Praying on Empty

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In  lieu of a Book Review this week and a regular post, here is the Introduction to my latest book . . .
A fat mother groundhog lives in the backyard of my convent. The other day I glanced out my window and thought I saw her standing like a statue. But no. It was an enormous bird! I grabbed my camera and dashed out the backdoor. Too late—the exotic creature flew off and disappeared. This experience is the perfect image for the subject of this book. God is sometimes as elusive as that bird. We yearn to come close to him, yet we can’t. Either God hides for some unfathomable reason, or we don’t have the knack of capturing him—not for a photo but for a heart-to-heart talk.

If the title Praying on Empty has seized your attention, you probably know what I’m talking about. You used to like to pray. You felt connected to God and enveloped by divine love. Sometimes you had a flash of insight about God, life in general, or your own life. A Scripture passage spoke to you with a new and personal meaning. Praying and singing with other Christians at Mass made your heart swell with joy. Prayer filled you with peace and seemed to empower you with the strength to face any trials. You felt good . . . and even holy.



All of a sudden your prayer dried up! You lost the sense of God’s presence, could hardly wait until prayer was finished, and maybe stopped praying entirely. It was as though you were in a desert and your car came to a sputtering halt with no gas station in sight. If this describes your prayer life right now—or will sometime in the future—don’t panic!   Click to continue

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