Cover Image: Handle with Care

Handle with Care

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Member Reviews

I love following Lore on Instagram. Her perspective on life and faith has been a beautiful addition to voices I listen to about such things. She is just a little outside my norm which forces me to stop and think more critically - a good thing in my book. Handle With Care did just that. I'm not naturally a physical touch type person so her thoughts and wisdom were so valuable.

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This book is profound. The image of God is not only reflected in our souls, but in our bodies, and so the way we see and touch one another is laden with meaning. We have the ability to harm or heal with only our hands—Jesus chose healing, so we are called to as well.
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Lore’s words are gentle as they are deep. She implores us to think about how we can love others—strangers, friends, relatives, or spouses—by selflessly, lovingly giving a hug or placing a hand.
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The same goes for our own bodies. If we treat our own broken vessels with grace and care, we are reminded of how fragile we are. Even if we have been hurt by others’ hands, we can receive healing from His Spirit and the hugs of our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is not clean or perfect, but it is beautiful. Just like Jesus washing His friends’ feet.

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I can't recall when I first started following Lore on social media but I do know that I have been deeply impressed and inspired by her ability to write so beautifully on a variety of topics (see
her blog sayable.net). So when I heard she was going to write a book on touch, I was immediately excited. We so often associate touch with sexuality and eroticism; and this is true within secular culture ("When Harry Met Sally") as well as the church ("I Kissed Dating Goodbye")! But as Lore writes so graciously and truthfully, that is a misunderstanding of what it
means to touch and to be touched. Within the pages of her book, Lore unfolds from Scripture how the life of Christ is our example in not only giving loving touch but also receiving it. Tackling topics like childhood wounds, abuse, same-sex and opposite sex friendships, touch within ministry, and intimacy in marriage, Lore leaves nothing, dare I say, untouched as she explores this fraught topic, showing us there is nothing to
be afraid of when Jesus and His Word-not rules!-are our guide.

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Great book with lots of tips on how to love God, your life and others. Written with heart . Absolutely would recommend it to everyone

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Handle with Care was a treasure I didn't know I needed. (I am so grateful to Netgalley for giving me a copy to review). Since it's release it has been on my list to read, and when I finally got around to it - just before it's 1 year birthday - I devoured it in a day! Wow. What a poignant exploration of a topic so severely ignored and brushed under the table... a topic easily assumed as something it's not, misconstrued, or just plain awkward. Especially with some recent trauma that's happened, coupled with other instances over life, these words are a balm to my soul, a true gift for healing, giving me hope for tomorrow in relationships and perspective. I am grateful for Lore reminding us how frequently, lovingly and with healing that Jesus Christ used touch in His earthly ministry.... she examines why the body of Christ needs to have a ministry of touch to use it to bless others, rather than cause pain, and confusion. I would have appreciated more perspective on different camps of thoughts of perhaps distinct groups such as those divorced, elderly, single moms, empty nesters, etc - there are many more groups that lack touch or rarely receive any kind touch, a gentle hug, a hand on the arm, positive affirmation of having a body and being a human. I've examined how little I see others in the body of Christ in the week after reading this book, as I work at home with my toddlers as a single mom, and then go to church Sundays. It's really a topic I haven't dwelled on for some time because of the pain there.... the odd things that have taken me aback...Lore's gentle words in sharing the importance of touch and the power of it, how Jesus redeems it and uses it, really has me thinking about all the ways it has been used and abused in the past in my life, and what that means for my future interpretations and relationships with others in the body of Christ. This is a book I didn't know I needed but wow I am so glad it exists. Truly nothing else like it out there. WOW is all I kept saying while reading it, at times in tears, at times writing it down, at times telling my friends in the DV support group of how life-changing Lore's words and perspectives are. Well written and well thought-out. Some parts were difficult to read - she really bared it all when telling of her history with touch and what a brave book to write to begin with - I don't know if the church can say enough to thank her for this perspective. I highly recommend this to everyone I know, especially women in destructive relationships, who have walked through any sort of trauma, and the churches and body of Christ that come alongside (or are supposed to).

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I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I love following Lore Ferguson Wilbert on Instagram, so I was really excited to see her book available! Her message is one that all Christians should read. In more recent years, it seems that so many believers in Jesus have lost sight of how important the body is as well as the mind. They aren't separate. And I think she does such a great job showing the ways that care by way of physical touch can be redeemed among the faith community for Christians. I will definitely recommend to friends, and I believe this would be a great choice for a book club discussion.

