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This Beautiful Truth: How God's Goodness Breaks into Our Darkness
We live in a broken world. Amid the daily realities of sickness and isolation, disappointment and pain, it can be profoundly difficult to grasp the real goodness of God. But this is where God breaks into our darkness with beauty. In the wonder of creation, in art or film, story or song, in the kindness of his people and the good they create, God breaks into our pain in a tangible way, teaching us to trust his kindness and hope for his healing. Beauty is a voice singing into our suffering, beckoning us toward restoration.
In This Beautiful Truth , Sarah Clarkson shares her own encounters with beauty in the midst of her decade-long struggle with mental illness, depression, and doubt. In a voice both vulnerable and reflective, she paints a compelling picture of the God who reaches out to us in a real and powerful way through the "taste and see" goodness of what he has made and what he continues to create amid our darkness. "To recognize and trust God's gift in pain," she writes, "empowers us to create and love as powerful witnesses to God's healing love in a hopeless world."
If you want to renew your capacity to recognize and encounter God's beauty in your life, this hope-filled book will show you the way.
In This Beautiful Truth , Sarah Clarkson shares her own encounters with beauty in the midst of her decade-long struggle with mental illness, depression, and doubt. In a voice both vulnerable and reflective, she paints a compelling picture of the God who reaches out to us in a real and powerful way through the "taste and see" goodness of what he has made and what he continues to create amid our darkness. "To recognize and trust God's gift in pain," she writes, "empowers us to create and love as powerful witnesses to God's healing love in a hopeless world."
If you want to renew your capacity to recognize and encounter God's beauty in your life, this hope-filled book will show you the way.
212 pages, Paperback
Published June 8, 2021
303 people are currently reading
4141 people want to read
About the author
Sarah Clarkson
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There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name
This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 470 reviews
May 31, 2021
I wanted to love this book. The description caught my eye immediately and I related to so much of Sarah's journey through anxiety. Unfortunately, I can't confidently recommend this book because of some profound theological disagreements that I fear could be very harmful to readers lacking in discernment.
The first big red flag for me was when the author tells a story about some lectures she heard on the topic of hell.
"But the professor began with hell, and before long, I thought perhaps I was in it. We sped through as many historical interpretations as we could in a morning. Hell as conscious torment for eternity. Hell as annihilation (by rejecting God we ultimately reject existence). Choice after death. Universal salvation. He worked ruthlessly through each version, beginning with those that seemed “kinder” or “soft,” but each of these he deemed inadequate, even annihilation itself, because they did not satisfy God’s justice."
I believe it is very clear in the Bible that hell is a literal, eternal place. And I, along with every person, deserve to go there. Who are we, wretched sinners, to decide that this is unjust or cruel? The discomfort that we feel about this topic is a gift. We can find peace with God through Jesus. But our feelings are not a reliable guide about these things. There are actual answers in the Bible, even if there are also difficult things to understand. God is sovereign in our suffering and we can find comfort in that even if we don't understand fully all that it means.
For a book called, "This Beautiful Truth" I would have expected more about how there actually are real, solid answers-truth- in God's word. We can actually find hope in God's Word, which brings me to another issue I had- the veneration of icons and elevation of liturgy and personal experience. These things are clearly important to Sarah and a key part of her journey through her OCD. This is also where it became plain to me that I come to this topic from a totally different theological framework than Sarah as I am a reformed Christian. The idea of the beauty of God's story and world speaking to us through our pain is one I can get behind. However, this beauty and love of God does not diminish His great sovereignty and justice. These things can coexist and even be a comfort in our darkness- as I know from my own struggles. In the midst of anxiety, I find no comfort in looking to myself and my experiences, but to the Word of God and the truth I find there. Though our hearts may swell as we enjoy beautiful things and experiences, God's word is truly sufficient for our life and Godliness. Unfortunately, I did not find as much of that conveyed in this book as I had hoped. Sarah is a good writer and I was truly drawn into her story, but I cannot give it a hearty recommend.
The first big red flag for me was when the author tells a story about some lectures she heard on the topic of hell.
"But the professor began with hell, and before long, I thought perhaps I was in it. We sped through as many historical interpretations as we could in a morning. Hell as conscious torment for eternity. Hell as annihilation (by rejecting God we ultimately reject existence). Choice after death. Universal salvation. He worked ruthlessly through each version, beginning with those that seemed “kinder” or “soft,” but each of these he deemed inadequate, even annihilation itself, because they did not satisfy God’s justice."
I believe it is very clear in the Bible that hell is a literal, eternal place. And I, along with every person, deserve to go there. Who are we, wretched sinners, to decide that this is unjust or cruel? The discomfort that we feel about this topic is a gift. We can find peace with God through Jesus. But our feelings are not a reliable guide about these things. There are actual answers in the Bible, even if there are also difficult things to understand. God is sovereign in our suffering and we can find comfort in that even if we don't understand fully all that it means.
For a book called, "This Beautiful Truth" I would have expected more about how there actually are real, solid answers-truth- in God's word. We can actually find hope in God's Word, which brings me to another issue I had- the veneration of icons and elevation of liturgy and personal experience. These things are clearly important to Sarah and a key part of her journey through her OCD. This is also where it became plain to me that I come to this topic from a totally different theological framework than Sarah as I am a reformed Christian. The idea of the beauty of God's story and world speaking to us through our pain is one I can get behind. However, this beauty and love of God does not diminish His great sovereignty and justice. These things can coexist and even be a comfort in our darkness- as I know from my own struggles. In the midst of anxiety, I find no comfort in looking to myself and my experiences, but to the Word of God and the truth I find there. Though our hearts may swell as we enjoy beautiful things and experiences, God's word is truly sufficient for our life and Godliness. Unfortunately, I did not find as much of that conveyed in this book as I had hoped. Sarah is a good writer and I was truly drawn into her story, but I cannot give it a hearty recommend.
June 5, 2021
I once heard the podcaster Anne Bogel say that a memoir written just because something interesting happened to a person isn't enough for her. Authors compose the best memoirs after they have had time to ruminate on their lives and extract meaning from them. As Kierkegaard said, "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."
In This Beautiful Truth, Sarah Clarkson shares her hard-won understanding of suffering and intersecting breakthroughs of God's beauty during her years walking with a rare form of OCD that onset when she was 17.
With delicate intimacy, Sarah intersperses an account of her seasons of despair and moments of joy with a defense of God's specific and personal goodness in the face of obvious evil.
