Madeleine gets her choice of either a $20 gift card to her favorite bookstore or signed copies of my first three novels. Watch this space for more contests, coming soon!

Each segment is 7-9 minuts in length--the entire interview is just under 32 minutes. Forgive the weird lighting changes--I'm facing a window and the clouds moved in at one point, and I think my computer's screen must have gone to sleep because there's a weird moment where the light changes really suddenly. The joys of filming yourself in your office! :)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Many of these bloggers are still giving away copies of the book, so if you don't have it yet and have decided you'd like to give it a try, then check out their posts and leave a comment to win. 

And I am doing my own giveaway! One July 18th I'm going to choose one commenter from all the comments left on the various blog tour posts. That winner will receive their choice of all three copies of my current releases--signed, of course!--or a $20 gift card to your favorite bookstore. So go do some blog reading--maybe you'll find a great new blog to follow!

First, a little background on me. I grew up in a non-denominational church that pretty much shunned tradition. There were only two traditons that our church held to, actually. One is singing Silent Night as we held hands across the rows as our last song on Christmas Eve. The other is that they always decorated the stage with plain greenery on Good Friday, and then replaced the leafy arrangements with bright  lilies on for the Easter services. That was pretty much it. They didn't badmouth tradition, but they believe that it could be a hindrance to people who had grown up with it and were now turned off by it as they sought God. Unfortunately, I'm the kind of person who loves traditions, and I admit I had some longing for a community that embraced them like the many Catholics I knew.

Now, the thing about Catholics, at least back when I was a kid, was that I was pretty sure they were all going to hell. I don't remember ever being directly taught this, so I'm not entirely sure where I came up with this idea. I was certainly not taught, however, that their faith was just as authentic and acceptable as mine. In my head, they were not saved, and all the "stuff" they did was just a bunch of pointless busywork that didn't get the real job of salvation done.

Fast forward twenty years, and I am no longer so dogmatic or general in my approach to my Catholic brothers and sisters. Are there some who are merely going through the motions of their faith, finding comfort but little growth in the traditions they follow? Sure--but there are plenty of Protestants who are guilty of the same thing. I can't say that I view every belief of the Catholic Church as theologically sound, but I know enough passionate Christians who identify themselves as Catholic to know better than to make any blanket statements about what all Catholics believe or whether or not they are heavenbound.

The reason I bring all this up is because the book I'm blogging (and gushing) about today is about a saint. Now, when I was younger my understanding of the whole saints thing, at least as I believed the Catholics viewed them, was that they were basically idols. "All believers are saints!" I'd argue, and I believe the Bible backs me up on that. But I am much more willing to recognize now that there are things that even I, a Protestest of Reformed leanings, can learn from these people the Catholic church reveres so much. They loved God with incredible passion. They were friends with him, in love with him, and heard his voice and saw his visions. As such, I believe there are things that they can teach me, but where does a Protestant girl go to learn what they have to say?

One option is Claudia Mair Burney's newest release, God Alone is Enough: A Spirited Journey with Teresa of Avila. It's the story of St. Teresa of Avila, an individual about whom I knew exactly zero when I opened the book. But it's not some dry recounting of her acts and prayers, and if you know anything about Claudia then you already figured that out. In her trademark sassy and conversational style, Mair recounts the life Teresa lived that led her to her vows, and then delves even deeper to help us process and learn from the life this spunky nun lived.

I've been asked to write specifically on the first chapter of the book, "Teresa's Sparkling Life." This chapter alone, which gives us a basic rundown of Teresa's life, was enough to blow all my preconceived notions about saints right out the window. In my mind they were pious from the beginning, austere in life from childhood right through to their death, mystical in speech and elevated in their understanding of God. (I know, I know--where did I pick this stuff up?!) And while that might be true for some of the other saints, it wasn't true for Teresa. Picture an Orange County teen beauty contest winner--that was Teresa, but 500 years ago. High class family, stunning beauty, and a life lived in ease. She devoured romance books (dang, those things have been around *forever*!) and flitted from one social event to another, reveling in the attention she drew and the favor she was shown. Definitely not the kind of beginning I'd expect for a saint.

