Book Review: The Understory

Coming alive to my heart

“The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance. I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me. I keep my eyes always on the Lord. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.” (Psalm 16:6-8)

I used to cringe a little whenever I heard this passage. I knew the disappointment of feeling like the boundary lines had not fallen in pleasant places for me. I especially felt that ache when I’d hear these verses quoted by a pastor reflecting on the heritage of his ministry or a woman talking about her children. I wondered how it seemed to ring true for others and not me. I was shortsighted in my understanding of pleasant places and a delightful inheritance. In the context I was in at the time, paired with my own immaturity (really, a misunderstanding of sanctification), my heart was ripe for resentment. 

Thank God he is not bound by my limited perspective, and it is his mission to draw me toward wholeness  — an entirely different thing than the pleasant places I was looking for!

In her new book, The Understory, Lore Wilbert says of this passage, “This has become a promise to me of sorts, that even when I am asleep to my heart, God is still counseling and directing me. God has not abdicated my innermost being. He has put down roots and abides there, and therefore my gut or intuition or sense or spirit is trustworthy, even if I don’t know where I’m being led or if I’ll get there in one piece. I am learning, though, to be very quiet and to, in more of [Mary] Oliver’s words, let ‘things take the time they take.’ I know I’ll get there eventually.”

I was asleep to my heart for so long because I thought it was only capable of deceiving and tricking me. I was not living in the light of my belovedness, blind to the reality that I was much more than a sinner. Coming alive to my heart — the heart that instructs me at night; the one where Jesus resides! — has been a painfully joyful journey. I wouldn’t trade it for all the pleasant places and delightful inheritances I could’ve dreamed up. 

Lore’s writing over the years has been a mentorship of sorts to me, even from the distance of only being acquainted with her online and in her books. She was asking questions and untangling things around the same seasons I was. She nudged me toward curiosity about myself, and invited me to sit in the safety of Love with what was unresolved. Her newest book is her best yet, and I can sense the personal labor of her whole self that it has been. To live the way she writes about comes at a great cost, which she narrates with just enough mystery to direct readers away from guessing about her life or trying to read it into their story, inviting us to receive the inheritance that is promised.

Preorder #theunderstory today if you haven’t already!