Sensible Shoes

Sensible Shoes, Sharon Garlough Brown

Do you long for a fiction book to refresh you? To leave you desiring a deeper and closer relationship with God and understanding of what Christ has done for you?

You may find that the Sensible Shoes series by Sharon Garlough Brown could be that gift to you. It has been to me.

I have been interested in various spiritual disciplines and self-examination for a while, aware that while my faith is cognitively very strong, I can nervously steer away from the experiential. I think this is a tendency some evangelicals can have, which I suspect leaves us all the poorer for it.

Yet, I want to know God deeply, and the power of Christ’s resurrection in both my mind and my heart, and be challenged and encouraged in both.

The books are anchored around four main characters who meet in at a spiritual formation course at a retreat centre:

• Meg, widowed young, now 46, whose controlling mother has recently died and daughter moved overseas for university. 
• Mara, 50, struggling in a loveless marriage with two angry teenage sons 
• Hannah, 39, pastor in a church who has worked so hard over 15 years to serve others she doesn’t realise just how spent she is, and 
• Charissa, 26, newly married and a high-achieving doctoral major 

Over the weeks, they develop a friendship, open up and share their stories. All have their own challenges in trusting God in their situations, as well as coming face to face with their own areas of sin and struggle. I won’t expand on the storylines explored over the four books, lest I give it away to those who choose to read them, but everything is there - major illness, grief, relationship joys and breakdowns, friendships and family. (One major life experience not included in this series in mental ill health, although it is in her newer series Shades of Light).

The books weave the story with the various spiritual practices they are taught at the centre, and those readers who would like to engage with them could do at their own leisure. Each book contains different ones, some are a detailed bible study with reflection questions, some are a way of praying or bringing things to God, or a particular prayer to work through. I have been using some personally and finding them to be of great benefit. (It also seems that each book has a companion study guide for those that are interested).

My only frustration is that it is a female-focussed series. Yes, there are male characters, some wonderful and some not, but it’s not really about them. I suspect that could make it harder for some men to choose to read them. Which is a real shame, because one character Nathan models deep faith, humility and grace, and is a wonderful example of a man changed by such spiritual practices.

All in all, a lovely series.