THANKS for doing that
A podcast CELEBRATING people and ideas that make this world a better place by exploring the things we do, the reasons we do them, and why IT MATTERS.
THANKS for doing that
Resilience, Redemption, and Really Good Books: Winter 2025 Book Club Edition
"Books have this incredible way of giving voice to things you’ve felt but never known how to articulate. They make you feel seen, even in your struggles."
In this episode of Thanks for Doing That, host Heather Winchell kicks off a fun and heartfelt new segment: Book Club Edition. She’s joined by her “Core Four”—a group of friends who’ve been sharing life for two decades and diving into books for the last two years. Together, they reflect on the stories they’ve read, the lessons they’ve learned, and the way books have deepened their friendships.
From the poignant memoir All My Knotted Up Life by Beth Moore to the gritty adventure of City of Thieves by David Benioff, and the life-changing reflections of Imagine Heaven by John Burke, each book has left its mark. The group opens up about how these stories have challenged them, made them laugh, and even prompted fact-checking debates. They also share which books resonated the most (Surrender by Bono, anyone?) and which left them feeling unsettled, like No Cure for Being Human by Kate Bowler.
With relatable banter, thought-provoking quotes, and a haiku to wrap things up, this episode is more than just book talk—it’s a celebration of the power of shared stories and the relationships that shape us. Whether you’re a bookworm or just love a good conversation, this episode will inspire you to connect with your own “people” and maybe even pick up a new read.
Don’t miss the laughs, the heartfelt moments, and the ultimate question: if you could sit down with an author from your favorite book, what would you ask? Tune in for a lively conversation that’ll leave you both inspired and curious.
Would you like to check out the books? Heather’s got you covered:
Here’s a list of all the books mentioned in the episode, along with links to where you can find them:
- Find Your People: Building Deep Community in a Lonely World by Jenny Allen
- All My Knotted Up Life: A Memoir by Beth Moore
- City of Thieves by David Benioff
- Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story by Bono
- The Happiest Man on Earth: The Beautiful Life of an Auschwitz Survivor by Eddie Jaku
- Imagine Heaven: Near-Death Experiences, God's Promises, and the Exhilarating Future That Awaits You by John Burke and Don Piper
- No Cure for Being Human: And Other Truths I Need to Hear by Kate Bowler
- America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie
These links lead to the books on Amazon - but treat yourself to a stroll around the local book shop!
Catch more of the story @thanks.for.doing.that.podcast!
Hey there you are listening to Thanks for Doing that. A podcast celebrating people and ideas that make this world a better place. I am Heather Winchell, your host and chief enthusiast, and I'm on a mission to bring you conversations that encourage, inspire and delight. So stay tuned for another episode where we explore the things we do, the reasons we do them and why it matters. Hey there, and welcome back to Thanks for Doing that. A podcast celebrating people and ideas that make this world a better place. And this is a fun one, you guys.
Speaker 1:Today I am joined by a group of ladies that I affectionately call the Core Four, and this is the first of a quarterly segment that we will be producing, called Book Club Edition. We will talk books, life and how books come to bear on our life. So you can think of the thanks in this episode going out to all the authors that have put something into the world that we get to connect around. But before we get into the episode, I first want to briefly introduce these lovely ladies that make up this book club. Though we have been in book club together for the past two years, we've actually all known each other and been doing life together for almost two decades, which is pretty fun. So, ladies, let's do a bit of a roll call. Who are you and what does life look like for you right now? So maybe, kat, let's start with you.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Kat. I am a mom of three boys 10, 8, and 5. And I feel like just entered a new season, with them all now being in school full time, so that's super exciting in town, and I've been there for 13 years almost as well and so, yeah, life is very busy right now.
Speaker 3:I'm Cherie and life. Right now I am raising four kids together with my wonderful husband Jolly. We've been married 21 years. Our oldest son is 16. We have a 14-year-old, an 11-year-old and an 8-year-old daughter. So three boys and then a girl. So with just normal kid activities, life is pretty full, but it's full of good things. And I'm also managing doctor's appointments with a recent health diagnosis. So something new that we are adjusting to as a family and trying to navigate. So something new that we are adjusting to as a family and trying to navigate.
