Jesus Loves Women

Jesus Loves Women
Author: Tricia Gates Brown
Publisher: DreamSeeker Books
Total Pages: 267
Release: 2011
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781931038911

Jesus Loves Women is the memoir of a girl raised in a fundamentalist Christian milieu she casts off at a young age and of her quest to find wholeness and home, spiritually and sexually.Richard Rohr, O.F.M., Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, New Mexico; and author, Falling Upward, puts it this way: "Finally, the body is getting its due as the normal and gifted vehicle for Spirit! It has taken us a long time to realize the Christian obvious, and Tricia Gates Brown is making it both more obvious and thoroughly Christian." In his foreword, James Loney, Author of Captivity: 118 Days in Iraq and the Struggle for a World Without War, comments that "Jesus Loves Women is a story of grace, of how through the healing beauty of the Pacific coast and the friendship of a Trappist monk, Tricia awakens to a mystical understanding of God's unconditional love. It is the story of how one woman finds freedom from the shame, social conventions, and religious pieties that constrict the lives of all women." Susan Mark Landis, former Minister of Peace and Justice, Mennonite Church USA, says that "Like a late night talk with my best friend, Tricia's book gave me intimate insights into her life, my life, and God's love for us. Her fresh, rich words draw me to examine my life and God's movement through it. By openly sharing the secrets we typically hide, she invites us to give ourselves the grace God does and to journey toward unreserved living and loving." Brian Doyle, Author of the novel Mink River, views Brown as "An honest, piercing, blunt, lyrical, remarkable writer about the endless chambers of joy and pain in the heart."

Loves God, Likes Girls

Loves God, Likes Girls
Author: Sally Gary
Publisher: Leafwood Publishers & Acu Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9780891123590

For many Christians who experience same-sex attraction, wrestling with these feelings in light of faith is a lonely and painful journey. Sally Gary's touching memoir is one woman's recollection of her own journey. Rather than providing cookie-cutter answers as to why someone experiences same-sex attraction and how to "make it go away," Loves God, Likes Girls gives one woman's perspective on the experiences over a lifetime that impacted the development of her sexuality. Her story emphasizes that those who experience same-sex attraction are longing for safe places to explore questions, to find community, and to grow deeper in relationship with God. Book jacket.

Holy Ghost Girl

Holy Ghost Girl
Author: Donna M. Johnson
Publisher: Avery
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2012-10-02
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1592407358

Recounts the author's childhood as an organist's daughter for tent revivalist David Terrell, describing her witness to his mass "miracles" and his morally corrupt activities behind the scenes.

Sex and the City of God

Sex and the City of God
Author: Carolyn Weber
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2020-08-25
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0830843841

After studying at Oxford University and finding God, Carolyn Weber grappled with a new invitation: to think bigger about love. Through Weber's personal story of courtship, marriage, and parenthood, as well as spiritual, theological, and literary reflection, this memoir explores what life looks like when we choose to love God first.

Girl Meets God

Girl Meets God
Author: Lauren F. Winner
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2002-01-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1565123093

A young woman invites readers into her personal spiritual journey from Orthodox Judaism to Christianity in a powerful book about religion and identity.

The Book of Mormon Girl

The Book of Mormon Girl
Author: Joanna Brooks
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2012-08-07
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1451699697

From her days of feeling like “a root beer among the Cokes”—Coca-Cola being a forbidden fruit for Mormon girls like her—Joanna Brooks always understood that being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints set her apart from others. But, in her eyes, that made her special; the devout LDS home she grew up in was filled with love, spirituality, and an emphasis on service. With Marie Osmond as her celebrity role model and plenty of Sunday School teachers to fill in the rest of the details, Joanna felt warmly embraced by the community that was such an integral part of her family. But as she grew older, Joanna began to wrestle with some tenets of her religion, including the Church’s stance on women’s rights and homosexuality. In 1993, when the Church excommunicated a group of feminists for speaking out about an LDS controversy, Joanna found herself searching for a way to live by the leadings of her heart and the faith she loved. The Book of Mormon Girl is a story about leaving behind the innocence of childhood belief and embracing the complications and heartbreaks that come to every adult life of faith. Joanna’s journey through her faith explores a side of the religion that is rarely put on display: its humanity, its tenderness, its humor, its internal struggles. In Joanna’s hands, the everyday experience of being a Mormon—without polygamy, without fundamentalism—unfolds in fascinating detail. With its revelations about a faith so often misunderstood and characterized by secrecy, The Book of Mormon Girl is a welcome advocate and necessary guide.