I definitely plan to reread this book and share it with a number of friends who struggle with mental illness.
I received an advance copy of this book from Baker Books for review.
In This Beautiful Truth, Sarah Clarkson shares her hard-won understanding of suffering and intersecting breakthroughs of God's beauty during her years walking with a rare form of OCD that onset when she was 17.
With delicate intimacy, Sarah intersperses an account of her seasons of despair and moments of joy with a defense of God's specific and personal goodness in the face of obvious evil.
I definitely plan to reread this book and share it with a number of friends who struggle with mental illness.
I received an advance copy of this book from Baker Books for review.
May 4, 2021
Five things about This Beautiful Truth by Sarah Clarkson. 5/5 ⭐️s
This book will be released June 8th.
1. The first word that came to mind while reading this book was vulnerability. Wow! Sarah is so vulnerable in this memoir of her life with a rare form of OCD ( she writes: “mental illness” is such a tame, clinical term for what is actually an intimate disintegration of inward identity.) and theological exploration of the healing and liberating power of beauty and love.
2. I first encountered Sarah Clarkson through her love letter to books, Book Girl. From that point on I followed her on Instagram where she shared a great deal of her life, studying theology at Oxford, marrying her dreamy Danish husband, having her adorable children, reading gorgeous poems through advent...she was sharing. But in this book she reveals what Instagram followers don’t see. She’s just writing her story. I seriously doubt this was intentional. Yet, It is such a clear example and reminder that looks can be so entirely deceiving. Repeatedly she refers in the book to experiences I remember as posted moments in my feed. They looked enviable. The lived experience was different.
3. But this isn’t only a memoir. This is a theological defense of a new approach to theodicy (“the way we defend God‘s goodness and power in so evil and aching a world”... why do we suffer? Why does God allow it? Where is he when we are hurt?”) She explores the inaccuracies, limitations, and damages inflicted by popular theodicies that suggest these experiences are simply the will of God ( The longer I studied the more I began to resent the way the theology [addresses] pain with a list of arguments and doctrinal rationales - your baby may have died, but everything works together for good. You may have a mental illness, Paul had a thorn in his flesh and God left it there for a greater purpose. You may have been abused but didn’t make you compassionate? ... I sat in the library and wondered if God calls evil, if my pain was somehow necessary to the plot of his story. But then, two great graces came to me.”) And it is the revelation and argument in favor of these two great graces that Clarkson so eloquently and compassionately unfolds for us. Spoiler - beauty and love play a BIG part!
4. “Every kind word spoken, every meal proffered in love, every prayer said can become a feisty, active redemption that communicates reality opposite to...destruction...Here, in ordinary time, in the kitchen and slightly messy bedroom with 1000 things to do, we counteract despair with laughter. In place of destruction, we make order. We form spaces and hours in which people can be loved and conversations had, times in which those who take part know their lives to be precious. We take what is broken and heal it....” “The healing kind of power is not the sort of been taught to respect by existence in a fallen world where power just means brute force....”
5. “Too often, Christianity has taught an incomplete theology of incarnation and place. We have thought that the coming of Jesus meant that no place for sacred and that the fallen world was a disaster from which we would someday be evacuated. This kind of thinking has allowed a disengagement with material reality, with home and place, with earth and body, that has too often meant the very people made by creator God are the ones who least value and nourish his creation and are least at home within his world.”
I have a degree in Biblical Studies. Theology is a huge part of my world view. But I do not often read popular Christian thinkers because I too often find their idolatry of themselves and their own ideas supersedes anything actually Biblical they might allow to creep into their message. I know that sounds harsh but I really believe organized religion is a politically manipulated mess and so I rarely let it interfere with my own faith. Clarkson however comes at theology with a humility, curiosity, and genuineness that is impossible to ignore. I can’t help but think this has a lot to do with her foundation in storytelling. I recommend this book to anyone - of any faith or no faith. Ultimately, it’s a book about the beauty of humanity and the transformative power of love. Of the wholeness of the broken and our responsibility to each other. I loved this book.
This book will be released June 8th.
1. The first word that came to mind while reading this book was vulnerability. Wow! Sarah is so vulnerable in this memoir of her life with a rare form of OCD ( she writes: “mental illness” is such a tame, clinical term for what is actually an intimate disintegration of inward identity.) and theological exploration of the healing and liberating power of beauty and love.
2. I first encountered Sarah Clarkson through her love letter to books, Book Girl. From that point on I followed her on Instagram where she shared a great deal of her life, studying theology at Oxford, marrying her dreamy Danish husband, having her adorable children, reading gorgeous poems through advent...she was sharing. But in this book she reveals what Instagram followers don’t see. She’s just writing her story. I seriously doubt this was intentional. Yet, It is such a clear example and reminder that looks can be so entirely deceiving. Repeatedly she refers in the book to experiences I remember as posted moments in my feed. They looked enviable. The lived experience was different.
3. But this isn’t only a memoir. This is a theological defense of a new approach to theodicy (“the way we defend God‘s goodness and power in so evil and aching a world”... why do we suffer? Why does God allow it? Where is he when we are hurt?”) She explores the inaccuracies, limitations, and damages inflicted by popular theodicies that suggest these experiences are simply the will of God ( The longer I studied the more I began to resent the way the theology [addresses] pain with a list of arguments and doctrinal rationales - your baby may have died, but everything works together for good. You may have a mental illness, Paul had a thorn in his flesh and God left it there for a greater purpose. You may have been abused but didn’t make you compassionate? ... I sat in the library and wondered if God calls evil, if my pain was somehow necessary to the plot of his story. But then, two great graces came to me.”) And it is the revelation and argument in favor of these two great graces that Clarkson so eloquently and compassionately unfolds for us. Spoiler - beauty and love play a BIG part!
4. “Every kind word spoken, every meal proffered in love, every prayer said can become a feisty, active redemption that communicates reality opposite to...destruction...Here, in ordinary time, in the kitchen and slightly messy bedroom with 1000 things to do, we counteract despair with laughter. In place of destruction, we make order. We form spaces and hours in which people can be loved and conversations had, times in which those who take part know their lives to be precious. We take what is broken and heal it....” “The healing kind of power is not the sort of been taught to respect by existence in a fallen world where power just means brute force....”
5. “Too often, Christianity has taught an incomplete theology of incarnation and place. We have thought that the coming of Jesus meant that no place for sacred and that the fallen world was a disaster from which we would someday be evacuated. This kind of thinking has allowed a disengagement with material reality, with home and place, with earth and body, that has too often meant the very people made by creator God are the ones who least value and nourish his creation and are least at home within his world.”