Speaker 3:I'm Katie and I'm wife of Nathan and mother of three kids two boys they're 10 and 8 and a daughter who is 6 and is busy, especially once they start getting into activities. So we're just figuring out, you know, work, school activities and all the balance of all the things. I also work full time as a commercial account manager in an insurance agency, so that takes up significant time as well. But just, you know, plugging along every day trying to make sure everybody has their needs met, hopefully, and try to be joyful through it all has their needs met, hopefully, and try to be joyful through it all.
Speaker 1:I hear that, sister. So it is such a pleasure for me to share these ladies with you guys. And it strikes me, you guys, we have 14 kids and of those 14 kids, 12 of them are boys. How do we have any time to read? That's what I'm wondering.
Speaker 3:I don't. I have time to listen to audiobooks and the ones that I try to read I get really far behind. Does anybody? Know where cat went death of the kid thing. Her kids are listening slash reading right now, so we have next gengen readers that she is attending to she's back.
Speaker 1:All right. So you know, this book club started a couple of years ago with one book in particular, and it was Jenny Allen's Find your People. So that's where I want to start today. How has that book impacted life, and I'd just like to explore how that drew us all together again.
Speaker 3:That was a cool book because it helped not only define friendships and like different roles that different people have in your life, different circles of people, whether it's your core people or kind of people who live around you or people you may see less often in an outer ring, and I think it was really cool to for me anyway to, I guess, consider who you know my inner circle people are and who are our villages that we do life with on a day-to-day basis.
Speaker 3:But it was nice to define some maybe parameters I guess is a bad word, but parameters of friendship and different needs that are met in your life through different people, and I think that that was a cool book for that reason. But I also really appreciated this book because I do think it brought us all together and like repaired some friendships in a way among us in just such a sweet way, and not even repair but just kind of refresh, I think, would be a better word, because I know there'd been some distance. You know I had not lived in the area for a while and I had just moved back, so it was really nice to kind of refresh our friendships in a local setting again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and something I really appreciated about that book was I feel like it really gave voice to the fact that we have many meaningful spheres of relationship in our life as deep, with all of those meaningful spheres right, and it really helped give some, yeah, like you said, parameters to just thinking through, hey, who are the people that are right around you, that you see that there is that like knowing and connection and yeah, so I would agree that it was really meaningful in that way yeah, I think it was interesting for me because I grew up in a military home so we moved around a lot and making lots of friendships and having connections from really all over the world that I was still trying to keep connected and I think in reading this book it was really helpful too, because I think the way she explains it is in rings she helped put some definition to this idea that those are your 3 am calls right.
Speaker 2:Those are the people that when life really hits because life is hard who is the person that you feel most comfortable calling at 3 am and saying I need you to show up. And part of that was she made the clarification that person needs to be close enough to actually like show up, and so she even gave something like a five mile parameter and I was like I have a lot of close relationships with people who had moved out of state or who were in other parts of the world and it helped clarify for me that not everybody can be a 3am call right. So I think she did a great job of kind of defining what that capacity is and what kind of helped to identify who those people are, because even if you don't have those 3 am calls. You have places that you go and different communities, whether school or church or work, or you know all these places where you rub up against people, and she just challenged people to find who are those people that you maybe haven't even noticed, that you connect with or that you see potential to build deep relationship with and invest in those.
Speaker 2:And the beautiful thing for me is, I mean, I already had you ladies. You'd been around for almost 20 years at this point and we had these deep relationships and I think it made me really want to say, okay, life is busy, I want to pull these ladies together and invest more in these women who are my 3am calls. How do I do that? And so I think reading this book together was just such a great opportunity to gather more regularly and really identify, like the value that I had in these relationships.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think for me it was. This was the book that reconnected me with Heather and Katie. I had had a little more continuity of relationship with Kat over the last 20 years, just circumstantially, and I think like I really appreciated that it gave some boundaries. I agree with Kat. It gave some boundaries to different roles that different friendships play and I think it awakened me to places where I was maybe blind, like the need for accountability or paying attention when people like I can be self-forgetting, I think, and paying attention when people love me and are pursuing me and respond to that.