Angry Conversations with God

Angry Conversations with God
Author: Susan E. Isaacs
Publisher: FaithWords
Total Pages: 178
Release: 2009-03-12
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0446544698

Disillusioned, disenfranchised, and disinterested in anything churchy, Susan Isaacs knew of only one thing to do when she hit spiritual rock bottom at age 40. . . . She took God to couples counseling. In this cuttingly poignant memoir, Susan Isaacs chronicles her rocky relationship with the Almighty--from early childhood to midlife crisis--and all the churches where she and God tried to make a home: Pentecostals, Slackers for Jesus, and the über-intellectuals who turned everything, including the weekly church announcements, into a three-point sermon. Casting herself as the neglected spouse, Susan faces her inner nag and the ridiculous expectations she put on God--some her own, and some from her "crazy in-laws" at church. Originally staged as a solo show in New York and Los Angeles, ANGRY CONVERSATIONS WITH GODis a cheeky, heartfelt memoir that, even at its most scandalous, is still an affirmation of faith.

When We Were on Fire

When We Were on Fire
Author: Addie Zierman
Publisher: Convergent Books
Total Pages: 258
Release: 2013-10-15
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1601425465

In the strange, us-versus-them Christian subculture of the 1990s, a person’s faith was measured by how many WWJD bracelets she wore and whether he had kissed dating goodbye. Evangelical poster child Addie Zierman wore three bracelets asking what Jesus would do. She also led two Bible studies and listened exclusively to Christian music. She was on fire for God and unaware that the flame was dwindling—until it burned out. Addie chronicles her journey through church culture and first love, and her entrance—unprepared and angry—into marriage. When she drops out of church and very nearly her marriage as well, it is on a sea of tequila and depression. She isn’t sure if she’ll ever go back. When We Were on Fire is a funny, heartbreaking story of untangling oneself from what is expected to arrive at faith that is not bound by tradition or current church fashion. Addie looks for what lasts when nothing else seems worth keeping. It’s a story for doubters, cynics, and anyone who has felt alone in church.

Country Girl

Country Girl
Author: Edna O'Brien
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 358
Release: 2013-04-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0316230367

"Country Girl is Edna O'Brien's exquisite account of her dashing, barrier-busting, up-and-down life."-National Public Radio When Edna O'Brien's first novel, The Country Girls, was published in 1960, it so scandalized the O'Briens' local parish that the book was burned by its priest. O'Brien was undeterred and has since created a body of work that bears comparison with the best writing of the twentieth century. Country Girl brings us face-to-face with a life of high drama and contemplation. Starting with O'Brien's birth in a grand but deteriorating house in Ireland, her story moves through convent school to elopement, divorce, single-motherhood, the wild parties of the '60s in London, and encounters with Hollywood giants, pop stars, and literary titans. There is love and unrequited love, and the glamour of trips to America as a celebrated writer and the guest of Jackie Onassis and Hillary Clinton. Country Girl is a rich and heady accounting of the events, people, emotions, and landscape that have imprinted upon and enhanced one lifetime.

On Her Knees

On Her Knees
Author: Brenda Marie Davies
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2021-04-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1467461180

“The problem was, because Purity is an idol (a validated and worshiped idol), I didn’t know who or what I’d be without my totem. My Christianity depended on Purity.” Going to a conservative Christian church when she was young, Brenda Marie Davies heard a consistent message—save yourself for marriage—that instilled in her fear and shame about sex. But after moving to Los Angeles at nineteen and finding herself suddenly exposed to a world far outside her comfort zone, she was forced to wrestle with the power and perversity of Christian purity culture. On Her Knees chronicles Brenda’s spiritual journey over the course of a decade in LA, through marriage, divorce, unlikely friendship, and sexual exploration. Through it all, she began tearing down the false idol of purity while refusing to abandon her faith. Told with raw honesty, sans obligatory shame, this is a story for anyone who wonders if it’s possible to love God without fearing sex, in all its shades of grey.