Living the Questions -- Endorsements

"Wow. I knew Carolyn had the ability to move me, I just didn't know how far. This work is excellent. It is comforting. It is honest. In Living the Questions, Carolyn gently reminds us that Jesus reigns supreme in all our contradictions and riddles. It is a message we need desperately. A beautiful work."

Margaret Becker
Recording artist and author of With New Eyes

"What a wonderful book! I could not put it down! Carolyn's writing is both humorous and heart-piercing... I was moved to laughter and tears several times just in the first few pages! For me, this book was a reminder of how BIG God is, but how incredibly involved He is in even the SMALL details of our lives."

Christie Barnes, executive director
Women of Faith

"Like her literary heroes, from Chesterton to L'Engle, Carolyn Arends illuminates the precarious intersection of the human and the holy. This most artful collection of stories and essays proves that she can run with the giants. Living the Questions is warm and funny and absolutely relentless in pursuit of why it all matters."

Billy Crockett, recording artist

"Exquisite writing combines with humble self-disclosure and profound insight to make this book an unforgettable experience."

Brennan Manning
The Ragamuffin Gospel and Abba’s Child

"As Carolyn gives voice to our unspoken questions, we feel as if we finally have a chance to lay it all out on the table, an opportunity for a hearing of our deepest concerns, and a safe vent to air our troublesome thoughts. But she doesn't leave us pondering, scratching our heads and puzzling over divine mysteries. By assuming the Almighty is big enough for our questions, Carolyn enlarges our view of the God who may not always choose to answer in a manner we consider timely, but who still send us dazzling red rocks red rocks in our dullest wilderness days. Provocative, stirring, emotional, and true, Living the Questions leads us to the place where hard truths and holy secrets intersect."

Lorilee Craker, journalist/author

"If good storytelling is always a liberating force for the reader, then Carolyn's intimate and kind observations and anecdotes are pure emancipation. Arends has left pretense disheveled in the corner where it belongs, and opens her Christian journey to us in a way that is at once disarmingly candid and decidedly edifying. There is a grace about this book in the patience (and even pleasure) it takes in celebrating what makes us grandly and haltingly human, and in the celebration, it makes space for and offers hope to believers who too often confuse frailty and finitude with sin or failure. I'm proud to add my 'amen' to this work."

Dwight Ozard, director of public affairs
Habitat for Humanity International

"Loosed from the constraints of three-and-a-half minute songs, Carolyn gently expounds and expands on a precious truth: Our unanswered questions -- in and of themselves, in all of their maddening, puzzling, frustrating glory -- provide evidence of the most profound Answer we can ever hope to receive. Through her engaging storytelling she relates her journey into the Mystery via those unanswered questions, subtly encouraging us to take the trip, too."

Rose Capanna, writer
His Place

Margaret Becker
Recording artist and author of With New Eyes

"Frederick Buechner calls a religious book 'a transparency.' In Living the Questions, Carolyn Arends is transparent and poetic through her prose, insightful and gutsy in her honest sharing, and often laugh-out-loud-funny and poignant. I will be buying copies for all my friends."

Lisa Tawn Bergren, bestselling author

"The apostle Paul said, 'Put into practice whatever you've learned, received, heard or seen in him, and the God of peace will be with you.' Likewise, in Living the Questions, Carolyn Arends strikingly gleans from her life lessons in a way that impacts ours with that same power and peace. A must read by one of today's most inspired troubadours."

Bob Botsford, senior pastor
Horizon Christian Fellowship,
Rancho Santa Fe, CA

"Living the Questions is a refreshing departure from one of Evangelical America's favorite pastimes: Frantically searching for answers. By revealing many of her own frailties, Arends helps us restfully settle in to the questions that have few answers this side of heaven. A colorful, honest, thought-provoking volume."

Laura Harris, journalist

"Comparing the work of a great songwriter to the work of a first-rate author is like comparing -- well apples to oranges. With Living the Questions, undoubtedly one of the finest prose debuts in any genre, singer-songwriter Carolyn Arends reaps a second rich crop: lyrical stories harvested from a keen mind deeply rooted in faith, and a tender heart daily watered by wonder. This is the good stuff: life stories to chew on and savor, stories that help satisfy a universal hunger. Carolyn Arends taught us how to "seize the day"... I heartily recommend that you seize this book."

Bernie Sheahan, author/journalist/Aspire columnist

"I began reading Living the Questions on a long flight where I was seated next to a man loudly discussing his "hot list" (whatever that is) on the Airfone. At the top of my hot list is a family at my church whose middle son is dying of cancer. His illness arrived on the heels of his mother's loss of her own mother and sister (also to cancer), and the collapse of his father's business. My prayer life has been turbulent and fearful in the midst of this tragedy that is, to me, inexplicably cruel. Carolyn's book came as an unanticipated gift; I didn't know what she had written about -- didn't know she could write a book, really. But she can -- beautifully -- and I finished the book feeling much encouraged to move again into the mystery of relationship with a shattering God."

Ashley Cleveland, recording artist