Girl Meets God

BOOK: Girl Meets God: On the Path to a Spiritual Life
AUTHOR: Lauren F. Winner

GRADE: A+

Girl Meets God has earned the title of “My New Favorite Book.”

Lauren Winner grew up the child of a Reform Jewish father and a lapsed Southern Baptist mother before converting to a life of Orthodox Judaism in her twenties. She followed the Orthodox lifestyle to the letter: keeping Sabbath and Kosher, studying the Talmud and other vital Jewish texts religiously and attending all required (and multiple optional) services. Even so, while immersing herself in Judaism, she finds herself inexplicably drawn towards Christianity. After investigating the religion thoroughly, she takes the tremendous leap of faith and leaves behind everything she knows and loves in order to convert to an entirely different (and largely unknown) religion. In the process, she loses close friends, the support of her parents and the man she loves.

While content with Christianity, Winner discovers she cannot just mentally discard those Jewish experiences which have shaped her life. Thus, she is left with the even more daunting task of figuring out how to reconcile her Jewish experiences and beliefs inside the Christian religion. She searches for multi-denominational congregations but finds them lacking. She reads books on everything she can think of – but nothing is making the two mesh in a way that makes sense to her – until she finally works out a path that works for her – and watching her do so is nothing short of awe inspiring.

As she takes us on her journey with her, Winner does a superb job of explaining each religion. She gives the reader a crash course on Judaism and Catholicism. She takes us through the holy texts of each and offers theories on how she learned to best apply them to her life. She serves up an objective and respectful discourse on both denominations. I learned more in this one book than I did in four years of religious training in high school.

I relate most with Winner because of her search for answers in books. Like me, she takes to the library to find God (whatever that means to her at the time). Girl Meets God flew by as I watched a bookworm like myself find a path to God that makes sense to her. Absolutely inspirational. A must read.