Speaker 3:So it just triggered some really beautiful conversations with all three of you and I think it actually created more intimacy because I think we got the chance to experience that inner circle standing in each other's lives and that's like a, that's like a position of trust and I think it also helped me to have reciprocal, intimate friendships, to know how to place some of the other ones. I think it helped me take some pressure off of like church small group. Church small group doesn't have to be your inner circle, it's your family in Christ and it serves an important purpose and then they're all valuable and beautiful and important in different ways. I think letting the pressure off of my church small group or my neighbors or defining who has that trust earned place in my life took some of the pressure off to let other things be what they are and be beautiful and wonderful in the ways that they are, instead of trying to fit everyone into that inner circle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, so we started with that book. A few of us had been part of other book clubs and had just I don't know had a variety of experiences and we desired to gather people to read books and naturally we thought of each other and so we formed a little book club out of that and, honestly, in the what year and a half that we've been doing this, we have covered a lot of ground with some very different genres, and since this is the first book club edition of the podcast, I thought it could be fun to chat through, just like our first year of books so that would have been last year and I'll list them quickly for us now and then we can dive in from there. So last year we read All my Knotted Up Life by Beth Moore. City of Thieves by David Benioff. Surrender by Bono. The Happiest man on Earth by Eddie Jaku. Imagine Heaven by John Burke and Don Piper. No Cure for being Human by Keith Bowler and America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dre and Laura Kamowy Kamowy.
Speaker 1:Good job, yeah, we're going to go with it, okay. So, like I said, pretty eclectic list. We've got memoir, we've got historical fiction, we've got inspirational, okay. And so I'm wondering if it might be helpful to just give it like the smallest synopsis of each of these so that people can kind of track with, maybe, what the storyline would be. That's what I'll try to do, yeah, so I'll try to do that. Okay, so All my Knotted Up Life by Beth Moore was a memoir just talking about, like, obviously, her childhood, her upbringing. I mean, she is a well-known and well-loved woman in American culture and probably worldwide, so just inviting people into really understanding her story, past and present. City of Thieves was a really interesting book. There were even points where I was like I don't know if I can read this.
Speaker 1:But it actually had some really beautiful elements as well, but it's set in Russia. Do you guys remember the year?
Speaker 3:World War II. So end of the 40s and beginning of the 50s.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it's set in decimated Russia. The premise of the book is this guy is tasked by, I think, someone in the military, like high up in the military with some authority finds basically these two kids older kids, maybe teenagers, young 20s, I don't know and his daughter is getting married. So basically the task is for them to find eggs, which apparently was really difficult. But in the midst of this journey, this quest that these kids were on to find eggs, you just see what reality in world war ii, decimated russia, looked like and it was just really horrific but the kind of thing that it's really hard to look at but also really important to understand that things like that really happened. So that was City of Thieves, okay. So then, surrender by Bono is his memoir, and it's really cool because he actually I think it's 40 chapters based on 40 of his song titles, so very poetic, very artistic, happiest man on earth. So, eddie Jaku. So he was a man that survived concentration camps and eventually made a life for himself in Australia, and it's just his retelling of what he went through and what his family went through.
Speaker 1:Imagine Heaven is a book of collected near-death experiences that people have reported, and I have to say that when we picked this book there was a little bit of skepticism that I was wearing as we approached it, but, honestly, the man that wrote it, I just felt like he did a really good job giving context for the research and I really feel like that was helpful as I went into that book. No Cure for being Human, written by Kate Bowler, is her thoughts, processing, experience in a, I think, what was told to her to be a terminal cancer journey, which she actually did survive, but it's just a variety of things around what that process looked like for her. And then America's First Daughter is a work of historical fiction based on Thomas Jefferson's daughter, so it's told from her perspective about Thomas Jefferson and surrounding people. And so, yeah, that's just a brief overview of all of the books, but I'd love to start by sharing some of maybe like our favorite or least favorites of these reads.
Speaker 3:I love a good redemption story, so all the ones that had a thread of redemption I really liked. I loved Surrender because Bono's story is inspiring, like he kept in like a life of integrity as a family man and he was a legit rock star, so I liked that. And City of Thieves because the main character had a happy ending and Imagine Heaven was just beautiful and inspiring on so many levels. And the ones like I just feel like the Eddie Jaiku, the happiest man on earth. I think I was just expecting something different. So I think that one I probably didn't enjoy it as much and he also seemed to be like he says he was the happiest man on earth, but the motivation for his happiness was actually bitterness and that was like a paradox to me. It was hard to rally behind. I think I agree with you, sheree, I like a redemption story or a happy ending.
