Building Family Ties With Love and Laughter by Dave Stone

Thomas Nelson (May 8, 2012) 160 pages

My Rating: 4/5 stars

My Thoughts:

Building Family Ties with Faith, Love, and Laughter is a gift-type book, meaning its chapters are short and sweet. My rating is based on that fact. The points made are "to the point", so they leave plenty of room for your own thoughts to expand on them. The pages are thick and glossy, and the book is smaller in size than a "normal" book.

Despite its small page count, there are bits of wisdom scattered throughout! I like that at the beginning Stone recommends your family coming up with a mission statement. Stone's family mission is:

"Go to Heaven when we die and take as many people with us as we can."

"Recently our family went out to dinner with another couple. Beth's friend later told her, 'When we go out to eat at a restaurant, we go to eat. But you all go with a totally different agenda. It's like you're building relationships with the waiters and managers there.'
She was exactly right. We choose where to eat based on who we need to check up on or follow up with, or where we think we can plant some seed. We've nurtured relationships with staff, attended birthday parties for children, offered help when they've faced hardships.....God has blessed us as we've tried to live out our mission."

I thought that was great food for thought!

There's lots of humor sprinkled in, too. I really enjoyed the story about Stone's father reading off the visitor's names. I even had to tell it to Jonathan, so we both got a good laugh.

Overall, I think it's great if you're looking for a very quick boost of encouragement.

*I was provided a review copy through the Booksneeze program in exchange for my honest opinion.