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I will start saying this is a must read not just at home but also for bible study in the church! Lore Ferguson presents a very uncomfortable subject with so much kindness, honesty and vulnaribility. We live in a very individualistic sociaity that we just focus on how we feel, and what we feel when we touch the people around us and sadly we often don't stop to think how they feel about our touching. Lore offers you a view of how important it is to handle with care everyone around us Not based on our feelings but in their feelings and needs. As a mom of boys it gives me a healthy and biblical perspective how to love and teach my boys to handle with care, This is one of those book my boys will read when they have the age to read it. I love it. It would be great if this book can be translated into Spanish,

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This was a wonderfully written book. So inspirational! Written in a raw form, Lore Ferguson Wilbert opens up about her past and in doing so, she shows us so many wonderful truths. This was a great read for anybody!

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This book isn’t a shallow “three steps to being better at touch.” Instead, Ferguson-Wilbert writes words that are personal, nuanced, and thought-provoking. I highly recommend that all believers read this book, but especially those serving in vocational ministry.

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In Handle with Care, Lore has written a helpful introduction to what essentially is a theology of touch. She offers us a well-reasoned and well-written book inviting us to re-consider the implications of past ideas and practices regarding touch by closely examining the practices of Jesus as he interacted with those around him.

By providing historical background, which includes the “me, too” and purity culture movements, offering categories of touch, which include definitions of healthy and unhealthy platonic, sexual , and profession touch, she sets the context for the remainder of the book. While offering few specifics and rules, she does offer two concepts that undergird her thesis. First, we are to consider the person in front of us and second, we need to see others as subjects of the kingdom, not objects of our worship. Although the latter was specific to her discussion of marriage, this very helpful framework is throughout the book.

As is sometimes the case, I happened on an example of what Lore writes about Handle with Care in the recent movie adaptation of Little Women. Throughout this movie, Greta Gerwig and the actors provide scene after scene of how touch is used to show affection, provide comfort, serve, fight, create and more. I finished the book a few days before seeing the movie. Each enhanced my understanding of the other.

I will gladly and without reservation recommend this book to many of my friends. I can see how it concepts could be helpful to many in healthcare, education, and church professions. But more so, I hope that we all reconsider how we use touch and be willing to examine and change our practices with our friends and family.

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I absolutely loved this book. Voiced like Wilburt’s—honest, raw, emotional, and reasonable—are exactly what we need right now. I also loved this prospective to see our bodies as created by God to be good and cherished, rather than begrudgingly put up with. Highly recommend.

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Handle With Care: How Jesus Redeems the Power of Touch in Life and Ministry is the debut title by Lore Ferguson Wilbert. When I had the opportunity to review Handle With Care, I jumped on it. I had seen this book highly recommended and promoted on social media and suspected it would be a good one. As I began reading the book, one of the first things I observed is that Lore is a natural wordsmith. Her words drew me in and I found myself compelled to keep reading whatever came next.

Handle With Care begins with Lore sharing about how she endured sexual abuse in her early years. Reading about this was absolutely devastating. I’m grateful for Lore’s willingness to share her pain in a public manner in order to help other Christians know how we can truly care for those who are hurting from sexual abuse. It is inspiring to know that she is using what was meant for evil against her to glorify God and encourage others. Lore’s book is amongst those in a growing genre that explores the theology of the body. As one who has endured postpartum depression, this area of study has greatly intrigued me. Handle With Care is a book focused on the theology of touch which is something I hadn’t thought about much before. I don’t consider myself to be much of a touchy-feely person but I have many brothers and sisters in Christ who do fall into that category so reading Handle With Care opened my eyes to some ways that I can care for them.

I am deeply grateful that Lore dedicated much of the book to exploring the embodiment of humanity. My experience with postpartum depression was made more difficult by the voices of other Christians who had made the general claim that depression is sin. Resulting from my experience has been the desire to examine the notion of human embodiment from a biblical perspective. Lore spoke of this as she addressed the idea of self-care on page 92, “I could see. . . what was happening when Jesus healed people’s physical bodies. The kingdom of heaven was coming to earth, and it was changing bodies, not just in eternity, but on earth too. Yes, those healings and miracles were signposts that pointed to the spiritual realities of God’s ability to rescue and regenerate and restore, but the fact still remains that Jesus cared for people’s bodies.” I love that she also pointed out that, “Jesus Himself cared for His own earthly body when it required the things all bodies require-this is why we see Him eating, drinking, sleeping, stopping to rest at a well, and so on. To be like Jesus, we must submit to the reality that we have physical limitations and requirements for our bodies to function and carry out the vocation and purposes God has intended,” (pg. 93-94).

