All I Can Do Is Pray

Julie Cicora left a twenty-two-year career at Hewlett-Packard to complete Clinical Pastoral Education in a hospital, and this 122-page memoir is what she carried out of those three months. The prayer stories she tells are specific and honest — direct prayers, unexpected answers, hard bedsides — and her unusual background (corporate professional to Episcopal priest) gives the book a distinctive perspective that pure clergy memoirs lack. For Christian readers interested in prayer or pastoral ministry, the credentialing is real and the material is grounded. The honest caveats are scope and scale: WestBow Press is a self-publishing imprint, the book is short, and the audience is specific — practicing Christians drawn to prayer and hospital ministry. Readers wanting systematic theology or broader spiritual reflection will need to look elsewhere, but within its lane this is authentic and emotionally resonant.