"The Finishing School" by Valerie Woerner

This book is a great guide for any woman - young or old - who wants to start living intentionally. Author Valerie Woerner caught my attention as early as page 3, when she said: "Our lives should be radically different because of Christ who lives in us. Too often they don't look different. And that's not God's fault. That's our laziness." Oh man. That's some good stuff right there!

Valerie freely admits that she's on this journey to intentional living just as much as the rest of us. She doesn't have it all figured out. She's willing to share what she's learning, both the successes and the failures, if it means that others can join in and see God do wonderful things in our ordinary, everyday lives.

This slim volume is packed with 22 areas in which we can let God work in us. Each chapter can be read in about 15 minutes, and I'd highly recommend either printing out the worksheet pages that go with each one, which the author makes available for free on her website, or buy the workbook which has the worksheets all ready to go for you. Due to the time constraints of reading this book before my spot on the tour came around, I was only able to look at a few of the worksheets, but sometime I'd like to go back and work through them all. I believe they would help these truths sink in and make them personal for the reader.

It would be hard to pick a favorite chapter because there were so many good ones! The one that was most personally challenging to me was on the topic of Awareness. I already work in the ministry as a teacher at a Christian school, help raise my siblings, am active at church, have deep meaningful friendships, and work hard to take care of myself physically - it's really easy to just want to stay in my lane and not practice awareness on what is going on in the world. May God give me wisdom on how to use this character quality in my life!

I could see this book having the impact on young women which Elizabeth George's books have had on me. This would be a great graduation gift or would work well for a young women's Bible study group. If you desire to live fully, this could be a great resource for you. Don't let it stay as a desire. "Truly, what we do in the difficult moments is what separates dreamers and doers. The people who live a beautiful, intentional life didn't just have it easy. They made choices when it was hard, and it built their character and refined them." (page 59) Let's make that a true statement about us as well.




I received my copy of the book from LitFuse Publicity in exchange for this honest review. All opinions are my own. If you would like to read what other people are saying about "The Finishing School," click here.