that there IS a way; you can listen to their stories!

Now they have given us the gift of writing them down and sharing EVERYTHING important to the world; flaws and mistakes and all.

ME: “Their books DO NOT speak of how perfect they are; for example, Chip actually went to jail on the first week that his first child was born and Joanna had to use the money she had earned from her first shop to bail him out.”

WIDE-EYED DAUGHTER: “No joke? Did he really? Why?”

I just smiled again. As a writer myself there is one thing I know for sure. If you want to know all of the actual nitty-gritty facts; you have to do a little reading on your own.

ME: “You need to read their books. All three of them are full of  good, wonderful and practical advice and some pretty amazing stories.

Just so you will know though; Chip Gaines isn’t perfect at all.  Even though he has his imperfections and he has openly admitted many, many mistakes; his honestly and his love for his fellowman greatly overshadow any of that.  Some of those little imperfections are the source of his character development and you’ve got to admit when you look at the whole picture; the guy REALLY does have character.  When you look at that aspect, his imperfections just make him more adorable.

I admire his whimsical sense of humor.  He has the ability to laugh at trouble and look it in the eye.  I DID laugh till I cried reading about a few of his imperfections; and I was totally impressed with his wife’s loyalty and love in the midst of several situations that most women would not have considered to be part of a picture-perfect marriage.  Joanna has her own set of imperfections and she talks openly in her book about learning how to thrive and love in the midst of a sometimes hectic and chaotic life.  I sensed in many portions of her book that she gave up perfection and traded it for love and the ability to thrive with joy.  Can’t help but admire that; a woman after my own heart.  ”

DAUGHTER: “Well – you know I DO love her designs and they do a great job together on the houses that they flip. I’ll give them full credit for that.”

ME: “Oh – so will I! Their work together is amazing! Together they make a fabulous team and a lot of their stories attest to that fact. It has been fun for me to read how all of their businesses and life events came about in Chip’s book called “Capital Gaines” and Joanna’s book called “The Magnolia Story”: Mark Dagostino has been a great co-author with them; and the books are all well written; including Joanna’s cookbook called “Magnolia Table.” I still need to read Joanna’s design book though – haven’t had time to take that one in yet. If it is like the others; it will be a great read too.

They REALLY do seem to be a wonderful and inspiring couple.

DAUGHTER: Total silence

ME AGAIN: My favorite thing about them (after reading all of their stories) is that they seem to be accomplishing something in a different way than most people of your generation.

DAUGHTER: “Huh? How is that?”

ME: “They are not leaving the local community and/or going “off-the-grid” or moving to Alaska in order to implement workable changes with their marriage, family and careers that will make the world a better place. They simply started where they were; just two young college students that fell in love and married and had a family. They stayed in their hometown (after a few adventures away) and began to make their dreams come true with the life which they had been given.

It reminds me of that old saying; “bloom where you are planted.” Instead of being rebellious and radical with their lives; they patiently took one step at a time and just kept moving in the right direction. Every time they failed or obstacles appeared, they just dusted themselves off and got up determined to try again.”

DAUGHTER: “Yeah; well, public people like that don’t give out their failures; they only tell about all of their successes.”

ME: “Not so in their case. Even though they don’t go into much detail on their television shows, their books speak of lots of failures and how they lived through them; learned from them, and kept trying again until they got things right.

For example; Chip had dreamed of being a famous ball player and he went to college originally on an athletic scholarship which looked very promising at first. When all of that fell through he took it pretty hard. He speaks of how this failure strengthened his relationship with his father. Up until that point they had only had ballgames and sports in common. This forced them to enjoy more things together. That was just the beginning of Chip learning from his failure though. After a while he used this time to start his first entrepreneurial experience and went into the landscaping business. This business eventually brought the seed-money for his house flipping business, which as we all know has pretty much led to the establishing a small empire of successful businesses.  Chip talks about all the ups and downs of that roller coaster ride to the top; and so does Joanna.

As a young girl attending a new school Joanna also experienced some discrimination because of her Korean heritage. This actually affected her confidence for a while; then she researched the facts about her heritage and their culture and she learned things that made her proud to have that heritage. At that point her confidence level improved and she became a more joyful person who realized more about her own destiny as she became much more comfortable in her own skin. Ask her about her heritage today and you will probably get a very happy story about how she has come to love and appreciate it.

Later in life Joanna had the confidence to pursue a career in journalism and to travel to live in New York City where she did quite well for herself. She discovered while walking through some of the quaint little shops of that city that what really made her happiest was living in Waco and serving the people there with her natural, God-given talents for design. She had the guts to leave journalism behind and pursue the things her heart was telling her to pursue.  Later she had the same type of gutsy attitude when she gave up a very successful business with her first shop to spend more time with her children.  Both of these two people have been brave enough to make gutsy decisions when they need to be be made and not look back into the land of regrets.

Both Joanna and Chip took those big mistakes and failures in their lives (they would probably NOT call them mistakes or failures) and turned them around and made them into something even more beautiful and even more fulfilling. If you asked either of them today if they had been able to continue with those first dreams and if they could trade what they have accomplished now for that other life again only with success; they would give you an emphatic “NO!!!!” What God worked out for them was so much better in the end than their own plans had been.”

