One of the books I am currently reading is Our Lady of the Lost and Found by Diane Schoemperlen. It is a novel, but in some ways it is an appreciation of Mary. It is light-hearted but not silly.   (It starts with Mary appearing in the narrator's living room and asking if she can stay for a week. She is wearing white Nikes and has her purse and suitcase with her.) The author recounts various Marian apparitions. In a lot of ways, the author uses Mary's visit to examine her life. She says for most of her life she has been wishing that it would hurry up and get to the 'good part'.

Here is a quote I particularly like:

I believe that sometimes you just have to decide: decide to stop feeling badly about yourself, decide to stop wanting what you do not (and apparently cannot) have. You must decide to stop believing that your real life (the life you were supposed to have, as opposed to the one youdohave, this one which you have been feeling unfulfilled, unappreciated, and unloved) is elsewhere.
Having come to this realization, I like to think that I have accepted it gracefully enough. Neither searching nor waiting brought me to the romantic happy ending I had in mind. I see now that neither regret nor anticipation served me well. Now I tell myself that what I am living is my life and I had best get on with it.

This realization allows her to get on with her life, helps her to live in the present, but it is not proof against temptation:

Much as I have convinced myself tht what I have is enough, still there are dangerous moments in the day when my energy and enthusiasm can abruptly leak away, when I lose faith and cannot get it back. I find myself in the grip of what the early desert fathers called the "noonday demon" or "acedia", one of the original seven deadly sins. This demon convinces me that my whole life is utterly devoid of meaning, nothing more than an apparently endless series of useless days that must somehow be endured

With my own personal variations, I have been visited by this demon myself. Waiting for my life to start, having a feeling that there is something I have left undone (but not knowing what!), that I have failed to fulfill my promise. This is a very subtle temptation, because it diminishes the joy I find in life, and turns my gaze upon myself. Thank God I have a family that needs me, that loves me, and that forces me out of myself!

I recommend this book heartily as spiritual reading--the author is not Catholic, but her appreciation of Mary will appeal to those who love Our Lady. If you, too, are visited by "the noonday devil", this book may help you resist him when he comes to call.