The Book of Longings

by Sue Monk Kidd

My heart was a goblet running over.

It caused a voracious pining at the center of me. Not for him, I didn’t think. For myself.

If God were a wife, she would have acted sooner.

there are times when words are so glad to be set free they laugh out loud and prance across their tablets and inside their scrolls. So it was with the words I wrote. They reveled till dawn.

The anger made me brave and the grief made me sure.

she told me that I had traveled to a secret sky, the one beyond this one where the queen of heaven reigns, for Yahweh knew nothing of female matters of the heart.

When I tell you all shall be well, I don’t mean that life won’t bring you tragedy. Life will be life. I only mean you will be well in spite of it. All shall be well, no matter what.”