As Lore explored the idea of touch in various contexts she shared her thoughts on masturbation. She wrote, “Most of us will experience a season where we lack a spouse to give relief or release for the biological itch for sexual comfort. Many of us will be in a marriage where mutual relief or release is unavailable for long seasons. How do we operate in that space regarding self-touch without the sin of lust, without the sin of worshipping our felt-desire, or the sin of neglecting the common grace of touch? How does God’s design and attentiveness to the body, the necessity of our care for our bodies, submitting ourselves to the biological inclination for comfort and pleasure, and the proclamation against sexual sin inform something like masturbation? Dear reader, here’s the hard news: I do not know” (pg. 105). I felt simultaneously grateful for Lore’s humility and honesty yet uncertain about her conclusion. On page 106 she continued, “Because the Bible is so silent on this issue, it has always been helpful for me to think about prolonged singleness, or times of celibacy, as seasons of fasting-which the Bible does speak much about,” (pg. 106). I believe this idea fits in well with the cultivation of self-control, as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 7:8-9, “To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single, as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry, For it is better to marry than to burn with passion,” (Also see Galatians 5:22-24). She helps readers understand that God sustains His children even in seasons of sexual abstinence because He is, “. . . the one who provides all you need and who helps you order your desires rightly and who holds you when you fall and helps you get back up and carries you when the way seems too hard,” (pg. 108).

While I greatly respect her honesty and understand how she arrived at her thoughts, I believe that there is a case for sexual activity to occur only within the confines of marriage as it is defined biblically (Genesis 2:24, 1 Corinthians 6:18-20, Hebrews 13:4). While the Bible doesn’t explicitly say that masturbation is a sin, it does inform us to flee sexual immorality which refers to sexual activity outside of marriage. 1 Corinthians 6:18-20 says, “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” I don’t know that masturbation presents the opportunity for us to glorify God with our bodies.

In the Song of Solomon, the warning is given three times to not stir up or awaken love until the right time (Song of Solomon 2:7, 3:5, 8:4). The right time in the context of the Song of Solomon is the consummation of a marriage between a man and a woman. Personally, I caution against masturbation. In 1 Corinthians 7:3, the instruction Paul gives to married men and women is to give each other their conjugal rights. The inference here, if we consider that the marriage relationship is supposed to reflect Christ’s relationship to His bride, the church, is that sex is an opportunity for serving rather than for being served. I don’t see how masturbation fits within that opportunity. I suppose, like Lore, I can’t say that masturbation is explicitly mentioned in the Bible as a sin. For the sake of clarity, and ultimately, charity, I don’t believe that what Lore wrote is untrue but I do believe the conversation is perhaps a bit more nuanced. In order to care for my blog readers, I felt it important to note this. I understand that within a book, authors are limited to a word count which then limits how much time and attention they can dedicate to specific topics. Since my book reviews aren’t limited to a certain number of words, I found it important to use this one to expound on that idea a bit further.

I am so thankful for the chapter Lore wrote on singleness and wish it had been around during my single years. On page 115 she highlighted the general truth that “Singles are often overlooked in church life, church planting, church leadership, family hospitality, church picnics, and more.” She encouraged men and women in the church to welcome single people by including them in the various aspects of church life. Regarding this, she wrote, “When our unmarried brothers and sisters show up to participate in the life of the church, it is an expression of the gospel to recognize their involvement, desire their perspective, and to love them with our touch. To remind them: I see you and know you are a body, a complex person who is not simply a pair of serving hands or missional feet, but an embodied soul who needs other embodied souls with whom to mingle,” (pg. 115-116). This served as such a great reminder to me of the need to faithfully care for my single brothers and sisters.

Having grown up in an era in the church that began what is now referred to as “Purity Culture,” I found the chapter True Love Doesn’t Wait to Touch particularly interesting. Regarding this, Lore encouraged single people with the truth that, ‘. . . God’s not wasting our dating years. He’s at work within our sacrifice of not taking what we want before its time. He’s at work, making us into a person for whom Jesus is worth everything. He is changing us into people whose ultimate prize is Christ-not marriage, not a relationship, not sex, and not virginity,” (pg. 160-161). What a beautiful and necessary reminder that Jesus is the prize regardless of one’s station in life.

I really enjoyed Handle With Care and highly anticipate reading more by Lore in the future.

I received Handle With Care compliments of B&H Publishing in exchange for my honest review.

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Handle with Care is a book unlike any other I have read! Lore Ferguson Wilbert addresses topics about touch and the human body, and she does so in a careful and gentle way. She doesn’t tell you what to do about touch, but she helps you to think wisely about touch and its importance.

Wilbert says in the book, “My aim is to point you to Christ and implore you to think about how He was touched and touched others, and to allow His actions and His love for you to bear weight on how you give and receive touch.”

Touch is a difficult topic to discuss. We all have our own histories that complicate matters for us. Wilbert shares parts of her story that made touch difficult and complicated for her. If you have a painful past regarding touch, know that the author understands how painful it can be, and she will discuss the topic in a compassionate and sensitive way.

This book has caused me to think through how I care for others, especially as it relates to caring through the gift of touch. Whether you are a spouse, a parent, a counselor, a single person, a person in ministry, or a person in a secular job, this book will be a valuable resource for you.

