A Review of Ann Voskamp’s “The Way of Abundance”
Second Chances
Sometimes it’s good to give certain authors another attempt to prove that your initial opinions about them are wrong. This is the case with Ann Voskamp for me. I read one of her previous books, The Broken Way, and found it to be vague — whether it was sketching out details of her family life or talking about how God has moved her spirit. Overall, I found the book to be lacking in colour. But then I read Voskamp’s latest tome called The Way of Abundance, a devotional for women, and I notice that she references a suicide attempt as a teenager and seeing her sister being killed as a youth, and I seem to recall reading about those things in The Broken Way. So maybe I’m wrong — Voskamp’s writing isn’t vague at all, and it was just me that skimped over things. I think I have to ask Voskamp for forgiveness for I was incorrect in asserting, as I have elsewhere on these pages, that she’s all style and little substance. There is substance; you just must go looking for it sometimes. And if I had previously found any aspect of the author’s work to criticize, maybe what I’m really doing is being critical of my own failings. The Way of Abundance made me realize that.
In any event, I can say that I was slightly moved by The Way of Abundance. There were sections of the text that stopped me dead cold and made me reflect. Again, that sort of thing wouldn’t be the hallmark of someone whose writing is vague. If you do continue to think that way, it might be because Voskamp has a rare gift as a Christian writer in that she’s a bit of a prose stylist. Read just a paragraph of her work and you will determine that it’s Voskamp’s. She has a unique flair, and I had to wonder as I read this book what it would be like if the author decided to write a piece of literary fiction. I think it might be scrumptious.
However, and regardless of what I just said, I have to admit that, as far as Voskamp’s Christian writing goes, I’m a bit on the fence. I don’t agree with her assertion that Christ died for our sins. You won’t see me drawing a cross on my wrist as the author implores us to do as a reminder of God’s grace and mercy, or some such thing. (Why can’t the fish become the universal sign of the church, rather than the death and punishment theme of the cross?) I also think that Voskamp does prattle on a bit — some of these devotions, which seem culled largely from either The Broken Way or her personal blog, could benefit from the skilled guidance of an editor to help clarify points and remove redundancies and repetition to make the writing even stronger.
Despite all of that, I was moved by some of the personal stories of feeling lost or unloved, such as when the author gets locked out of her van at the doctor’s office and has to be patient and loving while her sons take their sweet time delivering a second set of keys to her, or the rainbows that are painted in the sky as Voskamp (I didn’t know this previously, but she’s a fellow Canadian) crosses from the United States back into Canada without the passports of two of her children. Strip away the theology, and The Way of Abundance is a peek into the joys and frustrations — sometimes felt simultaneously — of being a mother. It is also a window into a damaged soul, one wanting to let go of the brokenness in one’s heart for something more life giving and bountiful.
There are questions for reflection at the end of each chapter. If there’s anything vague about The Way of Abundance, it is here in these questions. I think they’re phrased in such a way to make them as universal as possible and be relatable to many different women. However, I found it hard to answer questions such as “Where feels broken in your life right now? What would it mean to consider suffering as a gift and to believe that God can be trusted to make this suffering into a gift?” Putting aside my mixed feelings for viewing suffering as a good thing worthy of receiving, I think the reflections are meant to be used more in a group setting, where one can journey and articulate things in the presence and context of other people. There’s a sort of vulnerability that this book mines as a feeling, and I think that is probably best felt in a group setting.
Overall, I can say that The Way of Abundance had me re-evaluating my opinion of Ann Voskamp’s writing. I don’t think, as I perhaps may have thought, that she doesn’t have much in the way to offer other than literary fireworks. There are some deep passages here — even if I found myself slightly shaking my head at some of them, simply because they’re not part of what I believe in (but it’s OK if you and I differ in our beliefs)— and I now realize that Voskamp has more to share about her life and her feelings and her beliefs than I previously thought while reading The Broken Way. Maybe the best way to approach the author is to read her works in chronological order to get a better sense of where she’s coming from. (After all, if you bring up something in your first book, you probably don’t want to hammer the point again and again in the second, third and fourth volumes.)
There are wonderful stories in this book of people paying it forward — my previous belief, one that got me into a bit of trouble with a famous literary fiction author, was you had to pay something back — and there are passages of The Way of Abundance that are downright lyrical. There’s a fair bit to recommend here, even if I think that some of the text could have been winnowed down a bit and points tightened. Regardless if you’re already a fan or are new to Voskamp’s work, you will find much soul food in The Way of Abundance. I hope that I can be forgiven for thinking that Voskamp didn’t have much to offer. Second chances are a good thing, sometimes. In this case, I’m glad I took another look, which changed my mind.
Ann Voskamp’s The Way of Abundance: A 60-Day Journey into a Deeply Meaningful Life was published by Zondervan on March 13, 2018.
Of course, if you like what you see, please recommend this piece (click on the clapping hands icon below) and share it with your followers.
