God Alone Is Enough

I can't remember where I first heard of Claudia Mair Burney but recently her book was reviewed chapter by chapter (be sure to check out some of the other reviews) over the course of a few weeks on various blogs. I was hooked by the very first review of the blog tour. I knew I had to read this book so I added it to my Amazon shopping cart waiting until I had enough books to get free shipping. I continued to read the chapter reviews and was surprised when Claudia emailed me for my address to offer me a copy of her book for reading and reviewing.

Claudia starts out with a chapter long biography of St. Teresa of Avila; I was interested in learning more about Teresa's life as my family spent the night in Avila when we traveled through Spain while living in Germany. We went into a free museum but were unable to fully appreciate it since my high school Spanish was way too rusty. So I was entranced learning about this saint from the walled city of Avila.

                         

Then the book got spiritual and deep which was hard to digest in one reading. I will need to go back and reread this book in smaller bites to fully understand and appreciate the spiritual journey with Teresa. I loved the analogy of the garden and feel it's one that can be appreciated even by those (like myself) without  a green thumb.This is not a book to be rushed but rather one in which to linger on a  prayer pilgrimage with a saintly woman. I see this as a potential book for our parish's moms' ministry although I wish it had built-in study questions. This book will be staying by my bedside for some time so I can continue to soak up all the wisdom to be found between its pages.

 (These are my children back in April 2002; yes it was cold in Avila in springtime)