A spiritual telling of the author's personal crisis and awakening to an authentic self. A warm and wise voice that draws on authors, philosophers, the bible , friends and personal experience . She expresses so well how one comes to realize what is true and what is unnecessary in living. Very important articulation of what I feel and know I must explore.

I loved this book and would recommend it to anyone who is going through a change and questioning it's pace, purpose and/or meaning.

"When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the Spirit laughs for what it has found" (118).

"Love consists of this, that two solitudes protect, and border, and salute each other" (167).

"I'd spent a lot of my life wearing masks to fit the occasion, being everything to everybody even if that mean being someone other than myself. Now, after long months of passionate wait and labor pains, it seemed that I was birthing more of my True Self. The real thing" (197).

"The tree full of butterflies spoke to me of the authenticity beginning to unfold inside of me, the wobbly new wings opening up...newness in my life...learning to lover herself and be in touch with her soul, to be here now, to become Delight and play with God" (198).

"still journey" ... "Overcoming my resistance to waiting meant coming to terms with the 'still journey.' I would have to give up the compulsion to keep my line moving at the world's pace. I would need to find my own pace, one that flowed with with rhythms of the earth and the Spirit, not with the frenzy of modern life." 11/28/09

Read again Jan 2020, with these results: https://lunawings.blogspot.com/2020/0...

For Lent this year, I am looking at spiritual direction and whether this is an avenue I would like to explore. This book has helped me focus a bit on what direction was for Kidd and therefore what it could be for me.

I had forgotten that I had read this book before - maybe two years ago. It did not make the book less interesting or less helpful.

Kidd takes her readers through a few months of her life and what it was like for her to explore her spiritual side. She is a thoughtful, good writer who is seems willing to share all of her feelings. I am not sure I could be so open with personal information.

I've always thought of Sue Monk Kidd as a novelist, even though I was only somewhat familiar with her work. When I came across this book on spirituality, I was intrigued. Sue writes about what she calls her winter of discontent. Others may refer to it as a mid-life crisis.

At the beginning of the book, life seems to have lost its meaning for her. Not knowing what to do or where to turn, she takes a long winter afternoon walk (taking a walk as such a time resonates well with me). During her walk, she discovers a cocoon, which she becomes the glue for her story as she brings home the stick holding the cocoon and watches and waits until the butterfly appears. Along the way, she learns a lot about waiting and challenges our society's demand for immediate results.

Throughout her book, she draws upon natural science (as she links her story into the story of the cocoon), the Bible and the spiritual knowledge from the "great cloud of witnesses" who have gone before us, folk tales and down-home stories.

Some quotes: Waiting and grace: "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." (13)

Thoreau: "Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried (19)

"Creativity flourishes not in certainty but in questions. Growth germinates not in tent dwellings but in upheaval. Yet the seduction is always security rather than venturing, instant knowing rather than deliberate waiting." (25)

On Weddings: 'Walking an aisle can be a marvelous thing, as long as we acknowledge that the aisle doesn't end at the altar but goes on winding through life.

"One of the mistakes Christians are fond of making is trying to be more spiritual than God.
-Archbishop William Temple (27)

"I heard Marion Woodman, an expert in addictive behaviors, put it like this: The natural gradient in us is toward growth. Whatever we use repeatedly and compulsively to stop that growth is our particular addiction. (30-31)

"There is more to life than increasing its speed."Gandhi (31)

"The pain won't kill you," he said, "but running from it might." -a counselor (40)

"But the question here is whether we've been so busy saving souls that we've neglected the unfolding of the God-image within them." (49)

"Accomplishments and achievements are well and god, but they need to flow out of a healthy motivation. Otherwise, when they cease we experience an empty darkness." (62)

Kierkegaard: "courage isn't the absence of despair and fear but the capacity to move ahead in spite of them."

