The Broken Way: A Daring Path into the Abundant Life

In this sequel to her first book, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare To Live Fully Right Where You Are, Voskamp offers a spiritual memoir that is unique in its lyrical translation of the gospel message of the cross: "Not one thing in your life is more important than figuring out how to live in the face of unspoken pain." This imperative is woven into the strands of her autobiography, taut with a fine balance of raw humility, insight, and fierce rage against incomprehensible sorrows that include the accidental death of her young sister; the childhood stigma and abandonment of her mother's episodic retreats into psychiatric wards; and her own powerful sense of shame and unworthiness, unleashed in recurring bouts of self-harm. Narrator Jaimee Paul's voice skillfully conveys this tension with a startling sense of sharp, pleading anger directed in utter abandonment at times toward God, although the effect is never a mere litany of despair or doubt.