lucky number four.

My friend Leah gave me my copy of

Love Does

. I didn't buy it myself. I think that's important to note here because, while she gave it to me as a going away present when I moved, I'm convinced she didn't give it to me just for the sake of giving me something before I left. I think she saw an opportunity to share the inspiration. Like, "Oh, you're moving? Here, have this book."

I remember when she was reading it, she told me that she thought it should be required for everyone to read it. Because people get stuck in their own ordinary lives and the book basically shouts, "LOOK HOW AWESOME YOUR LIFE COULD BE." Which is probably why the tagline reads: "Discover a secretly incredibly life in an ordinary world."

When I read it, I had the same reaction. People need to read this book.

So, the idea behind my giveaway was to do the same thing Leah did. Only, mine was more of an, "Oh, it's Tuesday? Here, have this book." I wanted to do more than just provide a link to Amazon, where you can purchase your own copy. I wanted to give one away. And, since I'm not willing to part with mine–especially now that it's signed, I bought another one.

I wasn't looking for a way to promote my blog or get more page views. I was looking for a way to share inspiration. And that's why I'm having such a hard time having to choose just one. I wish I could afford to say, leave a comment and get a book instead of leave a comment and maybe get a book. But, you know, not everyone can be Oprah.

Honestly, I left the comments open for a whole week, mainly because I was avoiding the part where I'd have to actually use the random number generator to choose that one. But I did, and here's how that worked: I assigned a number to each comment (first comment = 1, second comment = 2, and so on), and included a few comments I got on Facebook too. (Edited to clarify: You were included once if you commented and I had a way to contact you.) Then I plugged the numbers in and this is what happened:

lucky #4 = amy joy! (: