In the honest pages of Winter Light, I found the prideful secrets of my own heart revealed. As I read I breathed a quiet, “me too.” Bruce Ray Smith’s particular quest for humility gives voice to our common longing for transformation. We want to be changed, but the heart is deceitful above all things. We want to know God in our very bones, but there is a cost.With poetic and personal style, Smith offers a deeply insightful reflection on pride and humility that flows from the narrative of his life and prayers. Winter Light is that rare kind of book, where literary writing meets lived, biblical theology. It's a treasure!

Andi Ashworth
Author, Co-Director of Art House America

I commend Bruce Ray Smith’s book Winter Light. Once I had begun to read I could not stop—both because of the raw power of the content and because of the brevity and starkness of the style which match the subject so well. I was deeply moved by its sometimes painful honesty and by the moments of profound joy that light up these pages.

Bruce is acutely insightful in his analysis of our arrogant and self-centered manner of living and of our need to recognize our spiritual poverty and to discover our dependence on the support and love of others. This slim volume deserves to be widely and often read. I know that I will return to it again and again and use it as an aid for my own self-reflection and prayers. The endless patience and grace of God shines a bright light across this bleak landscape of the heart.

Jerram Barrs
Professor of Christianity and Contemporary Culture
Resident Scholar at the Francis Schaeffer Institute
Covenant Theological Seminary
St. Louis, Missouri

When Martin Luther penned the first of The Ninety-five Theses, “When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ said, 'repent,' he meant that the entire life of believers should be one of repentance,” he gave a gift to us all, for he cast a glorious light upon the blessed path to close communion with our Triune God. Winter Light modeled that life of repentance with a ruthless beauty and searching vulnerability that I find rare in Christian authors. Because Bruce Ray Smith found God’s searching grace a holy gift (Acts 5:31), I was encouraged as a reader to do the same. He helped me to kiss the blade of God’s convicting grace and pull it in. I have been significantly helped in my repentance and faith by this work. I am a thankful debtor to the author, a brother I have not met, but who has helped me “find the old paths, and walk in them.”

Joe Novenson
Senior Teaching Pastor
Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church
Lookout Mountain, GA

Brother Lawrence himself could well have written this story; and those of us who find strength, hope, and instruction in Brother Lawrence's words will find those same things here in the confessional words of Bruce Ray Smith.

Phyllis Tickle
compiler, The Divine Hours

This is a gorgeously designed little paperback, handsome to hold, touching to read, helpful to ponder. It includes free verse and stream of consciousness meditations as the author invites us into his inner life. In what are short journal entries, he ruminates on his desire for humility and all that that entails as he seeks God's promise to shape and sanctify him. My, my, this is sweet, precious stuff, candid, nicely written, and very inspiring, rooted in a very solid understand of God's work in our lives. He draws on Scripture and authors as diverse as Shakespeare and Sartre as well as many spiritual classics, including some of the British Puritans. Lovely, edifying, written by a sincere, struggling Christian who happens to have a PhD in English lit. I think you should by this for someone who likes quality spiritual writing.

Byron Borger
Proprietor
Hearts & Minds Books
Dallastown, PA

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