Still

Winner found God and related her experience of discovering God and converting from Judaism to Christianity in Girl Meets God. She thought finding God was a done deal, that she was finished with struggle.

Then she divorced her husband and found that God was gone.

Winner was bereft, filled with anxiety, filled with depression and fears. She felt abandoned, alone. She did not know what to do.

She began to do what she does best: she researched others who felt they had lost God and she talked with people about losing God and she began to write about it and think about it. And somehow she found God again in the middle of all the struggle and she realized this would be something she would deal with every day of the rest of her life.

Winner is smart and soulful and funny and poignant. I loved reading this book and I imagine that I will read it again one day. I recommend it for all of us who struggle with our faith (and that is all of us, I think).

Short Review: Loneliness and distance from God are inevitable parts of spiritual growth. In many ways it is almost surprising that so many people do not see it coming. Winner was thrust into ‘Christian celebrity' with her first two popular books Girl Meets God and Real Sex. She is young, wears cool hip glasses, has real academic credentials and is a good speaker. But the problem with being thrust into the spotlight young is that there is still a lot of growth that needs to occur. Still is a story of how she worked through some of that needed growth and found the importance of a local faith community. It is also the story of recovery from divorce, and the pain of losing a mother at a young age. Parts of this are more poetry than prose, but that is probably true with many books that recount pain and loneliness.

My full reviews (about 900 words) is on my blog at Review - http://bookwi.se/still/