Speaker 3:I really enjoyed City of Thieves. I really enjoyed City of Thieves. It was crass, which was, I think, something maybe we weren't all expecting, or at least the level of crassness that there is in that book. But there was also this beautiful woven thread of friendship and grace and hope and survival, survival and I just think that we got a glimpse of like a really sweet friendship in that book amidst like such a terrifyingly horrible situation in history. So I that one always stuck out to me from from the list from the first year and then Imagine Heaven, I think was really beautiful and just really makes you think about what you're living for and you know what our eternal hope is in and what maybe just glimpses of what we can expect on the other side of this world. And so I just thought that was a really beautiful book to meditate on just people's collective near-death experiences. It was really interesting.
Speaker 3:I did not love no Cure for being Human. I felt like there was such a lack of hope, not even hope, but just I don't know. It felt like unresolved to me and I've since learned that she has another book that she wrote Kate Bauer, that I wonder if it would tie up some of that a little bit better for me, that I wonder if it would tie up some of that a little bit better for me. But I found myself more depressed with that one and not really clear on exactly what she learned through her experience living through a cancer journey and I don't know. It just kind of frustrated me that it felt like there was no clear sense of hope through her journey.
Speaker 2:So I would say I'm going to say some similar things to the rest of you ladies, but I love historical fiction and I love memoirs, so I think a lot of these books land right in those genres. So I did actually really love a lot of our list from last year. I would agree that I was surprised by City of Thieves. I could not put the book down. There was so much adrenaline that I felt in reading it. It was page-turner, it was gripping, it was shocking I think we've used the word crass, but really I'd say gritty the way he is a great writer and the way he wrote. Like I said, I like to read a lot of historical fiction and World War II is just such a fascinating, such a sad but heroic time period and this is one of those books. That war is just so tragic and I don't think we really get that a lot when we read historical fiction. A lot of it is inspirational and painted in kind of this pretty inspiring bow. But I think David just really wrote it in such a real way that it was shocking, a real way that I just it was shocking and yet you still just the way he made you fall for the characters, even though there was a lot of writ to who they were and just the challenges they were faced with. So that one was very surprising and great. Happiest man on Earth was also just a hard and just an amazing story. I do think you realize towards the end that he's not an author, but it took a lot of courage to write the book. It took him a really long time to tell his story even to his children, and so the fact that he captured just the atrocities and the tragedy of his story is I'm just so appreciative of him writing the book, even though I feel like, like Shruti said, his writing style was sometimes hard to read, which played a piece in that. Of course, I loved Beth Moore's book and Bono's book was a little slower paced and yet I loved learning about who he was. He's very poetic in his writing, so there were times when I felt like I was having a hard time following him, but I still loved reading his book and learning more about who he was and how he saw the world, and there was a lot of information about just the industry and politics and his view on that. So there was a lot of information about just the industry and politics and his view on that. So there was a lot there. And then I think Imagine Heaven, I was with you, heather. I was a little bit cynical and honestly I don't think I would have been introduced to this book had we not been in this book club. But it's probably the one I love the most and it's the one that has lingered with me the most. It was such a beautiful read and changed the way I just perceive eternity. So I thought John did a great job.
Speaker 2:The one that I also struggled with the most, I think, was no Care for being Human, and that was it really was. Her book was more like like she was. It's like reading her journal while she wrestled with some of the narratives and the silver lining and the way people approached her diagnosis that she really, like you could just tell, was wounded by throughout the journey, and so you get to just read like her wrestling, and yet there didn't seem to be a lot of. What did you learn from this journey, like how did it change you? Coming out of it? You just got a snapshot of where she was at as she was working her way through all of the treatment and relationships and struggles. So I do know people who absolutely love this book, but it was a little bit, I think I wanted more of those pieces that I felt like she left out.
Speaker 3:Well said. That's what I would agree with, but you said it way more eloquently oh good in heaven, and kind of what Heather had mentioned is that he did a good job. I feel like setting the stage for that, like saying, you know, this isn't scientific, like I'm looking through an accumulation of near-death experiences that people have had and I'm kind of like showing some of the similarities you know, like I think he did a good job, acknowledging that we should approach it with some skepticism, you know, and that it's not the same as I don't know, like it's not as concrete as some other things you know, but that it's still there's enough similarities that it's beautiful to observe and to glean from to glean from.
