When I first received from a friend a copy of "Come Inside: Discovering Your Purpose" by Janice M. Cooper, I had the thought that it's not for me. After all, I had read "A New Earth: Awakening Your life's Purpose" by Echart Tolle and "The Purpose Driven Life" by, Rick Warren. Once I began reading the stimulating "Foreword" to the book by Riche' Richardson,

an Associate Professor at Cornell University, and praiseworthy testimonies of seventeen former students who had taken the Empowerment course taught by the author. I knew I had to read every page of this book.

This small but big-ideal book is partly autobiographical and saturated with scriptures. Something about reading this book just seems profoundly important, whether one agrees with the content or not. "Come Inside: Discovering Your Purpose" is self-discovery as much as it is about purpose. To know one's self is to know one's purpose, i.e., the reason for which he or she was created. The author asserts that it is by reaching inside of one's self that one discovers his or her purpose.

In the closing chapter of this book captioned "knowing our God Given Purpose as It Relates to Race and Gender," the author recounts her experience as an African American woman serving as a pastor in a male dominated profession. She demonstrates how a woman who knows her purpose can perform with effectiveness while simultaneously adding to the consciousness of the human race. In the closing sentence of the book, the author writes, "My passion is His purpose." Hopefully the reader will be inspired to discover and/or become passionate about his or her purpose. "Come Inside: Discovering Your Purpose" is an outstanding book and I recommend it as a must read.