The Year I Got Everything I Wanted: A Spiritual Crisis

By Cameron Conant

Cameron Conant hoped that after a painful divorce, he might one day be happy again. And suddenly he was'or so it seemed. Paralleling the themes in the biblical book of Ecclesiastes, The Year I Got... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1600061451
• ISBN13: 9781600061455
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: NavPress Publishing Group
• Length: 195 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.6" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Searching for the Source

If there's one happy side-effect of being someone who has spent time in the darkest places of the spirit, it's that you can detect beauty in the smallest of things, and in the unlikeliest of places. Cameron Conant has the uncanny ability to do that - he can capture a moment in time, savor it, and hold it up to the light for us in a way that shows us beauty where we might not have known it would be. I think that's my favorite aspect of Conant's writing style. It makes me wonder how much more there is to my own life that I am not seeing, and it reminds me to be mindful of the simple, seemingly mundane things in daily life that are in fact not mundane at all. In this book, Conant bares his soul to the reader and shares thoughts and experiences that many of us would hesitate to tell our friends, let alone the world at large. It is this openness that gives us a glimpse of some very deep but universal struggles that we all share, but often fail to confront directly - the grasping at something outside ourselves to find satisfaction, and ultimately the failure to find it anywhere but in the Source within ourselves. And although this book is classified as Christian literature, I believe that it would be an enjoyable and easy read for anyone who is the least bit spiritually-minded, regardless of religion. It speaks truths that reach beyond those boundaries.

transparent and thoughtful

Cameron Conant writes with great skill, depth and reflection. The Year I Got Everything I Wanted follows a year full of promises (new city/job/girlfriend) on the other side of his painful divorce. Conant's honesty and transparency stand out amidst endless stacks of "how-to" and "step-by-step" books, while the narrative challenges our perspectives on God, success, love and the church. All who struggle with pain, expectations, disappointment and faith will enjoy, finding themselves in Conant's story--and the greater narrative of life.

Open House

I've often wondered what it would be like to really get into a guy's head. Not just any guy, mind you. Not interested in the cranial crevices of a baseball fanatic who's memorized every statistic ever recorded but can't remember that I'm not fond of roses. No desire to plumb the gray matter of the guy who can say "I love you" in 87 languages but doesn't know what that means. But show me a guy with a failed marriage who still courts hope, a guy with a massive need for a GPS, and a guy with a million questions about God and life and the meaning of it all; and I have a sudden, and irresistible, urge to unscrew the top of his head and dive in. Reading Cameron Conant's newest book was like wandering unchecked through his mind's abode. And it is a fair-sized bachelor pad! The family room is decorated with comfy couches and cozy throws and a colorful collage of snapshots of the people Cameron knows. (I linger at the portrait of the lovely wheat-haired woman now riddled in pockmarks from some well-aimed darts. Damaged, yet displayed, like all the rest.) I have access to his office with its manila folders festooned with doodled-upon Post It notes. The den has floor to ceiling windows and it's hard to tear my eyes from the scenes rushing past: the midnight train to Prague, majestic mountains flooded in amber light, a grisly accident on a lonely stretch of road, a gently swaying hammock near the breezy beach, and the quiet (soul-grippingly quiet) porch overlooking a lazy river. I am drawn to the kitchen by an interesting smorgasbord of scents. There is a rich aroma of coffee wafting through the air and the salty aroma of a slightly toasted bagel. And just a hint of yesterday's burrito. Even the bedroom door has been left ajar... I enjoyed wandering through the maze of Cameron's mind--feeling like I was going somewhere and then bumping into a wall or intending to visit the library and ending up in the basement. It was not a run-of-the-mill tour. If you have ever been at a formal dinner party and were tempted to peek into the medicine cabinet while using the powder room, this is definitely your kind of book! The difference is that this homeowner hands you his keys with love.

So helpful

As a christian who is going through a divorce, I so appreciated Conant's brutal honesty and his courage in sharing his struggles. His journey is one that many of us are on and it is good to have a friend who has been there as well. Though your faith gets shaken, in the end it truly is what remains and what pulls you through.

The Year I Got Everything I Wanted

Cameron appropriately shares the baggage associated with his divorce, subsequent breakups with Hope and Erica and his understanding for how God loved him through the brokenness, loss and pain. Hope told Cameron that this new year was going to offer him everything he wanted. She was right, but not in the way Cameron thought. This memoir is a transparent look at one man's struggle to find life, yet like many of us he found that God's ways are always better than our ways.