What difference do it make?

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This book is so good!

I was given this book to review a month or so ago, and with the chaos of life, just got to it this week.  I told you about Same Kind of Different as Me a couple of months ago.  This book is a sequel of sorts.  It tells stories of lives changed since Same Kind was published.  And it is every bit as good.   Not warm fuzzy kind of good, but convicting kind of good. We all have something we can be doing to serve those less fortunate in our lives.

My favorite story that is woven throughout the book is that of one of the authors and his journey of forgiveness toward his father, an emotionally absent alcoholic.  Here are a few of my favorite lines:

"Denver had taught me that to love a man enough to help him, you have to forfeit the warm, self-righteous glow that comes from judging.  

I had developed quite a do-gooder reputation for myself by refusing to judge 'bad sorts'- bag ladies and vagrants, drug addicts, drunks, and runaway teenagers who sold their bodies for money.

 Strangers.

 But I was just now learning to do it for my own flesh and blood.

 ...was I so shallow, my do-gooding so superficial, that I could only set judging aside and help a person as long as his sins didn't affect me?"

"Jesus said we will be judged by how we treat the hungry, the thirsty, the prisoner, the stranger.  We are judged by our compassion, how we live our lives, not by how [a homeless man to whom we have offered help] ultimately lives his.  God calls us to love, not calculate the end game."

It's very much worth reading, as is Same Kind.  And it's good enough that it was a one night read for me. Just to get started, you can read the first 35 pages online.  :)