I have a degree in Biblical Studies. Theology is a huge part of my world view. But I do not often read popular Christian thinkers because I too often find their idolatry of themselves and their own ideas supersedes anything actually Biblical they might allow to creep into their message. I know that sounds harsh but I really believe organized religion is a politically manipulated mess and so I rarely let it interfere with my own faith. Clarkson however comes at theology with a humility, curiosity, and genuineness that is impossible to ignore. I can’t help but think this has a lot to do with her foundation in storytelling. I recommend this book to anyone - of any faith or no faith. Ultimately, it’s a book about the beauty of humanity and the transformative power of love. Of the wholeness of the broken and our responsibility to each other. I loved this book.
June 14, 2021
Beautiful book. Luxurious writing. Language poetic and a delight to read. A life-changing memoir full of personal and beloved author vignettes.
October 5, 2023
2023 Review
Just as lovely the second time around, this time accompanied by a dear friend and the readers' guide. We found a new favorite film (Of Gods and Men [2010]), a new favorite song ("The Road Home," Stephen Paulus & VOCES8), a new favorite painting (The Song of the Lark, Jules Breton), and more.
2021 Review
This Beautiful Truth did similar things for me that K. J. Ramsey’s This Too Shall Last did last year. Ramsey focused on her experience of chronic illness and how it affected her spirituality, providing a practical theology of physical suffering. Clarkson does much the same thing here with mental illness, from the vantage point of her struggle with a rare form of OCD.
Someone I know suffered from a mysterious illness that wracked her body for months until doctors finally discovered the cause, and went through a strenuous process to fix the problem. A church acquaintance responded to this story by saying, “I hope I never sin that much, that God would do something like that to me!” Clarkson dismantles this erroneous theodicy and replaces it with a wholesome, biblically-grounded vision of God’s love in the face of great suffering.
I’ve already gone through some of the theological and spiritual shifts that Clarkson writes of here, so her work isn’t necessarily groundbreaking for me, but I related to her journey, and it was so cathartic to read. Reading it now felt like a gift to my younger self and the dark nights I endured. I can’t think of another book quite like this one, one that is fully honest about the experience of mental illness and is theologically astute. In the conversations surrounding doubt and wrestling with God through suffering, I rarely see applied spirituality--perhaps because it is so personal and vulnerable to make public those experiences. Clarkson has given us a gift in laying bare her wrestling and revealing the glimpses of beauty that drew her forward. A pat Christian response to someone’s suffering is often, “Have you prayed about it?” But Clarkson actually does pray about it, is boldly honest with God, and this creates a rich background to her story.
This Beautiful Truth meets a particular need in books about Christianity. It shows that someone raised in a “good Christian home” can struggle with mental illness, but also that the Christian faith is big enough for that experience. Part of this comes from Clarkson’s experience of what some would consider mysticism. Clarkson herself would likely be comfortable with that term, but not everyone accepts it. In the context of church history, and a wider view than western Protestantism, her views and experiences are fairly orthodox (or orthoprax, more accurately). Recently, the pop song “Levitating” came on in the car, and the chorus includes the lyrics, “You want me, I want you, baby / My sugarboo, I'm levitating.” (Tell me Teresa of Ávila didn’t ghostwrite that.) Clarkson gets nowhere close to levitating, but goes a bit beyond what some American evangelicals might think normal spiritual experiences.
I’m inspired by This Beautiful Truth to keep track of the moments where beauty has broken through for me, like the sun through the clouds. Certain works of art, music, literature, and film come to mind, but also moments when I felt whole and at peace, just by sitting still in a moment of pleasure. Marking these moments can be a way of remembering God’s faithfulness in times of darkness. After several years of reading Psalm 119 through on Wednesdays with the daily office, I’ve come to love the poem that represents not legalism, but a love for God's creation and the signposts of his beauty that call us “further up and further in:” “The earth is filled with your love, Lord; teach me your decrees.” (v. 64, NIV)
Just as lovely the second time around, this time accompanied by a dear friend and the readers' guide. We found a new favorite film (Of Gods and Men [2010]), a new favorite song ("The Road Home," Stephen Paulus & VOCES8), a new favorite painting (The Song of the Lark, Jules Breton), and more.
2021 Review
This Beautiful Truth did similar things for me that K. J. Ramsey’s This Too Shall Last did last year. Ramsey focused on her experience of chronic illness and how it affected her spirituality, providing a practical theology of physical suffering. Clarkson does much the same thing here with mental illness, from the vantage point of her struggle with a rare form of OCD.
Someone I know suffered from a mysterious illness that wracked her body for months until doctors finally discovered the cause, and went through a strenuous process to fix the problem. A church acquaintance responded to this story by saying, “I hope I never sin that much, that God would do something like that to me!” Clarkson dismantles this erroneous theodicy and replaces it with a wholesome, biblically-grounded vision of God’s love in the face of great suffering.
I’ve already gone through some of the theological and spiritual shifts that Clarkson writes of here, so her work isn’t necessarily groundbreaking for me, but I related to her journey, and it was so cathartic to read. Reading it now felt like a gift to my younger self and the dark nights I endured. I can’t think of another book quite like this one, one that is fully honest about the experience of mental illness and is theologically astute. In the conversations surrounding doubt and wrestling with God through suffering, I rarely see applied spirituality--perhaps because it is so personal and vulnerable to make public those experiences. Clarkson has given us a gift in laying bare her wrestling and revealing the glimpses of beauty that drew her forward. A pat Christian response to someone’s suffering is often, “Have you prayed about it?” But Clarkson actually does pray about it, is boldly honest with God, and this creates a rich background to her story.
This Beautiful Truth meets a particular need in books about Christianity. It shows that someone raised in a “good Christian home” can struggle with mental illness, but also that the Christian faith is big enough for that experience. Part of this comes from Clarkson’s experience of what some would consider mysticism. Clarkson herself would likely be comfortable with that term, but not everyone accepts it. In the context of church history, and a wider view than western Protestantism, her views and experiences are fairly orthodox (or orthoprax, more accurately). Recently, the pop song “Levitating” came on in the car, and the chorus includes the lyrics, “You want me, I want you, baby / My sugarboo, I'm levitating.” (Tell me Teresa of Ávila didn’t ghostwrite that.) Clarkson gets nowhere close to levitating, but goes a bit beyond what some American evangelicals might think normal spiritual experiences.
