PRECIOUS HONORED LOVED

Mueller recounts her path to Christian fulfillment in this memoir.

In her follow-up to A Different Way: Journey to a Better Life (2015), the author shares more of her experiences as a believer living a Christian life in the modern world. Readers accompany Mueller as she goes about her days with her husband Jim and follow her through the process of becoming a Bible study teacher. They also witness darker moments, including the death of the author’s brother Tom, killed by a drunk driver who is later arrested and arraigned. At several points, Mueller reaffirms that her faith is her bedrock. “I finally understood,” she writes, “that trying to earn what Jesus did for me, only keeps me struggling in my own limited abilities when my life could be so much more with God’s grace at work instead.” The main strength of the book is its simple approachability; the author presents her various experiences in such straightforward prose that any distance between reader and writer is eliminated. Non-Christian readers will encounter the usual problem with Christian affirmation books; virtually everything Mueller attributes to the intercession of God will likely look to those outside the faith like the natural working of the world. When she experienced pain from a misaligned spine, for example, her husband told her, “the doctor could do one little tweak, and it would be gone,” to which she responded, “so could God”; the doctor fixed the problem (when she casually mentions hearing about “a doctor who had recently been healed of stage 4 liver cancer,” readers are presumably expected to take this as evidence of God’s providence). But Mueller’s target audience is clearly her fellow Christians, and these readers will be charmed by all the little details and moved by the larger, darker drama of losing a sibling in such tragic circumstances.

A plainly told and relatable account of living a Christian life.