Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Review of "Do Hard Things" by Alex & Brett Harris from our daughter's perspective...



Today is our daughter, Annie,'s sixteenth birthday so we invited her to guest post today to help celebrate this very special day!!!

Annie was very excited when we gave her this book as an early birthday present last week.  So much so that she finished reading it in just a few days!  Because she spoke so highly of it, we asked her to share her thoughts on Do Hard Things with all of you and she agreed to do it!  We are so proud of her for stepping out of her comfort zone!

I give you Annie's review...


The book Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris is written by teens for teens.  It seems that doing hard things is hard for many Christians.  The Harris brothers tell the history of where the concept of "teenagers" came from.  It's a pretty new concept which was created in the early 1940s.

Alex and Brett challenge the thinking of teens and adults in the church alike as they go against the low expectations and stereotypes that society has set for them over the past 70 years, such as...

  • Getting outside of your comfort zone
  • Going beyond what is expected or required
  • Doing things that are too big to accomplish alone
  • Doing things that don't earn immediate payoff
  • Challenging the cultural norm

What I think would speak to a lot of people when reading this book is the section on "Doing Hard Things that don't ear immediate payoff".  Small hard things, I think, would be difficult for most people because part of doing small hard things like doing chores around the house everyday that seems not very important compared to doing things outside your home where you might get more recognition and seem to make "more" of an impact to the world than cleaning your room.
"You won't make it in the headlines for any of them ('Local Boy Cleans Bedroom and Does Homework!') or waking up looking forward to them ('Oh boy!  Today I get to obey my mom cheerfully!')".
I felt like the part that impacted me the most was the section about stepping out of your comfort zone.  The reason why I have such a hard time with this part was because I always have the question in my mind of "What if I fail?".  What helped me with this in the book was that it said...
"You can't get to success without risking failure."
That quote gave me the motivation to attempt to do more things for Christ and for the Glory of God outside of my comfort zone.  You just have to trust God and take the risk of failure to take a risk to succeed.

I plan on reading Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris again and I will be reading its sequel Start Here: Doing Hard Things Right Where You Are  I also recommend this book to both female and male teenagers as well as adults.

You can learn more about the Harris brothers, their ministry, and their books at TheRebelution.com.

At the foot of the Cross,


Annie Pershing
Annie is sixteen, as of today!  She is entering her junior year in the public high school in her home town where she lives with her mother.  Annie loves Jesus and is very involved in her home church.  She is also a member of her High School Jazz Band, Science Club and Math Club.  We are blessed to have her with us to visit as often as her busy schedule allows!  We really enjoyed our special time with her over the last four weeks, her time with us for this summer.  She is a blessing!!

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