DAUGHTER (LAUGHING): So are you saying; if you are given lemons in life just make lemonade?

Again I smiled remembering how my daughter’s high school friends had always made that remark about her personality too. I could see a little of Joanna’s spirit in this girl I was staring at right now; and I could also see traits that her husband had that matched up parallel to Chip’s.  It was funny to me that she had not yet noticed this.  Maybe that was part of their appeal to the public; the fact that they resemble a lot of people we know and love living out day to day life.

ME: “You might really love these books if you ever want to borrow my copies.”

I had planted that little seed and I was getting ready to leave it all alone when my daughter comes back with her next statement:

DAUGHTER: “Well they certainly don’t make all of that so obvious in their television show.

ME: “No, they really don’t because that show was simply all about flipping houses and designing them. It wasn’t about flipping personalities and characteristics around until you come to live in the world which you were supposed to find.

If you watch carefully and read between the lines though; you do get a hint about their values; such as the way they put God, each other, their family and other people first; before all the material possessions and ambitions. ”

DAUGHTER: “And how do you know that isn’t all fake too?”

ME: “Because I’ve read their stories!  Of course you can talk to a few of the people they have known along the way if you need more verification.  They really are not afraid to show their scars and talk about them. As a matter of fact Chip picked a photo for the cover of his book that blatantly displays a big scar on his face. He did that on purpose against everyone’s best professional advice because he wanted to share what the scars of life have taught him with others.

Joanna talks about her flaws too. I love the story she tells about how she came to realize that her children were not totally happy and comfortable living in the picture-perfect dream home that they had actually managed to own after many years of living in the houses that they were flipping. She had finally arrived at perfection to find that the children didn’t NEED perfection. Let me see if I can find that quote from her; here it is:

“It was such a blessing to find myself thriving in the middle of the pain. I realized that my determination to make things perfect meant I was chasing an empty obsession all day long.”  (Joanna Gaines)

This was revealed to her when she began to design the house she did not want to move to when she heard the news that Chip had sold her “picture-perfect” home and they were going to move into a much smaller, rougher new fixer-upper again. Joanna determined to design that new place around the personalities of her family instead of her visions of perfection. They loved it and she came to love the new place even more than the old place because she had learned to thrive instead of survive in relation to her design of houses; and in her career as a loving mother. This turned her designs into an even more sought after model. She was happier and her life altogether was better.

I actually picked up two very important and inspiring character traits from reading Chip’s stories too. The first was his uncanny ability to be successful because of the fact that he was so determined to always face his fears and defeat them.

Quoting from Chip Gaines: “How about we all start with choosing a little more courage today than we had yesterday?”

He speaks of how he grabbed a quote from the movie called “We Bought A Zoo” which he watched with his kids one day and made it a type of mantra for living. That quotes is:

“Sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage. Just, literally 20 seconds of just embarrassing bravery. And I promise you, something great will come of it.”

DAUGHTER: “Okay – we all know how much you love collecting quotes. You would read their books just to gather their quotes.”

I had to laugh out loud at that statement.  It was so true!

ME: “I just love how Chip brings bravery to the table and how he seems to thrive on courage. The other thing that is wonderful about him is that he sees everyone the same.”

DAUGHTER: “What does that mean?”

ME: “He sees the poor, the rich, the dirty, the clean, the PHD’s and the uneducated, every different skin color, every different trade and every single person the same. He makes no distinctions between anyone. Every one is a person loved and created by God and that is grounds enough for Chip Gains to see their value. How many people do you REALLY know like that?

DAUGHTER: “Not many at all; and that IS a great characteristic. Well; I would love for you to tell me the rest of the stories; but I know you are going to make me read them for myself. I’ll put the books in my satchel when we get ready to leave; if you don’t mind.

I knew it! She was made to be inspired by these books and I had vision of her telling these same stories to her husband later. Once again I just smiled.

DAUGHTER: There is one other thing too……

ME: What?

DAUGHTER: (FLIPPING BOOK PAGES) Do you think you would have time to make us some of the orange scones in Joanna’s cookbook before we go home? They look totally amazing! I will probably need to borrow this cookbook too – I’ve never seen so many great recipes!

ME (MAKING A MENTAL NOTE TO BUY THE BOOKS AND THE COOKBOOK AGAIN TO KEEP FOR MYSELF): Of course; I’ve been just waiting on the right moment to try those out!

If you enjoyed reading this review of the books the Gaines wrote; you might also enjoy looking at some of the other book reviews we have done under the PEN ART section of this blog.  If you want to know more of our theme here (living life inside out and upside down (as Jesus and his disciples did) to the tune of 2 Timothy 4:2) and you are interested in all of the news from our quickly growing IN SEASON Lifestyle Community; please fill out the form below so you can receive our once a month e-mails that will keep you posted about the people, ideas,bible studies, events and seasonal thoughts that keep us all going strong.  We would love to have you in the IN SEASON Lifestyle Community neighborhood; plus you would receive notices from time to time about our theme-related products.  We are an Amazon Associate and our privacy policy can be read right here: https://theinseasonlifestyle.com/privacy-policy-may-25-2018-updates/ Please visit us anytime at http://theinseasonlifestyle.com. 

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