Be your true self—and get ready for a dynamic friendship with the Divine. It’s time for women of faith to quit apologizing—for who they are or who they’ve been, for what they feel and know, and for their powerful ability to connect with spiritual reality. When a woman is free to be herself and to express to God—without fear—her loves, dreams, pains, and passions, she can embark upon a friendship that is stunning in its wisdom and delightful in its daily unfolding. Using Scripture, meditations, stories, and written exercises, Days of Deepening Friendship encourages women to radically rethink their approach to friendship with God and to explore the deeper regions of this very special relationship. Throughout forty brief chapters, author and spirituality-workshop leader Vinita Hampton Wright taps the proven wisdom of Ignatian spirituality by employing prayer, imagination, action, and reflection, making the book an ideal spiritual workshop for women. Days of Deepening Friendship will free any woman to fling wide open the door to the Divine and become friends with the God who has loved her all along for who she really is. Be your true self—and get ready for a dynamic friendship with the Divine. It’s time for women of faith to quit apologizing—for who they are or who they’ve been, for what they feel and know, and for their powerful ability to connect with spiritual reality. When a woman is free to be herself and to express to God—without fear—her loves, dreams, pains, and passions, she can embark upon a friendship that is stunning in its wisdom and delightful in its daily unfolding. Using Scripture, meditations, stories, and written exercises, Days of Deepening Friendship encourages women to radically rethink their approach to friendship with God and to explore the deeper regions of this very special relationship. Throughout forty brief chapters, author and spirituality-workshop leader Vinita Hampton Wright taps the proven wisdom of Ignatian spirituality by employing prayer, imagination, action, and reflection, making the book an ideal spiritual workshop for women. Days of Deepening Friendship will free any woman to fling wide open the door to the Divine and become friends with the God who has loved her all along for who she really is.   Vinita Hampton Wright is a veteran editor and writer of books and articles on Ignatian spirituality. She leads workshops and retreats on writing, creative process, and prayer. Vinita and her husband, Jim Wright, live in Arkansas. What can this book do for you? I have written this book to help women become friends with God. I say “help” because all one person can ever do for another spiritually is to walk alongside. St. Ignatius of Loyola said it well more than four centuries ago when he reminded spiritual directors to get out of the way and allow the Creator to deal with the created one. He meant that God is already working in people’s lives and that their task is to learn how to pay attention to what God is doing. A good spiritual director—or simply a good friend—learns to help a person see more clearly, understand more specifically, and participate more intentionally with God’s action in her life. I say “women” because I have observed for many years how women bring certain qualities to the spiritual life, and how they also face certain challenges. In the Catholic world—and the Christian arena in general—most materials on the spiritual life are still written by men, and their vocabulary and sensibility do not always take into account how women actually experience the world. I am still learning, at age fifty, how my experience as a female has influenced the way I imagine God and relate to God. This book is not an attempt to re-create the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius, but because Ignatian spirituality makes such effective use of the physical senses, the imagination, and our reflection upon real experience, I have rooted much of this book’s material in the Ignatian understanding of spiritual movement. Here is a brief summary of some of the concepts important to the chapters ahead. We find God in all things. God is ever-present and at work in human experience. We grow by learning to recognize God and respond to God where God already is. Reflection is a powerful spiritual practice that moves us forward. Reflection involves self-awareness and discernment, combining the ability to understand our interior life with the wisdom to choose our path wisely. We can practice reflection in a number of ways and build into our behavior healthy self-awareness and clarity, leading to good choices. We are able to know the Divine through a developing friendship with Jesus of Nazareth. As someone “fully human and fully divine,” Jesus is able to meet us intimately through reflection, prayer, action, and revelation. In coming to know Jesus, we are able to connect with divine life on a daily basis and in ways that fit our unique situation, personality, and history. God intends for us to expe