The Holiness of Everyday Life

A Gospel Doctrine teacher, discussing the Holy Ghost, asked the class, “Why don’t we feel the Spirit more often? What gets in the way?” One of the students instantly shouted, “Life!” Other class members quickly added to the discussion: “Dishes in the sink! Traffic on the way to work! Kids quarreling in the kitchen! Too much to do and too little time!”

In The Holiness of Everyday Life, Joan B. MacDonald explains that contrary to what we might think, it is in the very distractions and problems of life that we can best develop our spirituality. “After all,” she writes, “how can we learn the value of cleanliness, order, or nourishment without meal preparation and dishes in the sink? How can we learn love, long-suffering, and endurance without children quarrelling in the kitchen? How can we learn what we truly value without too much to do and too little time? Life does not get in the way; life shows the way.

”This book is about life,” she continues. “It’s about the mundane and routine. It’s about housework and jobs, family and friends. This book is also about holiness. It’s about those things that are sacred. It’s about spiritual growth. It’s about walking with the Savior and letting the Savior walk with us. Most important, this book is about how these two things, the secular and the sacred, intertwine, support, and sustain each other. We cannot separate sacred from secular; all of life is holy.”

The Holiness in Everyday Life explores the spiritual lessons that can be learned at work, doing housework, attending school, raising children, and building relationships with friends and family.

In our fast-paced, media-driven world, many of us struggle to keep our focus on the things that matter most. The Holiness of Everyday Life offers real help to any member of the Church who longs to feel the Spirit, and the spiritual, more fully.