Jung once pointed out that religion can easily become a defense against an experience of God."(90)

"security was a denial of life" -A preacher (109)

"There should always be more waiting than striving in a Christian's prayer." Evelyn Underhill (123)

"The assumption of spirituality is that always God is doing something before I know it. So the task is not to get God to do something I think needs to be done, but to become aware of what God is doing so that I can respond to it and participate and take delight in it." -Eugene Peterson (129)

"our stories are the best "bread" we can offer one another" (154)

"The past is a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there." John Claypool in a sermon (192)

I was quite impressed by how down to earth yet insightful this book was. I kept underlining a lot of it (even though I am not keen on doing that but this one had SO much to say). I am not going through a midlife crisis, but I have been undergoing lots of strange crisis in my life, and I am in a season of uncertainty and waiting (halfway through so when I started reading it, I could say "o yes, I've been there" and find insights on that period of my life). It's so good I am sending it an ocean away to a friend so she can read it.

I read this book as part of the women's book group at my church. It was okay but I felt that I was at a different point in my spiritual journey than the author was and much of what she had to say did not speak to me. I did find myself taking some notes for later discussion but realized that most of the quotes I was drawn to were by people that she was quoting...not her own words. We discussed the book at book group one night after reading a third of it and as a group decided not to finish the book. Her spiritual journey was really her own unique one, and after three chapters no longer held my interest. It was redundant, echoing many thoughts I have already pondered at a different point in my life, and did not bring me any new insight.

Sue Monk Kidd articulates her spiritual and psychological struggle through her midlife journey. Her quests are grounded in the Bible, Christian spiritual writing, contemporary spitituality and psychology. She shares some profound experiences of personal spiritual breakthroughs.
She compares the "waiting process" of becoming your "true Self' and giving birth to the Christ within as the catapillar developing in chrysallis of the cocoon. During this waiting time being nutured by Mother nature until ready to be transformed or (re)birthed into a butterfly.( by a "mothering" God to teach us birth and rebirth).
Any one looking for spiritual insight can benefit from "When The Heart Waits".

I read this for the first time in October of 2006, actually -- it was loaned to me by my friend Lucy. Around the holidays I went out and bought myself my own copy (and one for my mother) and proceeded to start re-reading it, bit by bit. At the time, I was expecting a child through adoption and was trying to actively wait with patience and grace, which was really a challenge. This isn't why Sue Monk Kidd wrote her book, but that's the beauty of books -- we bring ourselves to them and sometimes find what we need. Her spirituality regarding waiting in our hurried-up world was a much-needed lens for me. Her writing is also quite lovely and she made me want to open up and write about my own experience.

People probably think I give 5 stars to every book I read. Maybe the timing for me is 5 stars, but it's still a super book. I took my time reading it, taking it all in. "When the heart waits, the Great Mystery begins." Once again, thank Sue Monk Kidd for sharing this sacred season of your life.

This is one of the most spiritual refreshing books I’ve read in a long time. I mostly listened to it on morning walks but would come back to the hard copy to write things down or underline. I appreciated Sue Monk Kidd’s vulnerability and resonated with her journey to appreciate seasons of waiting and allowing space for her authentic self to emerge in God. I was challenged and deeply encouraged. She won me over quickly by quoting Thomas Merton, Hildegard von Bingen, Henri Nouwen and many other spiritual writers.

“The soul craves experiences that offer it the rich depths of God. Silence, solitude, holy leisure, simplicity, prayer, journaling, the Eucharist, rituals that touch the space of Mystery, symbols and images, the Bible, laughter, delight in the Presence, deep encounters with creation, and the merciful coming together of human hearts. All these feed the soul, producing energy for living the transformed life. When I fail to feed my soul, I soon notice that I have less strength for living authentically…That’s when I need to return to deeper pockets and replenish my soul. There’s truth in Psalm 23: allowing oneself to be led by still waters really does restore the soul.”

This book has been a God-send to me throughout the years. I first read it during a difficult time in my life and it was instrumental in pulling me through. I have since bought copies for friends and relatives, some of whom feel the same way I do. For anyone dealing with a personal crisis or has ever faced an internal struggle at all, this book is a wonderful tool.

Read this book years ago for a class in spiritual direction I took in grad school. Loved it and plan to reread it at some point