Life Before God
by Fr. Brawn Sullivan
Long before he ever thought of priesthood, Fr. Brawn Sullivan was an enthusiastic young novelist, living, working and writing in the Bay Area, developing professional connections with agents and editors in New York, seeking literary success. The quest was largely joyful; the young novelist loved writing and met up with many people in Manhattan who recognized his promise. But a series of setbacks, both personal and professional, in the autumn of his twenty-eighth year provoked a sudden and deep depression, a turn of events the author would later come to realize to be the inevitable result of idolatry.
“I put success where God should be,” Fr. Sullivan now recounts. “I think it is easy to do that, in contemporary Western culture. I thought that my personal value and worth were inextricably linked to success as a writer. Without that success, I did not know who I was. And that is how I came to that dark autumn of my twenty-eighth year. Our idols, whatever they may be, cannot rescue us from ourselves. Only God can do that.”
LIFE BEFORE GOD is a story of conversion, a story of redemption. It is a story of a true encounter with the living God and its life-changing consequences. For anyone who has ever doubted their worth, their value, their dignity as a child of a loving Creator, LIFE BEFORE GOD offers a bright and joyful counter-argument.
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
– St. Augustine, THE CONFESSIONS
by Fr. Brawn Sullivan
Long before he ever thought of priesthood, Fr. Brawn Sullivan was an enthusiastic young novelist, living, working and writing in the Bay Area, developing professional connections with agents and editors in New York, seeking literary success. The quest was largely joyful; the young novelist loved writing and met up with many people in Manhattan who recognized his promise. But a series of setbacks, both personal and professional, in the autumn of his twenty-eighth year provoked a sudden and deep depression, a turn of events the author would later come to realize to be the inevitable result of idolatry.
“I put success where God should be,” Fr. Sullivan now recounts. “I think it is easy to do that, in contemporary Western culture. I thought that my personal value and worth were inextricably linked to success as a writer. Without that success, I did not know who I was. And that is how I came to that dark autumn of my twenty-eighth year. Our idols, whatever they may be, cannot rescue us from ourselves. Only God can do that.”
LIFE BEFORE GOD is a story of conversion, a story of redemption. It is a story of a true encounter with the living God and its life-changing consequences. For anyone who has ever doubted their worth, their value, their dignity as a child of a loving Creator, LIFE BEFORE GOD offers a bright and joyful counter-argument.
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
– St. Augustine, THE CONFESSIONS
by Fr. Brawn Sullivan
Long before he ever thought of priesthood, Fr. Brawn Sullivan was an enthusiastic young novelist, living, working and writing in the Bay Area, developing professional connections with agents and editors in New York, seeking literary success. The quest was largely joyful; the young novelist loved writing and met up with many people in Manhattan who recognized his promise. But a series of setbacks, both personal and professional, in the autumn of his twenty-eighth year provoked a sudden and deep depression, a turn of events the author would later come to realize to be the inevitable result of idolatry.
“I put success where God should be,” Fr. Sullivan now recounts. “I think it is easy to do that, in contemporary Western culture. I thought that my personal value and worth were inextricably linked to success as a writer. Without that success, I did not know who I was. And that is how I came to that dark autumn of my twenty-eighth year. Our idols, whatever they may be, cannot rescue us from ourselves. Only God can do that.”
LIFE BEFORE GOD is a story of conversion, a story of redemption. It is a story of a true encounter with the living God and its life-changing consequences. For anyone who has ever doubted their worth, their value, their dignity as a child of a loving Creator, LIFE BEFORE GOD offers a bright and joyful counter-argument.
“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.”
– St. Augustine, THE CONFESSIONS