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Not at all what I expected! I have been wanting to read Sue Monk Kidd, but think of her as a voice for the Sacred Feminine, the Feminine Face of the Divine. I was so surprised, when I happened to choose this book to start with (pure chance--I wasn't going in order of her publication dates) to find this early (maybe first?) book to be about her very mainstream Christian foundation. I appreciated her struggle to move from rigid, by-the-book Christian to an inner-focused, more loving and fruitful sense of God. However for me, the talk of even the word God, and especially the constant referral to "Him," and the Christian aspects, focus on the Bible, and many of her specific struggles were not at all relatable. Still, I was touched and intrigued by her process of spiritual development. Aspects of how she used Biblical portions and other readings reminded me of the practical, applied spirituality of, say, 12-Step Programs with do-able actions of how to release blocks to God/Spirit/Higher Power and resentments towards others. I could feel her integrity, profound yearning and dedication. Her writing here is not eloquent nor polished, but adequate enough that I was, by the end, moved by it. I was utterly struck by her ability to enter into Biblical scenes and experience imaginal transformation. Fascinating! She offers these rich imagining visualizations as a tool she developed spontaneously, but I wonder how many people will be able to have such vivid, real, deep experiences of both being "in" the settings as well as getting the transformational learnings. Nonetheless, that was striking to me. Especially toward the final chapter or two, her moving words about gratefulness and stories about open-heartedness quickened a longing in me for that experience of immanence which she has cultivated and thus by which she is often graced.
