Embracing Your Second Calling: A review and giveaway

Embracing Your Second Calling by Dale Hanson Bourke asks middle-aged women to examine the second half of life and find meaning or purpose. This is a self help book with a highly religious tone, but what caught my eye about this one was the fact that it is geared entirely towards women. Not only that, but this book  also targets a demographic that has traditionally been discarded, having metaphorically peaked and been seen as headed downhill slowly towards sunset. Hanson Bourke has written an engaging, light-hearted workbook of sorts for women whose children may have left home and moved on to college. It will also appeal to women who may simply wish to reinvent themselves after a divorce or those who desire career change. Whether that looks like a 50ish Mom leaving full-time office work to suddenly become a fashion model, or a woman sandwiched between caregiving roles as daughter, mother and wife suddenly emancipated as the home becomes an empty nest, this book is a simple therapeutic way to work through the idea of what might be next. Embracing Your Second Calling: Finding Passion and Purpose for the Rest of Your Life is a great gift book for women over 50, even more useful for those past 60, a demographic often discarded. Sprinkled throughout the book are suggestions of ways you may Reflect on your life’s purpose or Act with a group of peers. This type of format lends itself nicely to book clubs and bible study groups. There are numerous talking points for those who choose this as a book club selection. For instance: “Reflect: How are you better today than you were in your twenties or thirties?” Often I have heard it said that the twenties are about striving and the thirties about growing career and family and the forties then in terms of a woman’s lifespan can be viewed as a more comfortable point of enjoying some of that work done during the earlier decades. Yet most are still working or perhaps even now re-entering the workforce after a period of time away raising children. So what of the 50s, 60s and 70s? Well, I guess that is the point of the book to help more women think, to inspire confidence and action. This book will also be helpful to those looking to start a mentoring group for younger women. Hanson Bourke is president of the CIDRZ Foundation, a wife and mother of two grown boys. She was previously a marketing and publishing director and now supports charitable Christian works that raise money for African health issues like Aids, malaria and cervical cancer research. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Embracing Your Second Calling, by Dale Hanson Bourke is published by Thomas Nelson and is $16.99 US. The softcover is 223 pages. May 4, 2010.
thriftymommastips review is $$$$ out of $$$$$. A great gift book or book club selection.

Thriftymommastips is not paid to review books; instead a free copy of the book is provided by the publisher, as is common practice in media. The opinions in this review are all mine.

For a chance to win a copy of this book, draw on Sept. 23rd, open to US and Canada all you need to do is:
1. Leave a comment here with your contact information. Tell me one interesting life goal you look forward to in the second half of your life.
2. Follow me on twitter @inkscrblr.
3. Follow brainfood on GFC. see side of blog.

Good luck!