Back to Work...

I am in my mid-30s and have had 17 jobs, 4 of them full-time, year round jobs. Now, I'm a stay at home mom of 3 little children. When I graduated college, I got a job with a big corporation and thought I'd work there for years. But, a year later, I left that job because I didn't want to move every few months. It used to be that you could live in one city all your life and find jobs there. Now, you have to move to where your job is. The job market has changed from what it was 20 or 30 years ago--even from what it was 10 years ago.

When I came across this book, I expected a book with a lot of How-to's. I expected it to be mostly about finding a new job. It is actually mostly a book about coping with unemployment. This book is very readable and interesting. The crux of it is how to cope and realize that your job is not who you are, but to remember that our identity is in Christ. After tackling that issue, the author does tackle how to start finding a new job by telling the story of a hypothetical case study of a guy named Jerry. It was interesting to me that many of the things he recommended doing are the questions and ideas I have posed to friends looking for jobs over the years.

Part of me felt very bleak after reading this book. It portrayed the reality of finding a new job as very difficult today. That was discouraging at first. But, the author desires people to be realistic and honest about tackling the task ahead of them. So often in our culture we do romanticize things. People quit jobs because it's "just not what they want to be doing" rather than being thankful for the jobs they have. By not having our heads in the clouds, I think the point is that we will better be able to cope with the challenges along the way to finding a new job--we'll be expecting them.

One thing I'm not entirely sure that I agreed with in his book was that he encouraged a lot of self-employment. But, Mr. Adams does talk a lot about the difficulties and struggles of being self-employed. I think that a lot of the reason people today want to be self employed is a struggle in our hearts with being under the authority of others. We don't want to have to follow anyone else's rules or directions--it's part of our sinful nature. Ultimately, though, we are all under authority--God's authority. That was the one heart issue that I wish he had addressed.

The greatest strength of this book are in pointing people to the Lord as they walk through the process of unemployment and finding a new job--which brings me to an important point. Yes, this is a Christian book.

The second greatest strength of this book is that is a very personal book for the author. He himself has had to go through several career changes and times of unemployment. What he is writing about is very real and honest from his heart and his own experience. He is not writing as one who looks from the outside in--He is inside. He's been there, done that. Also, he is older--in his mid 50s, I believe. Many people, my mother included, face the prospect of being unemployed at an older age. I know unemployment is a lot harder to cope with and handle as we age.

Obviously, if one is unemployed, then finances are tight, and people in this position won't likely be buying books. So, who would I recommend this book to? I would recommend it to family and friends who know someone who is unemployed or to church families. Put this book in your church library or out on the book table at service. Give it to a friend or family member as a way to encourage them.