Speaker 2:I also feel like he did a really good job saying look, all I'm going to do is collect all these stories and we're going to see parallels of themes that are present in all of these stories, and we're going to note that, we're going to pull those together and just acknowledge that there are parallels that are powerful from experiences that people all over the world have had, and there's also some parallels that we see in scripture, and so I just thought that was just a fascinating perspective. As I read the book. It was really interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I really enjoyed that book as well, and Kat, I just I have to say I feel like even in our book club discussion around no Cure for being Human, I think I might have been the only one that did really actually love that book, but I think it's because I can so relate to. I feel like the, the feeling of I don't think angst is quite the right word, but I just she just speaks to being very frustrated with this mentality that life is just supposed to look up and to the right right, like that we are to be ever more optimized. There's a book or an influencer or something that can kind of get you out of any problem you have. I feel like we get the sense that, coming into this cancer diagnosis, she kind of thought like, hey, I'm going to do the right things and make the right choices and go the right way and it's going to work out for me. And then it didn't.
Speaker 1:So I think that she is calling foul on the American culture in the way that it really just tries to incessantly push. Life can and should be better, which not to say that we can't and shouldn't move towards like a thriving life. But you know what I'm saying Just this idea that we actually have the agency to achieve the kind of life we want when we don't, like, there's going to be suffering, there's going to be pain, there's going to be disruption. That's just completely uncontrollable. And so I think what I resonated with as another person who has, like, really struggled with that is her being like. That's not what I've been told. You know, things should work out justly. So I don't know. So I think I could just really relate to a person learning oh, I can't maximize my life, my life isn't just going to trend up and to the right To jump in there.
Speaker 3:I have a friend who loves this book and actually Kat and I were talking to her and I think it seems to me that people who have really loved this book are people who have experienced events in their life, like you just said, where things don't go the way that they should quote unquote.
Speaker 3:And I think if your life has taken a severe left turn where you didn't expect it and you have to, in a lot of ways, rebuild or reframe what life looks like, I think that you probably resonate with her a lot more than those of us who have not yet had life take a left turn, because I'm sure that we're all due for that at some point and maybe not.
Speaker 3:But I think those of us who have had to deal with a severe trauma or a completely unexpected life event that really shapes what everyday life looks like, I think, seem to appreciate that there isn't a silver lining, happy ending. Part of her story at least not yet maybe, but I think I tend to be somebody who wants to give everything a silver lining and that's a great lesson for me. That's not actually helpful to everybody and maybe not even always helpful to myself, but I think, as somebody who tends to be way more heavily leaned towards optimism, it's really hard to sit through a book like that without a pretty bow at the end, and lingering with the unresolved parts of life was not enjoyable for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, I get that, but I do think people who have experienced those unexpected life turns that have really shaken up what life looks like for them seem to really resonate with that book and her experiences.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's probably also personality, like people that have a certain bent towards perfectionism or something like that. But, yeah, I remember being one of the only ones that was like this book is so great. Yeah, and you guys were like no, and so I can see why that gripped your heart. Yeah, yeah, real, that's totally yeah, but I would say that, in terms of favorites, I really enjoyed All my Knotted Up Life.
Speaker 1:I really appreciated so many things about the way that Beth wrote that, and so it's really interesting, guys, because I actually started reading this book prior to us reading it in book club and I don't know if you can remember I had to put it down for a long time. So if you haven't read the book, I'm about to share part of what she shares in it. But early in the book she shares that she was sexually abused by somebody in her life and I share that part of her story as part of my history as a little girl, and so I remember getting to that point and just needing to put the book down for a bit. But I did pick it back up again and I did finish it and I loved it. But when we read it for book club, I actually listened to it and it was her voice that was reading it and, oh my goodness, that made all the difference in the world. It was just so powerful to hear her say that and I really appreciated that. The writing towards the beginning of the book, when she was a child, feels like a child's perspective, and then she was able to really shift that and towards the end you feel like you're reading this from a woman's perspective. I thought that was a really cool element to her writing and I just really loved that she had a consistent tethering to forgiveness and generosity of heart and being so abundantly gracious to people in her life that absolutely did not deserve it, and I just think that there's room for more of that. Certainly, I am first in line to herald the importance of justice and I thought that her meekness was really beautiful, so that book was really meaningful.
