Amazing book! This is a book that needs to come into your life at the right time. If you are not connecting to it, then it is not the right time for you to read it. This book came to me at the perfect time and helped me to get through a long period of waiting and change. I don't recommend reading this book straight through quickly. It needs to be read slowly, one section at time.

Sometimes a book comes to you in the exact season you need it. That is this book for me. I’ve been waiting for what feels like forever, for my life to gain depth, meaning, potency, but it turns out the waiting itself is all of those things and more.

Sue Monk Kidd doesn’t just tell you to wait on the Lord, but teaches you how. I’m forever grateful for this book, and I know I’ll be coming back to it many times over.

"It's always difficult and risky to try to put soulmaking into words." - Kidd. This is a worthy disclaimer in the preface. Kidd's description of crisis and dispair and spirituality sometimes lean on the heavy, waxing, maudlin side - and if I had not experienced such times myself, I would abhor their description. However, I've been there as almost all of us have, and the few moments of tangled emotionl overkill are well worth the many nuggets nestled in between. I am thoroughly enjoying this and maybe I cringe b/c I see entirely too much of myself in her lower moments. She has an artist's soul for sure, and I am deeply enjoying that kinship in her writing. I am only a couple chapters in and alrady have a fistfull of treasures:

"Thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and ideas will serve as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life's morning--for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will have become a lie." - C.G. Jung

"The fullness of one's soul evolves slowly. We're asked to go within to gestate the newness God is trying to form; we're asked to collaborate with grace. That doesn't mean that grace isn't a gift. Nor does it mean that the deliberate process of waiting produces grace. But waiting does provide the time and space necessary for grace to happen. Spirit needs a container to pour itself into. Grace needs an arena in which to incarnate. Waiting can be such a place if we allow it." - Kidd

"Would I see that waiting, with all its quiet passion and hidden fire, is the real crucible of spiritual transformation?...Waiting is thus both passive and passionate. It's a vibrant, contemplative work." - Kidd

THIS IS MY FAVORITE THUS FAR: WAITING...IS THE REAL CRUCIBLE OF SPIRITUAL TRANSFORMATION. Too true when you think of God's plan "for the fullness of time." The long awaited fulfillment of prophecy, all those barren women pleading to God, the emprisonments, the wanderings, the exiles, the captivities.

"We tend to forget, I think, the power of a symbol to mediate grace and move us towards change." - Kidd. Too true. Kidd's is a cocoon, mine has always been an egg and only this year have I been attacked by unexpected circles/openings - a black hole, a birth canal, an internal oculus.

"We went on to heaven the long way round." & "Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried." - Henry David Thoreau. This 'long way round' is the nature of life, and it calls to mind the Exodus yet again. Again, a theme of all life but especially mine, I have my eye out for the Exodus in all things.

This book may come off as out there and a bit woohoo, but I think there are some very profound insights in it, especially for the modern reader.

This is one of my top five favorite books of all time.

I know something about waiting, and yet, I know nothing about waiting. This book reopened my eyes to the holiness to be found in waiting.

Loved this book. Such an incredible balm for my "mid-life" soul (and empty-nester heart). One of the most thought-provoking books I have read in quite some time.

In this book Sue Monk Kidd shares her own process of navigating her mid-life crisis, through a spiritual and religious lens, specifically Episcopalian. Formerly Baptist, and most definitely Southern, Kidd reveals many of the obstacles of her personality and social upbringing and how she challenged them to become a more authentic person, using scripture and the works of other spiritual explorers as her anchors in her inner storm. What Kidd offers is a pathway for others who follow. This is actually a perfect book to read during the Lenten season, as Kidd starts by plunging into the dark places inside the human heart and spirit, and relying on faith that she will come through on the other side back into the light. Lovely prose, as always.

I loved this book because of the time I read it in my life when things were just not happening the way I thought there would professionally. Since I am comfortable in the reflection part of life, this books reminds you that the waiting period is where alot of your growth and learning occurs.

One of my favorite books I've read and often encourage others to read it too.

I am kicking myself for "discovering" this book a year after writing my book on midlife marriage. I would have quoted liberally from this. It's brilliant.

I was excited to read this as I enjoy the writings of Sue Monk Kidd. I found this to be heavy reading though. It was definitely thought provoking and I'm glad I read it as I think it was a good read for this time in my life. I didn't agree with everything in the book but it was an interesting read.

I love Sue Monk Kidd's way of writing. She is winsome and thoughtful and inspires me to think much more deeply about the world around me.

This book, in particular, compelled me into a greater appreciation of waiting. Waiting is a spiritual practice in so many ways, and it's necessary to a robust life.

I quoted many excerpts from this book in my small group on John Ortberg's book Soul Keeping. Believe it or not, the two books dovetailed beautifully!

I believe this book has it's merits; however, she uses a lot of familiar life stories or representatives to prove her point which is hazy in the first place. I am not a fan of poetry because I don't get what the author is trying to say, that's exactly how I feel about this author's intention. I believe if you get poetry you'll get Sue's point more clearly than I did; however, going through the mid-life thing I clued into her meaning alright.