5.0 out of 5 stars Completely inspiring, relatable and practical!

I discovered this book during a conference when I heard the author speak. After hearing and watching her, I thought, if she writes anything like she speaks, this will be a great book! I was not wrong!! Not only did this book inspire me to deepen my spiritual practice, as well as give me helpful ways to approach this, but her story is not so much different from mine, or, I'm sure, many others. We have all had trying times in our lives when we have felt or experienced something similar to what Maureen shares. Her beautiful story unfolds, and throughout, she continues to explain how she immediately felt about things--not always so spiritual (like many of us), and then, how she was guided and followed that guidance, sometimes less consciously than she was aware of, to learn to allow forgiveness, peace and happiness into her life. I enjoy reading non-fiction and biographies and learning from other's experiences. However, the icing on the cake is her writing. WOW! So exquisitely descriptive! The similes and metaphors she uses are priceless! She writes like many of us think but can never express, so it was very cathartic for me and downright enjoyable and entertaining!

I highly recommend this book because it is simply captivating!! At the end of each chapter, she provides these wonderful tools so that we can take what she has learned and put it into action in our own lives if we so choose. My idea of a good time is talking with others or reading books and having mind-blowing a-ha moments. LOVE IT! And there were many for me here! It was fascinating to read her story and process things in my life that I didn't know how to process or even think of. Reading this book was like sitting and talking with your best friend the ups, the downs, the good, the bad, the irony in life, and being able to laugh about it, and sometimes cry. It's about the silver lining that is, so many times, not always visible but yet is always there.

When I was about halfway through the book, I was literally dreading the thought that it was going to have to end! There's a relationship that forms, and you are transported through the story to every place and every event. I have read a multitude of books, and I have loved a number of them, but it is the rare book that forms this type of bond; this type of excursion from simply reading to experiencing. Hence this wonderous quote from a bedtime story that I read to my son while he was growing up...“Now, I take full blame for all that came next. For I continued the story...but departed the text.” ― Berkeley Breathed, Goodnight Opus

Thank you, Maureen, for sharing your story and yourself for the good of others. It certainly did me good, and I am a forever fan!! Please keep writing!!

Kim@northeastus