From fear to faith: a story of abandonment, hope and healing

By Norma Woodcock
Available from The Record Bookshop
RRP $24.95
Reviewed by
Deacon Aaron Peters

I must confess my lack of objectivity as I review Norma Woodcock’s book From Fear to Faith because of my great personal debt to Norma who has deeply influenced my spiritual development over the last few years. 
Her words of encouragement, direction, insight and occasionally correction have above all been words of wisdom. 
This is a wisdom born not of book knowledge but of long and deep experience of walking with God along the varying path of real life. 
When I heard that Norma was putting her story into print I was very excited that the wisdom I have benefited from would be available to many more people.  That confession made, let me turn my attention to the book itself.
The 20th century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar looked to the lives of the saints as a source of theology. 
In a sense, one can read the Gospel written into the lives of men and women in a wide range of life experiences and settings as their faith seeks understanding in the concrete circumstances of those lives. This is because the Gospel was never intended to be a set of abstract concepts analysed by professionals in an academic setting.  Rather it is Good News for the oppressed, the suffering, those facing the challenges of living life well. 
This is probably most true of the field of prayer and contemplation.  For many people, this aspect of the Christian life conjures up images of distant monasteries or isolated ascetics engaged in practices beyond the realm of ordinary life. 
Deep prayer and contemplation can be seen as being for someone else with the aptitude and exceptional personal circumstances it requires.  Yet the lives of countless saints and ordinary Christians attest to the power and availability of prayer to all.
Here is the real strength of From Fear to Faith. 
In its pages, Norma walks through her life in a frank and disarming manner. 
She unfolds before the reader the ups and downs, challenges and victories of her life. 
Yet this is not simply the telling of a personal story: it is the universal pilgrimage towards wholeness and holiness where meaning and purpose in life are discovered simultaneously within and beyond the stuff of everyday life. 
Norma’s life, like the lives of the saints, points to an unconditional love that transcends our lives yet comes to us continually through the people, events and circumstances of life.  Such a powerful love can only have its source in the One who is love; who made us for Himself and is continually calling us into relationship with Him.
Norma does not offer the trite moralism of “I was bad, then I met God, and now I am good”. 
Her story, stretching over many years, is that of a journey where at times great progress and breakthrough and healing occurs and other times where there is failure and retreat. 
In telling her story, Norma perfectly illustrates the deep insight of one of her spiritual mentors, St Teresa of Avila. In particular, St Teresa’s spiritual treatise The Interior Castle maps the journey through the different stages of spiritual development people follow as they seek a growing relationship with God. This journey is as true for a 16th century enclosed contemplative nun as it is for a 21st century suburban mother and wife. 
Norma shows that the spiritual quest is just as accessible to those of us living ordinary lives today as it was to any of the great mystics of history.
Through the guidance of the Church and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, God invites us all to come home to Him.
From Fear to Faith has the feel of a friendly conversation over a cup of tea where friends share the story of their life and insights gained through that life.  Yet it is also a clear invitation and encouragement for the reader to consider their own life story, their own fears and, like Norma did, cry out to God. 
As Archbishop Hickey states in the foreword, “That cry and the way it was answered so beautifully in Norma’s life is here for all to contemplate and find the courage to begin their own journey”.