An affecting faith memoir filled with inviting personal anecdotes.
One man’s account of his spiritual journey from confusion to a peaceful Christianity.
In his nonfiction debut, McAndrew looks back on the beginning of his spiritual journey, decades ago, when he was feeling a bit burnt out at the restaurant where he worked. Frazzled by his temperamental managers and spurred by a shocking tragedy that happened one night, he began what would become a lifelong search to understand “the invisible matrix of life that is God.” He increasingly interrogated the worldly assumptions of his life, guided by a new openness to put aside the doubts of the world and do as the Holy Spirit calls Christians to do: “walk out on the Sea of Life.” In order to do so, McAndrew writes, “we must let go of our doubts and fears, and trust the infinite oneness.” McAndrew describes this slow, sometimes-grudging process of growing spiritual freedom with a moving directness, relating family anecdotes involving his wife, Yvonne, and his wise-beyond-her-years daughter, Shavonne, with the flair of a novelist. All of it is meant to illustrate the familiar modern Christian adage, “When you get to your wit’s end, you will find God lives there.” McAndrew puts it simply, “That’s what happened to me.” The book’s confessional strengths are only slightly offset by its exegetical weaknesses. McAndrew writes, for instance, that in Genesis, “the primordial substance of the universe is light,” when the biblical text clearly states otherwise, or when he contends that a study of St. Peter’s words and actions shows that “trust in Spirit developed over time,” when precisely the opposite is the point of his sudden awakening on the night of Jesus’ arrest. But such quibbles don’t much distract from McAndrew’s larger message of surrendering worldly vanity to “the harmony of the Kingdom”; the book will provide younger Christians especially with an appealingly personal and spiritual version of the faith.
An affecting faith memoir filled with inviting personal anecdotes.Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4602-2502-8
Page Count: 184
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
