A Spacious Place

Reviews / Votes

From Christianity Magazine - July 2012 I was enormously blessed by Alie Stibbe's previous book Barefoot in the Kitchen, and with this new book we rejoin her on a Christian woman's journey into midlife and beyond. Readable chapters packed with godly wisdom and memorable anecdotes deal with the issues Christian women face. Topics vary from the mundane, such as weight and gardening, through to deep issues such as dealing with professional disappointment and unfulfilled ambition. I laughed and cried as I read this book and felt a great sense of companionship flow from it. Ideal for individual use or for a group of friends to read and discuss together, I commend this book to Christian women and for men who would like to understand them. Review by Rev Anneli Sinkko, Buderim Uniting Church, Queensland, Australia When I asked for this book to be reviewed I was thinking that I myself am in the second half of life. But, shock and horror - I was well past it. However, when I started to read it, and I must tell you that it is almost an autobiography, I could relate to many matters concerning children who leave home and return, changing jobs, looking for work during late adulthood - and most importantly - finding one self. And that is the area the author excels. And she does it such a subtle way. You read about her every day joys of gardening, writing and being married to a wonderful man and you also become involved with her struggles with moving, finding work, being rejected and getting old ... you become engaged in her life ... and all of the sudden; she presents the reader with an earthshattering questions. These self- examinations by the author - they brought me to a point where I needed to examine myself. Questions like 'what do I want'; 'are my plans same as God's plans for me'; and many others brought me all of the sudden into reality of myself! Who am I? This is a very helpful book, not only to those who are in their second half of life, not only to women, but to all who seek deeper meaning in our human life and greater understanding of the divine. From The Diocese of Hereford Newspaper - Autumn 2012 Is there hope for us women once the children have left home? Is there a future for us who are fast approaching our middle years? Does God really have a plan for our lives? Well, yes there is a hope and a future for the more mature woman according to Alie Stibbe. This is the long-awaited sequel to her first book Barefoot in the Kitchen in which she wrote about the frustrations and joys of having to give up her career and much of her time to running a home, while at the same time undergoing her own search for a deeper relationship with God within the time limits of a busy household. This book encourages the reader to look forward to the challenges that the next stage of life can offer, once the family have grown up and left. She deals with the widening waistband and the necessity of lower shoe heels with humour as she adjusts to the physical changes in her life. Most importantly she explores how we can progress from our own ideas of what to expect in this new time of life perhaps to rethinking what we gauged as success, to embracing the truly God given value that He places on our lives as she explores the spiritual changes. Reviewed by Sharon Elson, Hereford