I'm not sure what I expected from Stained Glass Hearts by Patsy Clairmont. The subtitle, Seeing Life from a Broken Perspective, certainly seemed to apply to anyone who has lived a life which contained disappointments. So, I kicked back, cracked it open, and dug in. To start with, the author's writing style is very, very chatty. I could almost hear her. I really enjoyed, at the end of every chapter, her suggestions for healing activities: Scripture, music, art, literature, museums and the like.
Clairmont is very personable, seemingly very open about her own struggles with agoraphobia. She seems incessantly cheery, almost to the point of being flip. In fact that became a problem for me; I could not imagine sharing such a book with a suffering friend. I almost put it down. But somewhere around the middle, in a chapter appropriately entitled “Stained Glass Prayer,” the author truly let the reading have a glimpse of her broken heart. I began to get a real sense of the caming that holds her broken heart together: “ . . . when we lose our joy, the Spirit replaces it with endurance, that indestructible internal insistence to keep on keeping on.” And so, finally, I saw how the Almighty pieced together her broken heart through prayer, reading, poetry, nature, and grace. That is what I needed to hear.
Would I share this book with a broken-hearted friend? Probably not. But I would certainly share it with one whose heart is healing.
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