Stumbling Towards Faith

I read a book over the last week and a half that has changed my life. I can't really tell you how it has changed me, but it has changed me. I understand some things about myself better. I understand that I am not as alone as I have felt in some of the struggles I have been going through - the depression, the questions about God and faith, the anger.

I started reading it on the Monday two weeks ago, the night after my church spent the evening teaching on the passage in Mark about Jesus delivering the demon possessed boy. You know the passage. It's the one that ends with the statement that I think is one of the most profound in scripture. The father of the boy says to Jesus, "Lord, I believe, help my unbelief."

In the two weeks since I started to read this book, I have been telling everyone I know to pick it up and read it. I started thinking about that last night. Some of my friends are not going to "get" this book. I think they'll think I'm a heretic or something for loving it. But there is something so refreshingly honest, so real, so beautiful about the author's words - about the way she expresses the wounds inflicted upon her, and the way she progresses towards healing. The book does not resolve. I told a friend that last night (one of the friends who probably won't "get" this book because she doesn't understand my depression either), and she said that maybe the author did that so that she can write another book. I don't care. If she writes another book, I'll buy it based on the beauty I found in this one, but I love that this first book doesn't resolve. That the author wrestles throughout with Christians with pat answers, and that she doesn't become one is astounding. She is still processing. Yes, there is hope, and it is brilliant in light of her journey, but her last statement is somewhat more profound. She quotes the father from Mark, "i do believe. help thou, o god, my unbelief."

This book is artistic - interspersed with photography and the author's stunning poetry. there are no capital letters in sight - something I as a grammar freak never thought would work, but something that adds immense power to her words.

This book is a story of abuse, of woundedness, of questioning, and ultimately of the beginnings of healing. I still think everyone should read it, even if they don't "get" it. Maybe for those who don't "get" it, it will be a stretching exercise, a way to see into the lives of their friends and family who live in darker places than they themselves inhabit.

Now that I've set you up, the book that you must go and buy has the same title as this post. It is called "stumbling toward faith: my longing to heal from the evil that God allowed." The author is Renee Altson, and her words are beautiful and powerful. Her story is powerful. It's a little book - you could probably read it in a day if you wanted, but take time with it, and really absorb her words. You should see my copy - the paragraph on paragraph that I have marked, because I related or knew someone who would, because I was forced to stop and take stock of things in my own life that this touched upon.

Reading this book has given voice to some areas of my life that were long silenced. It has defined some wounds, and the ultimate desires for healing and freedom from those same wounds. Go read the book!