Speaker 1:Honestly, that one and no Cure for being human were probably like my two favorites and then my least favorite. You guys, I feel so bad saying this, but I think it was probably surrender by Bono, which he's amazing, like Cherise said, like a legit rock star, and I think I did find his writing style really hard to follow. So I think that's what it came down to for me. But and then of course we know that America's First Daughter, so Kat, loves historical fiction and I actually have a little bit of a problem with it because, as Cherie said, I am very committed to honesty and it's very agitating to me when I don't know what's real about a character and what is not, like what's been kind of embellished for the read to be nice and what was like true of that person in history.
Speaker 2:So that's been a little bit of something I've had to work through in book club, but you guys love me anyways what I would say too, and I do love I because I didn't speak to that one, but I did love that book. It is really really well written. Um, and I learned a ton about Jefferson and his daughter and, honestly, we were reading that book when I went on a trip with Heather to Charleston and so we were like seeing all of these places that we were reading about and I just felt like it was just so neat to read it and then also be in like in a place that held so much of that history in its city. So that was kind of neat.
Speaker 1:Okay, so how would you say that these books have come to bear on your real life, like, how have they stuck with you? How has that changed the way you see things? Any thoughts?
Speaker 3:I think, like I said before, it's kind of least. The no Cure for being Human book has brought some great conversations with friends who you know have enjoyed it more than I did, and really has given me pause to how I do tend to put things with a silver lining and it's been a little bit of like I've taken it as more of a personal challenge to let things not be okay all the time, and so I guess I can appreciate the book for that reason. But I think it's just one of those wonderful things about book club that you get some perspectives that you might not seek out on your own. You get to read some books from people that you might not pick up otherwise, and so I think overall it's just a good impact for life to read some other memoirs of people who lived very different lives than you live and also to pick up books that I might personally put down or not pick up at all if it weren't for the motivation of reading them with you guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, honestly, I just love learning about people and I love even just the psychology of the human struggle and so like reading all my knotted up life and even like seeing and understanding more about Bono and who he was, and and then Eddie JCoup, like all of those I think were just really beautiful to read about real people and their perspectives. I always learn something new when I read somebody's story. So I just I never regret like that experience but honestly, imagine, heaven has just been so such a different exposure to something that I probably would not have walked into and it's still something that I think you can beautifully hold with open hands. But there was just so many like beautiful themes of people's experiences and what they, of just what heaven and their experiences of heaven in their near-death experiences was just really. It was a powerful read, I think, for me, yeah.
Speaker 3:I agree. I think what I love is discussing these books and these people's stories with you all. Having the vantage point of your perspective in addition to my own is just. I think it just forms me in a different way just to be able to appreciate how you engage their stories too.
Speaker 3:I think, like the All my Knotted Up Life, jolly and I had the unique privilege of being in her Sunday school class at First Baptist Church in Houston. She was our Sunday school teacher and so reading all of the backstory to how her life was shaped and understanding some of the experiences that drew her into God's word and into the depth of study that she did to be able to teach it to others with such gifting from God was really interesting. And I think like hearing her struggle and just like the imperfections of people that we rub up against and how. That's just a part of the story. I think it was. There was tension because it was like hard to accept some, like knowing some of those things about someone who I revere and have so much respect for. It made me feel and you guys know that I don't like big feelings, but it was feel, and you guys know that I don't like big feelings but it was. I think it's it stayed with me and just knowing the struggles of her marriage and knowing the struggles of her childhood and her struggles with the denomination that serves so much of her faith journey, but I think it prepared me to struggle in my own journey. That one like stayed, stayed with me.
Speaker 3:It was a harder read for me because there was a bit of a personal connection, but it stayed with me. I thought of it often. America's First Daughter I fact-checked the most because it shed light on so much of American history that I was unfamiliar with and I wanted to know what was real and what wasn't, what was just characterization of a historical fiction character in a book, kind of like Heather mentioned, and how much of it was true. And you know guys, dysfunction runs deep, like there was just a lot of dysfunction. But I think that there's I love, redemption. I think there's redemption in that because it was broken people who built our nation and we are broken people and God is still working through us, you know. So that was an interesting. That was an interesting read.