I’m inspired by This Beautiful Truth to keep track of the moments where beauty has broken through for me, like the sun through the clouds. Certain works of art, music, literature, and film come to mind, but also moments when I felt whole and at peace, just by sitting still in a moment of pleasure. Marking these moments can be a way of remembering God’s faithfulness in times of darkness. After several years of reading Psalm 119 through on Wednesdays with the daily office, I’ve come to love the poem that represents not legalism, but a love for God's creation and the signposts of his beauty that call us “further up and further in:” “The earth is filled with your love, Lord; teach me your decrees.” (v. 64, NIV)
June 27, 2021
3.5-4 stars.
I wanted to entirely love this book, and mostly, I did. I loved the cover, and much of her previous writing, and the title of this book seemed like everything I needed it to be...
And then, I hit a few roadblocks. I knew that we came from different places theologically, but it began to be a bit of an obstacle to feeling like I could read and follow and sort of trust her as an author. Particularly, in chapter 3 she seems to cast doubt on the reality of a literal hell, and also seems to elevate an emotional spirituality over sound theology. I am not sure exactly where she lands on these things, but I wish she had more clearly stated in some way that the soundness of theology matters in the highest degree, but the fullness and context of understanding it, the story of God, and the winsomeness and tone of the teacher matters too.
In another chapter, she mentions a liberation theology writer in a positive light, which is also a red flag to me.
In spite of all that, I would say this book is chock-full of a lot of great theology, and connecting of dots between the created world and the experience of Beauty, with the reality of and relational nature of God and his redeeming work in the world and in his people. Many chapters left me incredibly inspired, and I appreciated the author's vulnerability and willingness to share many intimate angles of her own life for the edification of the reader. I marked lots of pages for writing down quotes later, and added several books to my TBR list and Amazon cart - which is always an exciting result of reading a book.
In many ways I consider the author to be a deeply kindred spirit, in spite of what may be quite a distance separating us theologically. Her thoughts on creativity and beauty, fellowship, hospitality, etc...were all very inspiring.
Mental illness is a major theme in the book, which may be challenging for some people to read about. I related to it very much and would've maybe benefitted from some more discussion of healthy coping, theological understanding of it, etc...but Beauty, cutting through that particular darkness, and redeeming it now, and more fully later, is the major theme in that regard, and one that I am really thankful for.
I wanted to entirely love this book, and mostly, I did. I loved the cover, and much of her previous writing, and the title of this book seemed like everything I needed it to be...
And then, I hit a few roadblocks. I knew that we came from different places theologically, but it began to be a bit of an obstacle to feeling like I could read and follow and sort of trust her as an author. Particularly, in chapter 3 she seems to cast doubt on the reality of a literal hell, and also seems to elevate an emotional spirituality over sound theology. I am not sure exactly where she lands on these things, but I wish she had more clearly stated in some way that the soundness of theology matters in the highest degree, but the fullness and context of understanding it, the story of God, and the winsomeness and tone of the teacher matters too.
In another chapter, she mentions a liberation theology writer in a positive light, which is also a red flag to me.
In spite of all that, I would say this book is chock-full of a lot of great theology, and connecting of dots between the created world and the experience of Beauty, with the reality of and relational nature of God and his redeeming work in the world and in his people. Many chapters left me incredibly inspired, and I appreciated the author's vulnerability and willingness to share many intimate angles of her own life for the edification of the reader. I marked lots of pages for writing down quotes later, and added several books to my TBR list and Amazon cart - which is always an exciting result of reading a book.
In many ways I consider the author to be a deeply kindred spirit, in spite of what may be quite a distance separating us theologically. Her thoughts on creativity and beauty, fellowship, hospitality, etc...were all very inspiring.
Mental illness is a major theme in the book, which may be challenging for some people to read about. I related to it very much and would've maybe benefitted from some more discussion of healthy coping, theological understanding of it, etc...but Beauty, cutting through that particular darkness, and redeeming it now, and more fully later, is the major theme in that regard, and one that I am really thankful for.
December 20, 2023
This book…oh, this book.
God nudged this into my hands at just the time I needed it desperately, and it is beautiful. This Beautiful Truth is a quiet invitation to a rich feast, one where Sarah takes your hand and draws you into the gallery of her life that fits into God’s grand story of Love. A call to grasp every thrill of Beauty, seen in every cricket’s hum and river’s ripple, and press it to your heart, treasuring the encounter with the Source of all Beauty that He has so graciously shown you. An invitation to taste and see that the Lord is good.
Conversational, profound, and lovely in her prose, Sarah is honest about the darkness that cackles over her every day as she struggles to lean into God’s embrace with her OCD. Yet, though she refuses to couch the depths of darkness she experiences in platitudes and understatements, she is so gentle in her storytelling, making her presentation deeply stirring but not one in which readers feel smothered by suffering. Sarah tells her story so truthfully and weaves theological musings into it so effortlessly that, to my surprise, I found tears welling up on several occasions.
Were I to delve into the nitty-gritty of the writing, I would say that there were a few “minor” theological matters that made me squint a bit, and I found that Scripture was rather absent in several places that would have been fitting. (Please feel free to ask me more about my thoughts in this area, and I’ll do my best to explain further.) However, overall, the concerns were minor and overshadowed by the Beauty that Sarah so yearningly calls us to behold.
My struggles are not the same as Sarah’s, but in reading This Beautiful Truth, I stumbled to my knees at the One who has crammed His earth with Beauty. Who tips our heads up to the piercing light of the stars and the roar of cumulonimbus heavy skies. Who nudges us to build our own Homely Houses and drench every corner with love, to create art of all kinds that imitates His creativity. Who is abundant in staggering Love and wraps our hearts in the utmost safety and delight in Him.
This Beautiful Truth was a reminder to me of God’s love when I ached for it, a call to, yes, study theology zealously but then see the truth of what we know in every facet of the truly Beautiful things God has given us to see.
To quote Andy Catlett and Joy Clarkson, I am held though I do not hold…and I always will be.
God nudged this into my hands at just the time I needed it desperately, and it is beautiful. This Beautiful Truth is a quiet invitation to a rich feast, one where Sarah takes your hand and draws you into the gallery of her life that fits into God’s grand story of Love. A call to grasp every thrill of Beauty, seen in every cricket’s hum and river’s ripple, and press it to your heart, treasuring the encounter with the Source of all Beauty that He has so graciously shown you. An invitation to taste and see that the Lord is good.
