Savannah Guthrie challenged herself to leave her comfort zone and “do something exciting and scary” when writing her new book about faith, “Mostly What God Does: Reflections on Seeking and Finding His Love Everywhere.”
The process was scary for the Today co-anchor, who is Christian, because she is, in her words, a “regular guy” — not a theologian, not a religious scholar. And yet it was thrilling because her faith is an essential part of her personality.
“That’s what makes me tick. This is what makes me happy. “It’s the thing that helps me deal with the world, stress, depression and fear,” she tells TODAY.com.
In the preface to “Mostly What God Does,” a collection of essays and personal reflections released February 20, he offers his “road map” for the coming chapters, describing what he describes as six fundamental aspects of connection. Toward God, with love, hope, and purpose. She then notes that this book is not just for those who have a strong belief in God.
She writes, “You can be faith-full, you can be faith-curious, you can be faith-less, still haunted by the toxic religiosity of your past.” No matter which category applies to you, Savannah invites you to “come as you are.”
“I’m not writing this book on top of a mountain where I’ve gained some knowledge, and now I’m giving it to the world,” she explains in a TODAY.com interview. “No, I’m still fighting here. I’m still here and disappointing myself. I’m still here, needing faith, needing grace, needing mercy, needing love. That’s why I wrote the book – because I’m the one who needs to read it. And so I thought, if I do this, maybe others will do it too.”
leaving on an important trip
Before working on “Mostly What God Does,” Savannah, 52, co-wrote two children’s books and was later offered follow-up projects.
“Since I wrote those children’s books, from time to time I might get an offer to write something: another children’s book or, ridiculously, even a cookbook once in a while,” she shares, noting her relative lack of skill. Pointing towards. The kitchen that inspired the TODAY All Day series “Starting from Scratch with Savannah Guthrie.”
“But I’ve always been very busy with the (Today) show and I have young kids and I never really wanted to write anything,” the mother of two continued.
Then, about a year ago, she was offered the opportunity to write a book about faith, and she says she felt intrigued, excited, and challenged by the idea. She decided to give it a try, as she considers her faith to be her greatest passion.
Cover of Savannah’s new book.
She adds, “I wasn’t sure there would be a book at the end of it, but I knew it would be a really important path and journey.”
He may be interested in faithHer childhood can be traced back to her childhood, she grew up a Baptist in what she calls a “very church family”.
“We used to go three times a week. It was a huge part of my upbringing,” she recalls. “My sister has the best line in the book: She said, ‘In our family of five,’ God was the sixth member of our family.”
Although “Mostly What God Does” is not a tell-all memoir, as Savannah is quick to point out in the introduction, she does reference some of the struggles she has faced personally and professionally, including a heart attack. Including the death of his father. When she was a teenager; Divorced in mid-30s; And her winding career path before landing her co-anchor seat at Today.
Over the years, she says, she has also gone through “seasons of devotional study and excitement” about her faith and “seasons of distance and despair” when her relationship with God was not as strong.
“What I’ve realized is that this is all the story of my faith: faith and doubt, you know, joy, and also disappointment and sadness. It’s all part of my faith journey,” she says. “All of this has increased my faith and my understanding of God.”
spreading the message of love
The title of Savannah’s book goes to the heart of the message she wanted to get across with this project: “Most of what God does is love you,” a translation of a Bible verse by scholar and pastor Eugene Peterson. Was taken from. The theme of love is one she knew early in the writing process she wanted to focus on.
“That sentence always resonated with me and I loved it,” she explains. “Because I think a lot of us, especially if you come from any kind of faith background, you yourself You might be asking, ‘What does God think about me?’ What is God doing right now? What does God think about the choices I have made? Am I selfish? Am I flawed beyond reconciliation?’
“The answer is, ‘Mostly what God does is love you.’ What’s he doing this whole time? Just loving you. And I love the simplicity and openness of it. It’s simple, but it’s not easy.”
Even if a reader isn’t a believer or struggles with doubt, Savannah hopes the message of love still resonates.
“I hope the book will be attractive and compelling to anyone in any walk of life, because it is a gentle call to action to find love. And once you feel that love, you’ll find you can’t help but share it. It’s just contagious. And I think that’s really the thrust of the book and really what I was trying to say,” she says.
That positive outlook connects to another fundamental aspect of Savannah’s relationship with God: hope. Savannah admits that it can be challenging to maintain hope in difficult times, when we are surrounded by depressing news headlines.
Her faith and her hope give her perspective in such situations: “When I get frustrated, I try to go back to basics and remember that I’m not in charge. God is. And I trust in Him and believe in Him and hope in Him.”
However, she quickly adds that hope is a “word, it’s not a certainty.” She asks in her book, what if there is no silver lining? What if there is no justice for the world? What if, she writes, “This whole idea of God is just a fantasy, a soothing story we tell ourselves?”
These are all fair questions to wonder about. Still, Savannah chooses to live a life of optimism.
“None of us on earth can know if God is real or how it ends, okay? We are human beings; We don’t know. No one knows what happens after death. No one comes to tell. fact. “I would rather be hopeless and end up being proven wrong than be disappointed and be right,” she tells TODAY.com. “Hope is the currency I choose every day.
“And this is not blind hope. I think there are things around that reassure and confirm that hope. But in the end, it’s faith. That’s why they call it a leap of faith. This is a leap of hope. And so I try to hold on to hope.
