Book Review: When the Heart Waits

My blogging/book club friend, Catherine, recommended this book by the outstanding author, Sue Monk Kidd (author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair). When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life's Sacred Questions is a great book to read if you are in any kind of figurative waiting room. I feel like I'm in a waiting room, wondering what I should do about my futile writing efforts. Attempting to distance myself from it, I even applied for a part-time instructional aide position, but received no call for an interview (probably my twelve years out of the workforce goes against me). I am waiting to figure out what I'm supposed to do with my life and who I'm supposed to be.

Here are a few nuggets I gleaned from this book:

"Lots of times we need questions more than answers. Questions such as these: Is there more to me than the roles I live out? Can I open up to my identity apart from them, to the knowledge that I'm more than the personas I create?"

The author credits Martin Marty with the metaphor of the "white-out," and she writes: "There are white-outs in waiting as well, times when, for whatever reason, hope vanishes and we're disoriented, unable to discern the shapes of God on the horizon, unable to trust that there's anything beyond our pain."

She writes of the mutual questions shared with her mentor, Beatrice: "What is this life of ours all about? Why are we here? What kind of being are we? ... What would it mean for us to really love? How am I experiencing God at this moment in my life? What darkness in me needs to be confronted and transformed? A fellow questioner helps us learn to live our questions instead of suppressing them."

I could stand more patience in sitting with my questions. In fact, I need more patience all around. Patience with my children, my husband, my life, and my lack of direction. I want to wait well. Perhaps this book has given me some ammunition for approaching that desire.