Last month Sacred Pauses turned ten years old! Thank you to all those who have read, shared, reviewed, and supported this book in countless ways. I pray that spiritual practice will continue to enrich your life as God continues to sustain and renew you.
I’m grateful and amazed at the book’s reach over the years, with readers in high schools, universities, and seminaries, in churches, small groups, and other ministry settings, at home or away, in solitude and silence.
I was thrilled to receive this recent email:
I am reaching out to express my gratitude for your book, Sacred Pauses, which I taught in my Introduction to Pastoral Practice course at Saint Paul University this fall. Your book created space for us to explore spiritual practices to sustain us in ministry each week. It had the breadth to speak into this range of contexts, especially because of its deep grounding in scripture and inviting framing in your own experience with these practices. – Sarah Kathleen Johnson, Assistant Professor of Liturgy and Pastoral Theology, Saint Paul University, Ottawa, Ontario
Other emails that I treasure from the last ten years include:
From a teacher at a Christian high school: Just a word of thanks for your meaningful work Sacred Pauses. Your book is a text for my Advanced Placement class in Spiritual Formation. I found your writing style and pastoral insights very accessible and grounded in lived experience. I showed the students the short video of you introducing the various practices. They really appreciated hearing about the book in your own voice. [To see the video, scroll down to the end of this post.]
From a military chaplain: I am the senior chaplain at a U.S. Army military base, and as such have the responsibility for the training and continuing education of the chaplains and chaplain assistants on our installation. I just wanted you to know that we will be taking a journey over the next year as a team of chaplains through Sacred Pauses. I recently finished the book and knew it would be a great tool and source of blessings for our chaplains here. We’re going to look at one chapter per month (skipping just a few chapters), with one chaplain each month facilitating a conversation on the ideas presented. I’m really excited about this and know it’ll be a great benefit to all of us.
From a reader on Amazon: I have been through the book three times now, once with a group, and I will go through it again. The exercises challenge me to go below the surface of my faith into deeper places that allow me to hear from God. I recommend this book for those who are struggling to hear from God and desire renewal as well as those who just want to change things up and take a fresh look at spiritual disciplines. [And no, it’s not too late to add your own review – another review would make a great 10-year anniversary gift!]
If you’ve read Sacred Pauses on your own or with others, I’d love to hear about your experience, so please leave a comment or contact me.
For more about Sacred Pauses including the table of contents, please see the Sacred Pauses book page.
For a free study guide for small groups, please see the Sacred Pauses Group Guide.
_____________________
For more on writing and other acts of faith,
April Yamasaki 
Congratulations April! Very cool notes of support and a nice anniversary to celebrate. I still think of your “book trailer” as a model for when I have one of my own to share.
I’m glad you stopped by – thank you! That’s my one and only book trailer, and I’m pleased with how well it turned out. A big thank you to Dan Loewen Creative.
I purchased this book in 2014, so shortly after it was published. It’s on my desk with other devotional material. I have used it frequently as my penciled-in notes indicate. For some reason I have not made use of it lately, so thanks for the reminder, April. It’s a useful tool for personal devotions but also for sermon preparation and devotional writing.
I’m grateful for the way you’ve read and used Sacred Pauses, Elfrieda. May it continue to enrich your life and ministry.