Conversational, profound, and lovely in her prose, Sarah is honest about the darkness that cackles over her every day as she struggles to lean into God’s embrace with her OCD. Yet, though she refuses to couch the depths of darkness she experiences in platitudes and understatements, she is so gentle in her storytelling, making her presentation deeply stirring but not one in which readers feel smothered by suffering. Sarah tells her story so truthfully and weaves theological musings into it so effortlessly that, to my surprise, I found tears welling up on several occasions.
Were I to delve into the nitty-gritty of the writing, I would say that there were a few “minor” theological matters that made me squint a bit, and I found that Scripture was rather absent in several places that would have been fitting. (Please feel free to ask me more about my thoughts in this area, and I’ll do my best to explain further.) However, overall, the concerns were minor and overshadowed by the Beauty that Sarah so yearningly calls us to behold.
My struggles are not the same as Sarah’s, but in reading This Beautiful Truth, I stumbled to my knees at the One who has crammed His earth with Beauty. Who tips our heads up to the piercing light of the stars and the roar of cumulonimbus heavy skies. Who nudges us to build our own Homely Houses and drench every corner with love, to create art of all kinds that imitates His creativity. Who is abundant in staggering Love and wraps our hearts in the utmost safety and delight in Him.
This Beautiful Truth was a reminder to me of God’s love when I ached for it, a call to, yes, study theology zealously but then see the truth of what we know in every facet of the truly Beautiful things God has given us to see.
To quote Andy Catlett and Joy Clarkson, I am held though I do not hold…and I always will be.
June 4, 2024
Truly beautiful.
I tried listening to the audiobook several years ago and I just couldn't with the narrator. I still struggled with the narrator, but I made it the whole way through this time and ended up ordering a hard copy because I loved the book so much.
I tried listening to the audiobook several years ago and I just couldn't with the narrator. I still struggled with the narrator, but I made it the whole way through this time and ended up ordering a hard copy because I loved the book so much.
July 31, 2022
I felt like this was a deep deep memoir: a bare honest look at her life with mental illness. A look at how beauty and truth have overcome ugly and darkness. I have followed this family for awhile and I always appreciate vulnerability and authenticity. It adds deeper meaning to an author's work.
I don't think her theology is all the same as mine but it doesn't make me turn away from she what she is saying. She is a devotee of CS Lewis and I love that. Love her references to books and how they and different characters have played such a party of her coping and healing process. Her other book Book Girl is phenomenal. And this book made that book make more sense to me.
I don't think her theology is all the same as mine but it doesn't make me turn away from she what she is saying. She is a devotee of CS Lewis and I love that. Love her references to books and how they and different characters have played such a party of her coping and healing process. Her other book Book Girl is phenomenal. And this book made that book make more sense to me.
January 19, 2022
This was an absolutely stunning! Sarah is a stunning writer, amazingly honest, and so relatable. I feel like we are good friends after reading this beautiful book. I cannot say enough good about this book and how much it touched my soul to its depths.
It was a cup of cold water on a hot day.
It was a cup of cold water on a hot day.
September 23, 2024
After reading several Christian heavy hitters in a row, my soul was exhausted. I started this book looking for some balm, and found more than I could have hoped for.
So many times I experienced the richness of the gospel so deeply that it felt like the oxygen had been sucked from my chest. Sometimes we don’t have to work entirely out what it means to have faith and believe. We can come back to the one beautiful truth of a Creator who in his essence originates beauty.
I would dearly love to own a copy of this book… the true mark of a 5 star.
Re-read September 2024 and it holds up! Such a beautiful book!
So many times I experienced the richness of the gospel so deeply that it felt like the oxygen had been sucked from my chest. Sometimes we don’t have to work entirely out what it means to have faith and believe. We can come back to the one beautiful truth of a Creator who in his essence originates beauty.
I would dearly love to own a copy of this book… the true mark of a 5 star.
Re-read September 2024 and it holds up! Such a beautiful book!
March 29, 2023
I loved so much about this book. A good writer gives you words for things you experienced but could never articulate, and Sarah does this. Reading through the book I realized that Sarah’s experiences were my own — that the darkest places of my life have been where God’s beauty has spoken to me most profoundly. I give the book 4 stars only because the ending felt a little forced — not as authentic as the rest of the book — and I like a solid ending. But overall this book spoke to me deeply.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 12, 2021
This book puts into words in a way I haven’t been able to the struggle with mental illness and how it permeates daily life. But it doesn’t leave you hopeless, Sarah poignantly shares how the light of God breaks through our darkness and gives us hope to keep fighting each day. This is not how things were meant to be and one day all things will be restored!
January 4, 2022
This book argues one thing: "Beauty is God's theodicy." That resonates so deeply with me.
Sarah's writing is lovely as always, and I enjoyed how she broke up the book between the story of her own struggle with darkness and with specific kinds of beauty that God often uses to heal our pain (art, community, etc.). I didn't have quite the emotional response to it that I was expecting—I think I thought I would be moved to tears or have a cathartic moment or have my world changed. It wasn't any of that, but I think it's because I've already experienced and learned what Sarah recounts. So it wasn't as much of a new revelation as it was an affirmation of what God has done in my own life. It wasn't what I expected, but it is still beautiful, and I can't recommend it enough to anyone struggling with the question of why there is pain and evil in the world and where God is in their darkness, especially a chronic, ongoing darkness.
Sarah's writing is lovely as always, and I enjoyed how she broke up the book between the story of her own struggle with darkness and with specific kinds of beauty that God often uses to heal our pain (art, community, etc.). I didn't have quite the emotional response to it that I was expecting—I think I thought I would be moved to tears or have a cathartic moment or have my world changed. It wasn't any of that, but I think it's because I've already experienced and learned what Sarah recounts. So it wasn't as much of a new revelation as it was an affirmation of what God has done in my own life. It wasn't what I expected, but it is still beautiful, and I can't recommend it enough to anyone struggling with the question of why there is pain and evil in the world and where God is in their darkness, especially a chronic, ongoing darkness.
December 19, 2024
This is a wonderful and encouraging book for anyone who desires to see beauty in hardship, light in darkness. I love the closing lines from the book:
“Let light, then, be the road that winds heavenward from our grieved hearts. Let the story of love run onward into the world from our healed souls. For what evil intended as the end of trust and the death of hope, God made the space of His richest coming. He fills the void of our darkness with the living word of His radiant self, speaking a world of beauty so rich and gorgeous into our hearts that we may stand in wonder and know ourselves unendingly blessed. In that wonder, in that sated and saintly blessedness, we ourselves become His living and beautiful truth.”
