InWhat Difference Do It Make? Ron and Denver share more of their story and life after Ron’s wife passed away from cancer. While those portions of the book will tug at your heart strings, the stories of how their previous book inspired people to make a difference in their communities quickly became my favorite part.

Interwoven throughout the details of Ron and Denver’s friendship are stories about how their lives impacted others in the world. These stories took all forms. One family began adopting children from Africa, a high school art teacher helped homeless men work through their hurts through art, and a little girl learns to serve the homeless and raises money in her neighborhood to help the local shelter. My favorite though is a chain reaction story that impacted multiple people across the country. You’ll have to read the book to learn about that one.

Reading What Difference Do It Make? not only warmed my heart with stories of lives changed, but challenged me to change the way I view the role of the church in homelessness and poverty. While I’ve never been one to think the governments should solve our problems, it becomes easy to lean on the government to ‘fix’ problems like this. Hall reminds readers that the issues of homeless run much deeper than just having a roof over your head. He also raises an interesting challenge. In most cities Hall and Moore visit, there are fewer homeless individuals than churches.

Hall proposes that if each church took responsibility for loving one homeless person back into society and ultimately caring for themselves there would no longer be homelessness. The problem is so few believers are willing to put their money, life, and comfort where they say their faith is. What a difference Christians could make in our world if we believed our faith in action.

I would strongly recommend that you read both books by Hall and Moore. You can purchase them here.

Full Disclosure– Thomas Nelson, the publisher of these books, provided me with a free copy of What difference do it make? in exchange for writing an honest review. I’m not required to write a nice review. I just really like the books.

Anyone can speak, but it takes intelligence, self-control, and maturity to set our own interestes aside and focus our attention on the needs and concerns of someone else for a change. Not only is it hard to feel validated in a relationship where you can’t get a word in edgewise, it’s just not a lot of fun. A good friendship is built on the mutual sharing of ideas, dreams, concerns and fears. If we find ourselves on the short end of the sharing stick, it might be difficult to keep the friendship going. And one way we can learn to identify a good listener is by being a great one ourselves.

We can start by asking about our friend’s day and then shutting up. We can inquire about our coworker’s weekend and then just let them talk about it. Or we can simply stop fiddling with our phones and BlackBerrys long enough to make eye contact and let them know we’re genuinely interested in hearing what they have to say. In our drive-up, fly-by, fast-talking society, listening is a lost art. But I’m convinced that we classy ladies can be the ones to bring it back.

Oh, may she be right.

This passage has encouraged me to think about how I approach friendships, my time with students and colleagues. Not only that, but it helped me really think about the friends I have who are great listeners, and how grateful I am for them!

Are you a good listener? Or is this an area where you, like me, need to be a little more Hepburn and a little less Hilton?

Check out Jordan’s book here:

Buckingham’s newest book originated from a realization he had while visiting the Oprah show– that despite progress in women’s rights over the last several decades, women are profoundly unhappy and under a great deal of pressure. Reading one personal story after another, Buckingham set out to determine what makes women happy and successful- what is different about those women than other unhappy women.

I have to admit– I found this book rather slow moving. I took the “Strong Life Test” before I got the book to discover my “lead” and “supporting” roles. I was anxious to discover more about those and how to apply them to my life. However, the chapter with this information did not even begin until 97 pages in. Leading up to the 97th page was a lot of information about how unhappy women are and why living a strong life is important. I liked the information about the different roles, but I think there is still a lot of room for developing these roles deeply like StrengthsQuest.

I will say that I felt my results of the Strong Life Test were pretty spot on with who I am. My lead role is caretaker and my supporting role is creator. I would have liked to see Buckingham expound about each of these roles more than he did, but I do think that they make sense and help affirm things I do well.

Overall, I think that Find Your Strongest Life is an interesting book, and that the Strong Life Roles seem to make sense. I would like to see further development of these things, including a better test, and more research on validity of the tool. Find Your Strongest Life is not my favorite of Buckingham’s book, however, it is still somewhat helpful in the quest to better understand one’s self. Overall though, I think this book is really best for working mothers, but there is not much for women who are single career women.

A Million Miles In A Thousand Years by Donald Miller

With that said you can imagine my pride when I see one of them on the Today show for a book that she authored that is titled “How to be a Hepburn in a Hilton World”. I’ve read a snip-it of it and I think she’s right on target!

Clink the link above to watch the Today Show peice or, click here to order her book on Amazon!

Stanley’s thesis is pretty clear from the beginning- the choices we make determine our outcome. Making a series of poor choices probably will result in some poor outcomes. While this point is true, and something I hope my students learn during college, that seems to be the meat of the book. Each subsequent chapter outlines more examples of how people were faced with choices and how those choices led them to where they were. I kept hoping the next chapter would provide new information, or more advice on guiding one’s self or organization down the path to where we want to go. But, I felt like Stanley left me hanging.

I will say though, the book was a fairly easy read and his examples are relatable. While I felt like I needed something more and deeper from this book, I do think there are those in the world need to know that making reckless choices now will only harm them in the end. I would recommend this book for those who would like encouragement in the truth that making wise choices now is making a choice for goodness in your life. I wouldn’t rank it at the top of my favorite books list, but it certainly is not at the bottom either.

You can find this book on Amazon here.