But that has been, for me, the most interesting part of reading this book. I can relate to this woman. Not because I'm a stunning beauty with a winsome personality, but because she was a normal woman who, while loving God, also loved life and people and love and reading books. THAT I can relate to. Even if she did read mostly romances. And honestly, it gives me hope to know that someone who, yes, loved God deeply as a child, but who also grew to be a typical teenager and was enthralled with and absorbed by the same types of things that I have been (and still sometimes am), still managed to become such a deep lover of God and was blessed to receive his visions and hear his voice. It makes me think that maybe I can commune that closely with him as well.

Mair does an excellent job of painting a picture of this young woman and the path that led her to the convent. She gently paraphrases Teresa's witings to make them more accessible to modern readers, without modernizing it so much that you forget she lived 500 years ago and not 50. And she deftly shows how even a woman who was later sainted by the Church can still struggle and doubt and backslide without focusing so much on those issues that you start to wonder how she got sainted in the first place.

If you've read any of my recent blog posts, then you know that I've been experiencing a bit of a spiritual reawakening. Well, in keeping with his great sense of humor and excellent timing, God brought me this book in the midst of this season, and it contains a sentence that looks pretty mundane at first blush, but which stood out like neon when I read it. After the devastation of losing her father, Teresa--who had lost her mother a few years prior and had never really gotten over it--began to cut off her emotions and basically shut down, spiritually. She was already a nun at this point, and she, "remained that way, cut off from feeling, an airy, chatty, worldly nun, until some twenty years later..." When I read that I stopped short. This woman, who is revered by so many and whose life and writings are studied for the purpose of spiritual growth, spent twenty years basically going through the motions. Oh, how I can relate! Though for me, it's felt anyway like nearly my whole life has been lived that way--knowledgeable of Christianity, well-versed in spirituality and outwardly devout, but inside void and empty of any kind of true intimacy with God. All head, no heart. And apparently a SAINT went through the same thing.

Mair goes on to explain what happened to kick Teresa's soul out of that funk and put her on the path to saintdom, but rather than recount the whole chapter here I'll just tell you--beg you, really--to go read it, especially if, like I have for so long, you feel like your spiritual life is nothing but floundering and stumbling in the dark, trying to find some little bit of God to hold on to. As the book's tagline says, "No one can teach a Christian to pray like Teresa can." I look forward to learning from Teresa as I continue to read, and I hope you'll pick up a copy of this lovely book and read along with me.

So be sure to check back here every day throughout the tour to see who's posting next, and be sure to leave them a comment!

Jennifer at Rundpinne 6/13
Pamela at Busy Moms Who Love To Read 6/14
Cynthia at Hippy Housewife 6/15
Pat at Patti's Porch 6/16
Shelly at Write for a Reader 6/17
Renee at Black n' Gold Girl's Book Spot 6/18
Evie at Long Live the Lit 6/19
Mason at Thoughts in Progress 6/20
Kathleen at The Leen 6/21
Camy at Camy's Loft 6/22
Marissa at The Hardest Job on Earth 6/23
Autumn at The Avid Reader 6/24
Meg at Hi, I'm Meg 6/25
Athena at Devereau Court and Athena's Other Blog 6/26
June at Writing is a Blessing 6/27
Linda at Desert Rose 6/28
Claudia at Ragamuffin Diva 6/29
Nancy at A Musing Reviews 6/30
Theresa at Just One More Paragraph 7/1
Margaret at Pearl Girls 7/2
Gladys at Literary Lolita 7/3
Rachel at RachelHaulk.com 7/4
Sheridan at The Adventures of Our Family of 57/5
Megan at A Prisoner of Hope 7/6
Mimi at Woven By Words 7/7
Monique at Arms of a Sister 7/8
Jen at The Heart's Journey Home 7/9
Vicki at Reading at the Beach 7/10

Thank you to everyone who is downloading the book for their readers--I hope you enjoy it! Be sure to drop me a note and let me know what you think when you're done. :)