jill savage | Guiding Light Homeschool

I had the extreme pleasure of being on the launch team for Jill Savage’s newest book, Better Together. [Her daughter, Anne McClane, offers a little insight in the book too – which is very nice. Her parts are small but powerful.] To be honest, I am not sure if I have ever read one of her books – but after reading this one, I plan to read many more. Talk about POWERFUL! And not only powerful but encouraging! Something we NEED in our lives (or at least I do).

This 256 page book is packed full of information about personality types, differences, judgments and grace. Jill has an excellent way of “telling it like it is” while still leaving you feeling like although you may have made a mistake, you can still move forward and change who you are and how you treat others.

The main focus of this book is exactly as the title says – better together. We as women NEED each other. But unfortunately a lot of times we spend more time tearing each other down than lifting each other up. It is time to change this behavior and this book is a definite MUST when looking at ourselves and how we can become better women, and Lord willing friends, with other women.

I am a BIG SUPPORTER of less judgement and more grace when it comes to other women in my life so I really appreciated this book from that perspective. But even though we have the same basic perspective, this book provided me with a lot of “general information” about different personalities that I really still felt like I was learning something too (which I love!).

Here is the Table of Contents to help you see some of what the book is about:

Jill starts out explaining the different ‘phases’ relationships go through from introductions to best friends forever (in which most of us don’t have many of these). She talks about different challenges we can do with ourselves to improve and work on relationships – possibly forming real friendships from the acquaintances we currently have (or are yet to come). She not only helps us to look at others with more grace but also helps “pave the way” with suggestions on how we can grow ourselves to become to others what we also want from others.

She shares the benefits of friendship:

Connection
A Sense of Belonging
The Ability to Give
The Ability to Receive
Sounding Board
Wisdom & Experience of Others
Marital Health
Spiritual Health
Emotional Health
Physical Health

Here are a few of my favorite parts from the book, just to give you an idea about it:

“Because our mothering community is no longer formed naturally within extended family relationships, we have to pursue, discover, and assemble it ourselves. We have to recognize the value of it and make it a priority in our lives because we’re stronger, wiser, and even healthier when we have a mom community around us.” Page 14

“Friendship is a Do It Yourself (DIY) project. No one can do it for you.” Page 31

“the most powerful four words a mom can hear are YOU ARE NOT ALONE” Page 134

“Yet linking arms with a friend is linking arms with an imperfect human being. You will likely let each other down and need to navigate some conflict along the way.” Page 172

“Theologian Paul Wadell said, “Friendships cannot last unless the friends become skilled in justice, generosity, and patience. They have no future without the virtues of loyalty, trustworthiness, care, and forgiveness.”” Page 182

Okay, I better stop with that or else I’ll just copy and paste the entire book here!

She offers a “Mothering Personality Inventory” (in the appendix) that is used to help you find out a little about yourself. Even though I am often weary of these, I took it and did find out some interesting things about myself. Not only do you get to take the test, but she explains both sides of each of the items – so you get to learn about those who are NOT like you – quite interesting!

Seriously, there have been very few books in my life that have really been books that will stick with me for life – but this is definitely one of them! This is a book I will read over and over I think (and most of the times I only read books once – they have to be REALLY GOOD for me to read them more than once – so that alone should tell you something). It is a very “relate-able” book … one where hearts are shared and you feel very connected to those writing it … you can feel them reaching out their hands and guiding you gently (well, maybe not so gently LOL) along.

Another important thing to share is that stories of Scripture and Scripture references are shared all throughout the book. The Bible is the cornerstone of which this book was written. This book is a book of ACTION … let’s get to it!

I believe this would be an EXCELLENT book to give to friends, new moms, new wives. It is a word that needs to be spread far and wide…let’s encourage one another, because we need one another!

Now, real quick, as the graphic at the top of this post says … pre-order by March 1, 2016 and get about $60 worth of FREEBIES! AWESOME! A book and free stuff! I love free stuff!

Here’s praying you have fun learning!