At age twenty-one, the pain of losing her mother to cancer sent Laurel Mathewson-with a naturally skeptical and questioning outlook-on a years-long existential journey. Along the way, she unexpectedly experienced an overwhelming sense of God's love and discovered a surprising affinity with sixteenth-century Christian mystic Teresa of Áviia. An Intimate Good is a beautifully written and moving memoir about the upheaval of loss, spiritual skepticism, and the dawning discovery that God is near, God loves us, and God is good. It brings into focus not just Teresa of Ávila's classic The Interior Castle but also the living God who is at the heart of this work, especially for modern readers who take the life of the mind seriously and yearn for confirmation of meaning and belovedness. Laurel's journey will lead you to a clearer understanding of the varied avenues God works in our lives over time, through prayer and other people, guiding us in ways only possible by One who knows us intimately and loves us deeply.