Speaker 1:Sheree, I would have to say I also did a lot of fact checking on America's First Daughter. Um, yeah, and I remember this is maybe one of our more animated book club discussions because I was just like the main point of the book we don't know if it's true to the story and I very much appreciate that Kat is always contending for all the other things that you can learn and the beauty of the story. But yeah, I did fact check that one the most, I think the one I don't know maybe I would just say what has stuck with me from this set of books is really just resilience, the resilience that these people had, and specifically City of Thieves, like I said before, that one I almost put down just because gritty, I think is a good word, kat, just for the listener to know. It is a story that has, I mean, certainly it holds some heart elements as related to like human suffering and pain and some really horrific ways that other people inflict pain on people. It also just holds content around sexuality that the way he described was really, I think, very.
Speaker 1:I think crass is a good word for that and for people who have had some kind of traumatic experience around sexuality I think it can be a little bit more off-putting and be a little bit more off-putting and yet, even though that was true of that book, I really just feel like that book has stayed with me in the really profound friendship that was created in these men that are doing this journey, finding the eggs together, and just how much you really love their characters and care for them by the end of the book. So I would say that one has really stayed with me. Did you have?
Speaker 3:something. Sheree, I was talking to my 16-year-old Samuel about City of Thieves today and he was like, oh, maybe I want to pick it up. And I was like it's rated R. Like let's just say it is a rated R book. Like I even flipped back through it because I was like's rated r, like let's just say it is a rated r book. Like I even flipped back through it because I was like, oh my gosh, what do I need to prepare for if he wants? Like do we, do we need to tell him not to? You know what I mean. And like, yeah, I'm gonna tell him not to. He's not ready for it. I think I had forgotten, because it's so beautifully written and I feel like I've espoused its credit so much that it definitely needs a disclaimer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's rough, yeah, and I don't know. I'm not in any way trying to condone anything. I think I'm just making an observation that I feel like there's some story or writing or movies that just throw sexuality stuff in there to do it right. It doesn't really make sense. It's just thrown in for the appeal. I feel like the way that this writer wrote that content was to help understand a very particular character and the substance of that character and the way that he tried to avoid his life and hide and things like that. So again, not condoning, but just saying it wasn't, it was artistic, it was, it was, which I still did. The thing where you just kind of like skip down and like, okay, I think I'll start reading here. But yeah, it definitely comes with a disclaimer, but it was in many ways a really fantastic book. If you guys could sit down with any of these authors over lunch and ask them a question, who would it be and what would the question be?
Speaker 3:I was looking at my stack of books, I was like thinking about which one, and I think I would want to sit down with Beth Moore and just get an update Like how's it going now? You know, because her book ended with a transition and I think I would want to know how the story continued. It wasn't necessarily my favorite book, but I do think it's one that did stick with me more and that was the happiest man on earth and I think I'd like to sit down with eddie jacku and I'd love to ask him where his hope comes from, because he talked so much in the book about like gratitude and like not dwelling on horrible thing. But I just wonder if he has like a source of hope or if he gets by simply by trying to focus on gratitude and not like on accumulation of worldly possessions and things like that. He talks a lot about gratitude. I just have to wonder if there's more of a concrete source of hope for him. I'd just be curious to hear more about that from his perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because he is a Jewish man, but we don't really get a sense of whether that's a meaningful journey.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, it was more of a cultural identity than a belief system, I think, for him.
Speaker 2:So I'm just curious if that ever developed or if he had strong feelings one way or the other I, I would just say I mean, honestly, I'd love to sit down with both john burke or beth moore. John burke is the one who wrote imagine heaven. I, I, honestly, they both are just. I mean, beth Moore is a riot and she has so much depth and just energy and fire that she would just be a fascinating person to just sit and have lunch with. And how, honestly, I would be interested just to hear how this journey of collecting these stories and interacting with these stories and doing all of the research and just how this book changed his life would be just fascinating to hear.
Speaker 1:You know what, Kat, I think?
Speaker 3:I might show up to your lunch with Beth and John, because I think that I share both of those interests in hearing more.
Speaker 1:Katie, you can come to lunch with Beth too Great, I'd love to go to all of these lunches. Maybe somebody listening can get that arranged for us All. Right, to wrap us up, I think it would be fun to give a shout out, like we do on the typical episode, though maybe a little bit different from the norm in this case. So, thinking of the books that we've read, I'd really love to hear from each of you if you wanted to give like a thanks for saying that, maybe share a memorable quote from one of the books, or even our discussion around the books.
