Breaking up with God: a love story (1st ed.)

I broke up with God. The breakup was devastating. It was like a divorce when all the friends you had as a couple are forced to choose sides and end up not choosing yours.

Sarah Sentilles's relationship with God was not casual.

When it began to unravel she was in the ordination process to become an Episcopal priest, a youth minister at a church, and a doctoral student in theology at Harvard.

You might say they were engaged and that the wedding was all planned.

Calling it off would be more than a little awkward. But in the studying of the religion she'd been raised on and believed wholeheartedly, one day she woke up and realized . . . it was over. In this powerful memoir of faith, Sentilles reveals how deep our ties to God can be, and how devastating they can be to break.

Without God to mold herself to and without religion as her script, who was she and what was her purpose?

Her relationship with God had been connected to everythingher family, her friends, her vocation, the places she frequented, the language she used, and her way of being in the world.Not unlike after a divorce, she had to reorient her life and face a future that felt darkly unfamiliar.

But this beautiful, brave book is surprisingly filled with hope, a coming-out story that lets others know it's safe to come out too, and that there's light on the other side.