"Make It Happen" Book Review

Make It Happen

by Lara Casey

Self-help style books have always left me skeptical. If you do this & this & that it will equal into success, & well, self-help – as if life is an easy equation & you just have to get the variables right. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never found real world problems to be black-&-white-mathematical, but more messy-gray. Plus, I’m not into the homework aspect that is usually found in these books. I don’t mind suggestions of helpful things to try, but telling me to do something can leave me antsy & then feeling like a failure when I don’t get it done. Just being honest here. So, I admit it, I started reading Lara Casey’s new book Make It Happen with some walls already up.

The tag line to this book sounded real good, “Surrender your fear. Take the leap. Live on Purpose.” Who doesn’t want to do all that (& then some)? Can I admit something else? I had seen Lara Casey’s carelessly-fancy scripted handwritten quotes & verses on Pinterest & other places on the Web, but I had never visited her blog & didn’t know much about her other than that she wanted me to “go & do all those things I’ve always wanted to do” (which is found taped to the inside of my cereal/snack cabinet in my kitchen, by the way). And, glancing at the pretty pinky orange-ish red paint streaked cover & Lara’s beautiful red-haired self smile-laughing big on the back, I judged based on appearances & thought this book would be all pretty-perfectness – which whose real life is that way? Certainly not mine, & not Lara Casey’s either. It turns out Lara's life has been a huge mess (many times - you’ll learn as you read her honest heart-words). We find out we’re all alike when we let the masks fall away & tell it true. Lara does this; she shares deep of her struggles & failures & mistakes… & of God’s ever-present grace & love & hand in her life. Isn’t that all our stories – even when we don’t want to own it? Lara seeks to empower women through Christ’s strength &, yes, there are goals spoken of, & breaking the power of the unattainable perfection that so many of us chase in some form or fashion, & yes there is homework - & no I didn’t do it all… but that’s okay (there’s also online resources like printables & videos that I did like, strangely enough). Make It Happen might just have redeemed the self-help book ever so slightly in my mind, because Lara’s book is more of an honest Christ-help book, & when Christ is the source of your strength, you can make all things happen – Philippians 4:13.

Bookish Love,

-Bess-

*I received this book as a complimentary copy from the publisher (through the BookLook Blogger program) in exchange for my honest review.