I ran hot and cold on this book. I started it months and months (years?) ago, put it down and picked it up every once in awhile mostly when I had finished a book and didn’t have another waiting in the wings. Then a reading group I belong to was reading a similar contemplative book on finding one’s spiritual identity written as this one is from a Catholic point of view and I remembered I had never finished Sue Monk Kidd’s book, so I rather reluctantly returned to it. I finished the last hundred pages or so in a couple of days and found it finally spoke to me. Maybe because her writing is so much better than the other very well known and respected author’s. Maybe because her journey was written from direct personal experience, It was much more specific than the more generalized treatment of this subject by Richard Rohr. But probably because I was finally ready to listen to what her experience taught her and because the current dark night of our country’s soul has me very often depressed and wondering how we are going to get through these times without a return to civil violence. Whatever the reasons, I discovered in her experience a plausible path not to fix things but a way to live through them. And for that I can with some reservation, give it a much more positive recommendation than I once would have. If you’re looking for a good story, read her novels. But if you are curious about a person’s journey through a dark time to discovering a more spiritually mature sense of self, you might find worthwhile insight here.

I like this territory, but I like Ann Lamott's take on it better.

You can't help but take your time with this book. Kidd examines the symbolic with beautiful prose, and carries you through your own spiritual caverns, teaching you to still yourself and touch the walls of your own heart, even when you are panicked by your blindness.

I "discovered" Sue Monk Kidd when I finally read her breakout novel and watched the movie, "The Secret Life of Bees." I enjoyed so many things about her writing that I wanted to read more and was delighted to learn that she writes nonfiction as well as fiction.

In "When the Heart Waits," Kidd takes us along on her spiritual journey of discovering who she really is. She offers no simple answers or shortcuts. Like the ancients, she finds the spiritual disciplines of solitude and simplicity essential in finding our true selves. Waiting is not something we do well in 21st century North America; just as instant gratification is a reality for our physical needs, we expect spiritual transformation to happen on our timeline, not God's. But Kidd reminds that the transformation happens in the waiting - in the dark places - as illustrated by the cocoon and butterfly that emerges after a long period of darkness and waiting.

I rarely find a book (other than reference) that I want to keep going back to, but this is one.

I would recommend this book to someone (especially a woman, probably) experiencing a mid-life spiritual crisis (at whatever age one thinks of themselves as mid-life!) Kidd shares, rather personally, the stages of her own mid-life crisis and how she endured it by learning the spiritual lessons of waiting. Spiritual growth can't be forced or hurried. She uses the image of the butterfly who has to spend a great amount of time in the dark cocoon before emerging...that time is essential if we are to become most authentically ourselves.

Many nice quotes, including this one from Thomas Keating: "The greatest accomplishment in life is to be what we are, which is God's idea of what He wanted us to be when He brought us into being...Accepting that gift is accepting God's will for us, and in its acceptance is found the path to growth and ultimate fulfillment."

And from Rilke: "the person who suffers needs to stay with it, must not be a waster of sorrows...the more still, more patient and more open we are when we are sad, so much the deeper and so much the more unswervingly does the new go into us, so much the better do we make it ours, so much the more will it be our destiny."

Great book on the importance of waiting, non action, and wu wei.
Also offers insights into the nature of prayer as understood by the desert fathers.
(prayer is not something we do - it happens at a very deep level if we can hear it)
Very soulful book.

Spiritual crises. We all go through them. However, I never heard of a "Mid-life spiritual crises" until I read "When the Heart Waits". Recommended to me by Author, Ken Gire, I saw myself as if staring into a mirror.

Sue Monk Kidd, describes her own mid-life spiritual crises, with poignant, detailed stories of her own journey. Using the symbols that gave her a depth of understanding into her own soul, she takes you step by step down the path that completely altered her life, and set her on a new path and season of her life.

I recommend this book highly to anyone experiencing "North Winds" that have seemed to stir your insides like an unexpected tornado, and have left you feeling disoriented as you question the very foundation and system of all you've believed. You may not find answers, but what you will find, is clarity and insight through the reflective questions that she offers.

I absolutely love this book. I will keep it and refer to it over and over as the years go by. And I anticipate re-reading it ever so often just to remember its magnitude and important part it has played in my life to help me to find/identify my True Self.

All about "soul making" and one's relationship with midlife. Very powerful book for me. Had to reconcile the numerous Biblical stories and scripture for someone who usually is repelled by too much of that...but I was able to find so much in the book for myself.

This was recommended to me by a friend. This book about the author's spiritual journey through a mid-life crisis had some interesting insights. I really agreed with her point about all of us being impatient. We want everything now and don't want to wait. She proposes that during some of the things we go through or while searching for answers to questions we need to be patient and wait for the crisis to end or for the answer to come.

I didn’t realize that this book predates The Dance of the Dissident Daughter by a couple of years. That made it even more interesting to me because that means it also predates Sue Monk Kidd’s awakening. As another reviewer suggested, it was fascinating to see her struggle, to read her trying to force “new wine into old bottles” as the change literature says.

Like the reviewer, Marianne, I was caught off guard a bit by the pretty much nonstop references to Scripture, but this book was fascinating for this time in my life, especially in its references to the still point within and the concept of active waiting.

Over 15 years ago a spiritual director pointed me to this book. Timing matters. I know that I read through Monk's personal journey, but it didn't resonate with me then. Now every page found home in me.

I cannot really read without writing and underlining, (nor can I write without reading). Happily, I realized this was a keeper and returned the library copy and got one of my own to enjoy and digest at leisure. As I write about life changes and the process of transition, I found Monk's thoughtful and personal approach wise and honest. She speaks of her midlife passage, which for her was her 40's. In my early 50's I find myself just now catching up to many of her soul experiences. Lovely weaving of one woman's story of change with the wisdom of a variety of other writers and thinkers. A treasure.

update: 4.5 stars. Even better the third time through. What a wise and honest companion. Thank you, Sue.