Prepared for a Purpose

Every time I put this book down I couldn’t wait to get back to it. Here’s why:

1. Timely story—Antoinette Tuff, ordinary in every way except faith, talked down a shooter just recently, August 2013, and likely spared many lives at the Atlanta, Ga. elementary school where she works as a bookkeeper.
2. A person overcomes great odds to become victorious. The backdrop she paints of her early life, her many struggles, and the painful betrayals combine to add even more drama to that singularly spectacular day of drama when a crazed man with an AK-47 walked nonchalantly into the school office and pointed his weapon at the author.
3. The faith angle.
4. The message of hope: God uses your failures and your trials, even the trials you fail, for his purpose.
5. The story has a well-defined beginning, middle, and end.
6. The book is complex (but not confusing), filled with interesting characters, mostly the author’s family, whose inclusion add depth and context to her life. When you see her as mother, wife, and daughter, you see yourself.
7. It’s not overly long.
8. She had professional help with the writing and editing (thank God). Too many nonwriters who have a gripping story to tell simply throw it on the page, complete with typos and misspellings and weirdisms that distract from the read. The publisher, Bethany House, commissioned PEOPLE magazine senior writer Alex Tresniowski, author of 11 other books (including Waking Up in Heaven), to co-write Ms. Tuff’s story.
9. I saw the hand of God working in a very imperfect person.
10. She writes simply. Makes the read quick.
11. Her story inspired me to be more faithful in my daily devotions.