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This is a subject that I have never seen addressed before in Christian writing, so I was excited to find an entire book devoted to it. I loved the way the author addresses church culture, particularly purity culture, and the teachings and example of Christ.

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At the airport, you see a lot of things with the sign: "Handle with care"... Even the book I just finished. I want... No... I NEED a t-shirt with those words right now 😅🙈 (too crowded). The important When I read Lore Ferguson's words I always find myself thinking deeply, sometimes I feel encouraged, others confronted, a lot of them loved and understood, but most of all I feel moved... I'm thankful for her honesty and how she let God use her broken pieces and the hard parts of her story to share true hope. I remember years ago when I googled several times to find out if she had a book, and I was amazed she did not. Her blog is still worth reading and I found myself wanting to read more. That is the reason why I was so excited when I knew she wrote her first book! I just knew I had to read it. I never imagined the topic was going to move me that much. I cried in some pages 😢 for good (I'm also thankful for the sweet/thoughtful letter she added. You will see she didn't want to hurt and that she cares. I read a lot and I'm amazed this is the first book I read about this topic: touching. It has given me a fresh understanding about it, a lot to think and talk about with people I love (The ones with a need of a big personal space and the ones who are always close and wanting to touch 💭). TOMORROW we celebrate release day/week, so I just wanted to remember you this: if you pre-order TODAY you will enjoy some goodies🎁. I'm sure you won't regret it. Buy the Kindle version or the printed one. I like it and is useful to get both 🤓.

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I am glad for Lore's boldness in writing this book that I think the church desperately needs. Physical touch in the church has always been a controversial topic. Lore has a very gentle approach specifically noting she is not being prescriptive and also acknowledging the hurt that touch has caused to those who have experienced abuse. She truly highlights how the ministry of Jesus redeems touch in contrast to the Old Testament which has many rules about not touching. Singleness is woven throughout the book and this book is relevant for everyone no matter what stage of a relationship they are in.

Unfortunately this book has come out in the midst of a pandemic where social distancing is of utmost importance, but hopefully we can implement these practices sooner rather than later!

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‘Handle With Care’, wow... How I needed you.

I know right off the bat some of you may not see the need for a book about touch when we are in the middle of a season where touch is frowned upon and in many places heavily discouraged, but this is exactly why I think we need this message right now. In a world where we already don’t receive enough touch from others, most of us are absolutely craving healthy and life-giving touch now (whether we acknowledge it or not).

This book breaks down so many barriers that keep the church from healthy physical touch. Our society hyper-sexualizes almost everything, and I felt that this book speaks so much truth into how that hurts the Church community and BOTH singles and married couples. I love that ‘Handle with Care’ discusses physical touch for what it is: a gift from God to love others in appropriate and consensual ways that honor Him and His Word.

We all deserve physical touch, and we have the right for that physical touch to be healthy and not harmful. We deserve physical touch that helps us grow closer to our significant other who is not our spouse while still honoring God’s design for sex. We deserve physical touch in our marriage that isn’t always about sex. We deserve to experience loving and friendly physical touch in our friendships. Kids deserve to experience examples of appropriate physical touch that help them feel loved and safe. All of this is good when we lead by Christ’s example.

This book is beautifully written and I appreciate Lore’s honesty and sensitivity surrounding touch. It reaches all audiences.

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We need this book. We need a book that talks about touch honestly and with an unflappable determination to get beyond the uncomfortable and taboo to what is underneath. Lore looks at ten situations around touch and does an incredible job of going back to scripture. We far too often let culture and fear keep us from truly engaging in healthy ways. Lore sets that back into alignment and welcomes us on the journey with her.

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An incredibly honest, beautiful, vulnerable book about how Jesus used physical touch in his ministry and how we, as his followers, can love on our people using physical touch as well. Absolutely a must-read! I've added it to our married to-read list.

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I went back and forth between 4 and 5 stars for this one, because when it comes to books dealing with Scripture, I want to be careful about what I recommend. I don’t know that I necessarily “agree” with everything here, including how some passages are interpreted or applied, but I am going with 5 stars because it is such a unique and beautiful book, especially having read it during the time of social distancing and avoiding touch.
In the beginning of the book, Lore Wilbert states that her aim in writing it is not to give a “how to” manual for appropriate touch, but to help the reader think differently about touch. Without a doubt, for this reader at least, that goal was accomplished.
The author shares candidly about her own experiences with touch, including growing up during the purity culture of the 1990s, abuse at a young age, and how healthy touch for those who aren’t married is important for the church family to provide.
So much of leading Christian thought on touch is focused on avoidance: don’t do this, don’t touch that. This book is an invitation to look first to Jesus as our model for using our bodies for the good of those around us, rather than avoiding touch out of fear of man. I thought it was very well done and will continue to think about it in the future.

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