The Way Within

What if prayer was not about trying harder to reach God?

What if it was a way of coming home?

The Way Within is a warm, creative journey through the ancient pattern of the Tabernacle — reimagined as a pathway into prayer, presence, healing and restoration.

Beginning at the Gate and travelling through the Outer Court, the altar, the water, the Lampstand, the Table, the incense, the veil and finally into the Holy of Holies, Sharon Mackenzie invites you to slow down and explore what each sacred space might have to say to your life now.

This is not a book about becoming more religious.

It is not another spiritual checklist.

And you certainly don't need to have yourself sorted out before you begin.

Come as you are. Bring the questions. The grief. The creativity. The things you are carrying that have become far too heavy. Bring the parts of yourself you have been told are too much — too sensitive. Too questioning. Too creative. Too intense. Too different. Too weird.

There is room for you here.

Through gentle reflection, Scripture, prayer and simple creative practices, The Way Within follows a movement from striving toward presence: Arrive. Remember. Lay it down. Look into the water. Ask for light. Sit down and eat. Ask for nothing. Stop striving. Be still. Come home. Take only what is yours. And then — go live.

Along the way, you will explore questions such as: What am I carrying that was never mine? What is actually true? Whose voice have I mistaken for God's — or for my own? What nourishes me? Can I love without carrying responsibility for another person's choices? What if surrender doesn't require me to disappear? Who am I when I stop trying to earn belonging?

And perhaps the most important question of all: what if coming closer to God also allows me to become more fully myself?

Drawing from her original Tabernacle prayer practice and years of work in counselling, chaplaincy, reflective safeguarding and spiritual care, Sharon brings an approach that is gentle without being shallow, spiritually grounded without demanding performance, and serious enough to hold the difficult things while still leaving room for colour, creativity, humour and joy.

There are no perfect people waiting at the end of this journey. Only an invitation. To tell the truth. To receive grace. To rediscover your voice. To learn what belongs to you — and what does not. To rest. To create. To listen. To encounter God beyond performance and striving. And eventually, to return to the beautifully ordinary business of being human with a little more freedom than you had when you began.

Because the goal is not to remain hidden away in the sanctuary.

It is to discover how to live from it.

You are here. God is here. Come in.