“Let light, then, be the road that winds heavenward from our grieved hearts. Let the story of love run onward into the world from our healed souls. For what evil intended as the end of trust and the death of hope, God made the space of His richest coming. He fills the void of our darkness with the living word of His radiant self, speaking a world of beauty so rich and gorgeous into our hearts that we may stand in wonder and know ourselves unendingly blessed. In that wonder, in that sated and saintly blessedness, we ourselves become His living and beautiful truth.”
Read
January 4, 2025Lately I have been thinking a lot about how my own decision-making and values are tinged with rationalism. This book is written by someone who is very much motivated by what is Beautiful. For that reason, at times I struggled to connect with her thought processes, but it was good for me to step into a different way of thinking.
This is not exactly a memoir about OCD or how to live with it, it is a deeply felt story of Clarkson’s personal struggle with theodicy and the problem of evil as an OCD-sufferer and committed Christian.
I appreciated the opportunity to step into Clarkson’s shoes and see the comfort that the beauty of this world has brought her on her journey with God.
This is not exactly a memoir about OCD or how to live with it, it is a deeply felt story of Clarkson’s personal struggle with theodicy and the problem of evil as an OCD-sufferer and committed Christian.
I appreciated the opportunity to step into Clarkson’s shoes and see the comfort that the beauty of this world has brought her on her journey with God.
May 22, 2021
This might just be my favorite book of the year. What a gift this book is! Sarah shows such vulnerability in this memoir describing her mental health struggles and how this impacted her faith as a young adult. It was an honor to get to read about the moments where God's beauty and grandeur brought light in a very dark time. I highlighted so many passages in this and will be meditating on this book for a long time. Now I must go read some Tolkien.
July 3, 2024
This book deserves more than 5 stars. I will give this book to my girls when they are older teenagers.
June 10, 2021
If there are two concurrent stories shaping the world around us--one of beauty and one of everything opposite it--Sarah argues beauty is the true one. I agree with her. This is already my own story, the story of Beauty hunting me down and captivating me, over and over, amidst grief and heartbreak, amidst shock and horror. I loved the way Sarah articulated it in this engrossing, uplifting read. Also appreciated how the medium agrees with the message: This isn't just a story about beauty but also a beauty of a story. The narrative itself is captivating and heart-lifting, and I'm glad to have had it as my companion for the last two days.
March 13, 2022
This is what Christian non-fiction should be. It’s beautiful, personal, helpful, creative, original, and inspiring. Nary a list or a “should” in sight.
It’s a message that more people need to write about… but yet only Sarah could have written this particular one. So many “helpful” Christian books should have been blog posts, lol. So many are uninspired, and uninspiring. So many of them plod through familiar territory. So many of them aren’t actually helpful.
Sarah Clarkson speaks from the depth of her experience (I could say “the depths,” because her suffering is what drew forth her message). She tells her story in such a way that the reader can feel the ache and the tension… and then experience the respite and the “breaking in�� of the light. Over and over… because there is not a “fix” for our brokenness here on earth, only a growing, confident expectation of goodness and mercy in it.
This is a book about why we are not fools to keep looking for “the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” This is a literary book for lovers of art, music, poetry, novels, travel, and good food. This is a book for those who value hospitality and understand the humble glory of home and table, family and friendship. (And if you know OF it but still yearn FOR it, then oh, this book is for you, too...) It is a book about being lonely and lost… and what it means to be seen, welcomed, and invited. It is a book about God’s healing hospitality… and how we are invited both to receive it and to participate in it.
“Salvation means that ‘everything sad is going to come untrue.’” We are saved once; and then every day after. This is not a book about saving ourselves; it is a book about being saved, in ways we never imagined. This is Sarah’s story, but she makes it clear how the possibilities are endless, and we will each experience our own version of it. She writes to encourage us to be ready to receive the beauty around us, accept it, and ponder it. In fact, in sharing her story, I think Sarah is helping us learn how to do so. She’s a guide, and I’m so grateful that she took the time and made the effort to be that for so many.
Sarah reminds us that in responding to God’s living, beautiful truth we BECOME His living, beautiful truth.
And Sarah reminded me personally that “all’s grace…”
and I am so blessed to be invited to worship such a beautiful God.
*note: find the author and learn more on her lovely, peaceful IG account @sarahwanders
It’s a message that more people need to write about… but yet only Sarah could have written this particular one. So many “helpful” Christian books should have been blog posts, lol. So many are uninspired, and uninspiring. So many of them plod through familiar territory. So many of them aren’t actually helpful.
Sarah Clarkson speaks from the depth of her experience (I could say “the depths,” because her suffering is what drew forth her message). She tells her story in such a way that the reader can feel the ache and the tension… and then experience the respite and the “breaking in�� of the light. Over and over… because there is not a “fix” for our brokenness here on earth, only a growing, confident expectation of goodness and mercy in it.
This is a book about why we are not fools to keep looking for “the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” This is a literary book for lovers of art, music, poetry, novels, travel, and good food. This is a book for those who value hospitality and understand the humble glory of home and table, family and friendship. (And if you know OF it but still yearn FOR it, then oh, this book is for you, too...) It is a book about being lonely and lost… and what it means to be seen, welcomed, and invited. It is a book about God’s healing hospitality… and how we are invited both to receive it and to participate in it.
“Salvation means that ‘everything sad is going to come untrue.’” We are saved once; and then every day after. This is not a book about saving ourselves; it is a book about being saved, in ways we never imagined. This is Sarah’s story, but she makes it clear how the possibilities are endless, and we will each experience our own version of it. She writes to encourage us to be ready to receive the beauty around us, accept it, and ponder it. In fact, in sharing her story, I think Sarah is helping us learn how to do so. She’s a guide, and I’m so grateful that she took the time and made the effort to be that for so many.
Sarah reminds us that in responding to God’s living, beautiful truth we BECOME His living, beautiful truth.
And Sarah reminded me personally that “all’s grace…”
and I am so blessed to be invited to worship such a beautiful God.