Speaker 3:So I searched and searched through Imagine Heaven to find this part because out of all the books last year, this is what has come back to me the most. I think it just spoke to my spirit. It was like, personally formative, and it was one of the near-death experiences in Imagine Heaven. And it was a young father who nearly died in a car accident where his wife and child died and one child survived along with him. And he had a second near-death experience during his recovery from the accident where he saw his baby that had passed alive and well and he had the opportunity to release him, to offer him to God. And he said I held my baby, son, as God himself held me. I experienced the oneness of all of it, the being behind me, inviting me to let it all go and give Griffin, my son, to him and all that peace and knowledge. I hugged my little boy tightly one last time, kissed him on the cheek and gently laid him back down in the crib. I willingly gave him up. No one would ever take him away from me again. He was mine, we were one and I was one with god.
Speaker 3:Griffin was alive in a place more real than anything here. I think that just changed my perspective on sacrifice. Like that, when God, it seems, takes something away that actually it's an opportunity for me to give it, and if we have the perspective of giving it because Jesus gave all for us, then it's not taken away. We lay it down just like he laid his life down for us, and I think that was just deeply moving to me, just changed the way I see. I've thought of it just time and time again, so I was glad you asked that question because I was grateful that that story was included.
Speaker 2:So I'll jump in, because mine are from Imagine Heaven and I have two that I wanted to read. So the first one was how you think about heaven affects everything in life. How you prioritize love, how willing you are to sacrifice for the long term, how you view suffering, what you fear or don't fear. And then later in the book, this quote from one of the ladies who had an experience. She said I knew myself. Imagine that the first person we meet in heaven is ourselves. And I just thought that was just encompassed the whole book, like just this realization that there's something really beautiful promised to us in eternity. And it's just really neat. And so I guess my shout out is thank you, john, for putting this book together and thank you, cherie, for recommending it for our book club, because I wouldn't have read it otherwise what about you, miss Katie?
Speaker 3:I, when I was collecting my thoughts, I did not have all of my books in front of me because I wasn't at home. I just had to look through what notes I had in my notebook. I picked one from the happiest man on earth and he said gratitude is the key to happiness. Appreciate what you have instead of what you lack. You lack, and it's very simple, but I feel like it's such a good reminder of where to focus our thoughts on gratitude instead of what we're longing for I have a bit of a confession to make.
Speaker 1:I tried to look through my books and then I realized my books aren't here. So if you're listening and you have one of my books, please return it. I think it's in all seriousness. I think I've loaned out a lot of these books. So the only two books I could find were no Cure for being Human and Find your People. So I did actually have one from Find your People that I thought was really beautiful and it may be just an encouragement, kind of like full circle, for people to find their own people to do life with, to have book club with, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1:So Jenny Allen writes without people pleasing pride and personal happiness at the center of our relationships. We live free enough to fight and humble enough to apologize and safe enough to work it out. People can disappoint you and you can hurt other people, and forgiveness can be issued when we're looking to God, not others, for our hope, our identity and our purpose. And I think I just really appreciate that, because I have found it to be very true that when you were able to show up real and not self-consumed or self-focused, like she said, in people-pleasing pride and for your own personal gain. You do live free and you're able to navigate the complexities that come with journeying alongside other people, so I really appreciated that.
Speaker 1:So hopefully, you guys listening feel a little bit curious about some of these books. I'll again link them all in the show notes so that you can check them out for yourselves. Thank you, ladies, for joining me today, so I have a haiku for you that I'd like to share. Thanks for doing that. Making life more meaningful one book at a time. That's lovely. Hey, thanks and thanks. Lovely, hey, thanks and thanks for joining me, ladies.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having us, thanks for Doing that is presented to you by the Epiary a place for beholding and becoming, and thank you for joining us for today's episode. Before you go, I have a couple of invitations. If you found it meaningful, could I invite you to take two minutes to rate and review the show. I also invite you to help me create an upcoming episode of Thanks for Doing that by nominating someone or suggesting a topic. Let's link arms to call out the good and the beautiful that we see around us, because I really believe that finding delight in our divided and difficult world could make all the difference. Bye.