CWIB Book Review: “A Work in Progress”
“Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they?” (Matthew 6:26).
Generation Z is coming of age in a difficult world. Between the COVID-19 pandemic, war in Europe, unprecedented student debt, skyrocketing home prices, a workplace experimenting with hybrid schedules (badly), and a constant onslaught of bad news and peer pressure on the internet, it’s challenging to be a young adult right now.
Then again, maybe it always has been. My generation saw the planes hit the World Trade Center and tried to get our first jobs during the recession of 2008 and its aftermath. Our parents grew up with nuclear bomb drills during the Cold War. Their parents were born into the Great Depression and lived through World War II. Add in the universal struggle to figure out who you are and what your purpose is, and your 20s can be a rough decade. I know it was for me.
Into this chaos enters Julia Marie Hogan Werner, a licensed clinical professional counselor, a Catholic, and an author. Her new book, “A Work in Progress: Embracing the Life God Gave You,” is aimed at Catholic young adults but could be helpful for anyone who is feeling a little (or a lot) lost right now. And, just as her first book (“It’s OK to Start With You”) was a refreshing alternative to the “treat yourself” approach to self-care, Werner’s new book is a welcome antidote to the “you do you” approach to personal development.
Identifying Your Purpose
In each chapter of the book, Werner offers questions for reflection as well as concrete action steps you can take to understand your purpose, which she says is “not so much what you do with your life but how you do it.” Discerning this purpose is a process not just of self-reflection, however, but of listening—of paying attention to what God is calling you to. It’s an important message in our culture, which she says has lost its way when it comes to purpose and self-knowledge. “Our society tells us that we’ll find these things in the right job, the right relationship, the right house, the right amount of money, or the right level or prestige.”
Werner reiterates that while jobs, relationships, homes, and money are good things, there are no one “right” ones, and they are also not our purpose. Instead, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says, our purpose is “to know and love God.” Each of us has a unique path toward living out that purpose, and Werner’s book is aimed at helping readers figure out what that path is—and have the courage to take it.
Understanding Your Worth
Many women, myself included, struggle with perfectionism and comparison—which Werner notes are ways in which we define our worth by what we do, not who we are. But, as Catholics, we know that our worth doesn’t come from anything we do. Indeed, we can never achieve perfection on our own, and we can never earn God’s love. The good news is that we don’t have to. God already loves us more than we can imagine, and our worth doesn’t come from our achievements. It comes from the simple fact that we were created by God, in his image, out of his deep and unconditional love for us. As Werner says, “Being loved by God gives us more worth than any semblance of perfection we could achieve on our own.”
Understanding this truth is life-changing, Werner says. When we allow it “to infuse our actions and give them deeper meaning … we embrace the command to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ (Mk 12:31), because we operate from the conviction that our worth and our neighbor’s worth come from being loved by God.” When we understand that we are loved by God and that every person we meet is also loved by God, we can care for ourselves better, and we can care for others better. We can embrace the life God gave us, following the purpose for which he made us.
Taryn Oesch DeLong is a Catholic wife and mother in North Carolina. After 10 years in nonprofit and editorial work, she left the workplace to be a stay-at-home mom and freelance editor and writer. She encourages women to live out their feminine genius as the managing editor of Catholic Women in Business, a FEMM fertility awareness instructor, and a contributor to publications for Catholic women. Taryn enjoys curling up with a cup of Earl Grey and a good novel, playing the piano, and taking walks in the sunshine with her family. Connect with her on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, or read her blog, Everyday Roses.