*note: find the author and learn more on her lovely, peaceful IG account @sarahwanders
June 28, 2021
The subtitle for This Beautiful Truth by Sarah Clarkson is How God’s Goodness Breaks Into Our Darkness. I have always thought that God did not have to make the world so beautiful - but He did. He gives us stunning sunrises and sunsets, awe-inspiring seascapes, wildflowers in every color with amazing detail, gorgeous mountain views. This is His grace to us, His gift, His extravagant abundance as He calls us to a relationship with Himself. Even at our lowest points, when all we feel is despair, loneliness, and pain, God calls to us through the beauty and goodness which He placed in the world in which we dwell. In This Beautiful Truth, Sarah Clarkson makes herself achingly vulnerable. Using her gift of lyrical prose, she details her struggles with mental illness, with loneliness, with weakness and how God in the midst of all the brokenness comes as a healer. He comes with his gifts of grace and beauty and truth to woo us, to remind us of who we are- His treasured child- and who He is - our beloved Father. Thank you Sarah for telling your story in this amazing gift of a book.
June 15, 2021
This is a book I’ll be returning to and living with—for its lovely language and literary references, its theology, and its philosophy of beauty and creativity.
Sarah Clarkson puts into words the theology and philosophy of suffering and beauty that I’ve been moving toward but haven’t quite found words for. In talking about beauty, she summons it, so the reading was for me both the lecture and the lab—the theory and the experience—of maybe not a class but an independent study with a professor whose kindness and wisdom comes from a deep knowledge of her subject. The bits of memoir (descriptions of a poignant struggle with mental illness, specifically OCD), effectively ground the theory, demonstrating her claim that we do indeed come to truth through story, art, experience.
Sarah Clarkson puts into words the theology and philosophy of suffering and beauty that I’ve been moving toward but haven’t quite found words for. In talking about beauty, she summons it, so the reading was for me both the lecture and the lab—the theory and the experience—of maybe not a class but an independent study with a professor whose kindness and wisdom comes from a deep knowledge of her subject. The bits of memoir (descriptions of a poignant struggle with mental illness, specifically OCD), effectively ground the theory, demonstrating her claim that we do indeed come to truth through story, art, experience.
September 18, 2021
Oh, how I love this book. I didn’t want it to end and underlined and scrawled notes the whole way through it. Sarah puts the the theology of beauty into words I haven’t found anywhere else, words that resonated deep within me. I love how she expands the ideas that beauty can draw us out of dark places of the soul and awaken us from our grief and despair- that our wonder in the face of suffering is part of sanctification. I love that the book combines memoir with theology; Sarah’s own journey and battle to find beauty through mental illness makes the sincerity and validity of her words all the more poignant. A book I will be returning to over and over again.
March 30, 2024
“For sainthood, you know, is not about effort but the open armed receiving of God’s healing life. Sainthood is, at its heart, a matter of wonder.”
“What do we give God? Our loving wonder. For with that gift we make ourselves hospitable to this life, our inmost being ready to receive his world renewing goodness.”
wonder, beauty, suffering, Job, Tolkien, Eliot, Berry, Cather… this book has it all 🥂
“What do we give God? Our loving wonder. For with that gift we make ourselves hospitable to this life, our inmost being ready to receive his world renewing goodness.”
wonder, beauty, suffering, Job, Tolkien, Eliot, Berry, Cather… this book has it all 🥂
June 29, 2021
There were several things I enjoyed in this book, such as the depiction of liturgical worship being a means of God’s beauty communing with us. But I think many points should have been furthered developed biblically for the reader. Much of the “hope” she presents in this book is based on her experiences and her emotions and not biblical truths.
October 19, 2021
This book is so beautiful and true and good. Please read.
March 12, 2023
Picked this booked up at Fable in Waco on a girls weekend trip and so glad I did! Read it on a long plane ride on the eve of heading to anxiety inducing trip with coworkers. I was instantly reminded of truth even in spiraling situations that the author alludes to in her intense battle with OCD. In our fragility is where God meets us. In the middle of suffering and anxiety is where God creeps in, gently. Thankful for the truth and reminders even in the middle of a breakdown in the Chicago airport about to board a 9 hr plane ride alone with strangers. A favorite quote the authors writes was “he is humble and meek: a king who comes in through the back door of our hearts not to conquer and raze our imperfections away but to hold and heal us by the intimacy of his touch, his presence here with us in the inmost rooms of our suffering. The power of God is radically gentle, never rough with our need or careless with our yearning. God is fixed upon the restoration of our whole sleeves and souls, not just the bits that everyone else can see. Yet the very tenderness of his power is something we sometimes treat as his weakness or cruelty because we crave a more visible result.”
May 22, 2025
I adore Sally Clarkson and aside from one of the books she wrote with her daughter, this is the first book I’ve read by Sarah. I love the overall message, finding beauty in God’s truth to fulfill us in our suffering. Going through the chapters, however, I found myself not engaged. Sarah is incredibly well-read, but maybe to a fault when it comes to her writing because there are so many references and excerpts of outside literature pulled into this book. This is not to say it isn’t well-written, but rather I am just not her ideal reader for this book. It was not done in a style I wholly enjoy. I related to many of the pages though in her sharing about anxiety, not to her degree of suffering, but still I appreciated her courage. I do think it would be helpful to anyone struggling with OCD and other consuming disorders.
July 22, 2021
It’s like Sarah Clarkson reached into my soul and found all the words I’ve been trying to speak.
Please read this book and let the beautiful words surround you like sunlight on a sunny spring day
Please read this book and let the beautiful words surround you like sunlight on a sunny spring day
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June 27, 2021I did this with Alan Jacobs' most recent book, too. I haven't actually finished Sarah's book, but it's giving me all kinds of thoughts already, so I'm going to keep an ongoing list of them here and will rate the book when I have actually finished reading it.
Love pages 114-115. Pure gold. Love the last sentence of the chapter on page 119: “Good is always being crafted for us, and we are being led, step by step, into its light.”
6/12/21 - In the first chapter, Sarah introduces two narratives that she observed in the world and in her own life. The first narrative is that of pain, suffering, and grief. The second narrative is that of joy, goodness, and beauty. Sarah knew two narratives were co-existing and yet often the first seemed the more true. The book is an exploration of how the second narrative comes alongside the first and exercises a redemptive transformation on the first narrative.
Funnily, what sprang to mind is the movie Mary Poppins Returns. In the beginning of the movie, Michael Banks and his children are grieving the loss of their wife/mother and the potential loss of their home to bankruptcy. The children have taken on adult responsibility and the whole family is lost in the first narrative of overwhelming grief and sorrow. The story from there is how Mary Poppins re-introduces them to childlikeness (wonder, imagination) and to the healing power of love for each other and for the beloved wife and mother who is "gone but not forgotten". Mary Poppins brings in the second narrative to companion the first and the Banks family has a chance to bloom in belonging and in beauty. Their sorrow is not gone, but it's not the consuming story. The sorrow becomes redemptive and they learn how to see that which is beyond the senses (rather sacramental!).
