“The Grace of Enough” by Haley Stewart

It’s easy to get swept up in the fast-paced current of mainstream culture. There is always something to consume: the 24/7 news media, the constant stream of pictures and stories we scroll through on social media, the billions of new products on the market, and millions of shops available to visit online or in person, day or night. Western culture teaches us that this pursuit of the newest and the flashiest is the highest ideal, that ambition and the striving for the position of highest prestige is the way to obtain happiness.

But Haley Stewart is calling a bluff on these cultural norms. In her newest book, The Grace of Enough: Pursuing Less and Living More in A Throwaway Culture, Stewart details a counter-cultural path to deep, lasting happiness.

By sharing her own personal journey from the busy lifestyle her family led in urban Florida to a quiet Texan farm, Stewart paints a life-giving picture of how intentional, relationship-centered living is the true key to finding deep, enduring happiness.

If you find yourself weary and dissatisfied with your current pursuits and priorities in life, then The Grace of Enough may be the blueprint to intentional living your soul has been seeking.

Throughout the book, Stewart shares stories from her personal experience with learning how to make fulfilling choices and life changes, in the areas of community and relationships, home and nature, and shopping and food. While parents are the audience most likely to relate to Stewart’s perspective, she does make an effort to engage single individuals, particularly millennials.

Yet the themes and advice she presents are not limited to these two groups. Perhaps aside from the specifically Catholic prayers and traditions, which may still be inspirational to those outside of the faith, the book is filled with relevant, inspirational messages of encouragement and hope for people of all ages, as well as people from all cultural and religious backgrounds.

Each chapter is written in the same format: Stewart first shares her own experience with the topic at hand, and then provides a useful list of practical tips for the reader to implement in order to realize a more fulfilling life though intentional decision making.  

She shows readers a way of life where people come first, where “attention and love are often all that’s required to make good memories”, and how to achieve true joy and peace for ourselves and for those closest to us (The Grace of Enough, 68).

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