I just re-listened to the song 'Where the Lost Things Go' and it is so reminscent of Sarah's story. The song opens with: "Do you ever lie awake at night just between the dark and the morning light...?" The transition between night and day is elusive just like the second narrative is elusive. It requires us to be awake and attentive. And when we are, we can see beyond what is right in front of us to the things that need the eyes of faith to see: that love and goodness are the dominating narrative.
6/13/21 - I love when my books talk to each other. I read this today in "The Gown of Glory", a novel I've been enjoying: "Here was to David and perhaps to others a new idea. He pondered upon it. There was a dynamic force in happiness...it seemed, indeed, to be implicit in the universe even as was suffering and sacrifice, and perhaps to a greater degree...take now the prevalence of laughter...He considered now this strangest and commonest of man's reactions to life. There was in it a link somehow with the spirit, for only man laughed in the face of the universe. Was it pure mirth or bravado or courage or did it arise from an unconscious conviction that 'all would yet be well'?" -pg 150
6/23/21 - "Suffering suspends us in a bleak, grey space of hours unshaped by anything but our distress. Our ears ring with the huge, empty silence of loss and the future looms before us, unfilled by anything by our dread. We live in an age that further drains and complicates our relationship with time by making our lives a ceaseless round of unbounded activity. In the modern world, we are increasingly less cognizant of the ancient rhythms of day and night, star and season, and less aware of the way those cadences influence our bodies and minds and allow us the boundaries of rest we need for healing. Electricity means we can banish the shadows and extend our days almost indefinitely. Insulated as we are by technologies of all sorts, caught up in the world of our screens, we are no longer as aware of cold and heat, summer and winter as a repeating symphony that reflects the real seasons of our own bodies and souls."
Amen! I have thought this so often. I love this chapter (7) about Sarah's turn to Anglicanism and how the liturgy and the robust Church Year gave her back the richness of time that had before been made meaningless and dark by her suffering with OCD. Much to ponder here.
6/27/21 - "For the power in beauty is not brute strength but in the greater vision it offers, a vision to transform and redeem our suffering." -177
"Art can actually be a 'way of thinking' theologically in and of itself, allowing us a qualitatively different understanding of the world. Jeremy Begbie says that 'the arts give expression to a metaphorical way of perceiving the world...which reminds us there is always more to the world than we can name, control, and grasp.' Oh, surely this is what we need in the midst of our sorrow, the knowledge that something much larger than the broken world has begun, and will end, the story of our lives." -179
Love pages 114-115. Pure gold. Love the last sentence of the chapter on page 119: “Good is always being crafted for us, and we are being led, step by step, into its light.”
6/12/21 - In the first chapter, Sarah introduces two narratives that she observed in the world and in her own life. The first narrative is that of pain, suffering, and grief. The second narrative is that of joy, goodness, and beauty. Sarah knew two narratives were co-existing and yet often the first seemed the more true. The book is an exploration of how the second narrative comes alongside the first and exercises a redemptive transformation on the first narrative.
Funnily, what sprang to mind is the movie Mary Poppins Returns. In the beginning of the movie, Michael Banks and his children are grieving the loss of their wife/mother and the potential loss of their home to bankruptcy. The children have taken on adult responsibility and the whole family is lost in the first narrative of overwhelming grief and sorrow. The story from there is how Mary Poppins re-introduces them to childlikeness (wonder, imagination) and to the healing power of love for each other and for the beloved wife and mother who is "gone but not forgotten". Mary Poppins brings in the second narrative to companion the first and the Banks family has a chance to bloom in belonging and in beauty. Their sorrow is not gone, but it's not the consuming story. The sorrow becomes redemptive and they learn how to see that which is beyond the senses (rather sacramental!).
I just re-listened to the song 'Where the Lost Things Go' and it is so reminscent of Sarah's story. The song opens with: "Do you ever lie awake at night just between the dark and the morning light...?" The transition between night and day is elusive just like the second narrative is elusive. It requires us to be awake and attentive. And when we are, we can see beyond what is right in front of us to the things that need the eyes of faith to see: that love and goodness are the dominating narrative.
6/13/21 - I love when my books talk to each other. I read this today in "The Gown of Glory", a novel I've been enjoying: "Here was to David and perhaps to others a new idea. He pondered upon it. There was a dynamic force in happiness...it seemed, indeed, to be implicit in the universe even as was suffering and sacrifice, and perhaps to a greater degree...take now the prevalence of laughter...He considered now this strangest and commonest of man's reactions to life. There was in it a link somehow with the spirit, for only man laughed in the face of the universe. Was it pure mirth or bravado or courage or did it arise from an unconscious conviction that 'all would yet be well'?" -pg 150
6/23/21 - "Suffering suspends us in a bleak, grey space of hours unshaped by anything but our distress. Our ears ring with the huge, empty silence of loss and the future looms before us, unfilled by anything by our dread. We live in an age that further drains and complicates our relationship with time by making our lives a ceaseless round of unbounded activity. In the modern world, we are increasingly less cognizant of the ancient rhythms of day and night, star and season, and less aware of the way those cadences influence our bodies and minds and allow us the boundaries of rest we need for healing. Electricity means we can banish the shadows and extend our days almost indefinitely. Insulated as we are by technologies of all sorts, caught up in the world of our screens, we are no longer as aware of cold and heat, summer and winter as a repeating symphony that reflects the real seasons of our own bodies and souls."
Amen! I have thought this so often. I love this chapter (7) about Sarah's turn to Anglicanism and how the liturgy and the robust Church Year gave her back the richness of time that had before been made meaningless and dark by her suffering with OCD. Much to ponder here.
6/27/21 - "For the power in beauty is not brute strength but in the greater vision it offers, a vision to transform and redeem our suffering." -177
"Art can actually be a 'way of thinking' theologically in and of itself, allowing us a qualitatively different understanding of the world. Jeremy Begbie says that 'the arts give expression to a metaphorical way of perceiving the world...which reminds us there is always more to the world than we can name, control, and grasp.' Oh, surely this is what we need in the midst of our sorrow, the knowledge that something much larger than the broken world has begun, and will end, the story of our lives." -179
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