InterVarsity Press

Stories

Ruth writes, "These three women—Kathleen, Madeleine and Annie—are artists and visionaries who have imagined well. They speak of their own experiences through stories that have a universal quality, stories that stir spiritual curiosity in those whose senses have been numbed by rational arguments and complex explanations. They have walked away from the faith of their childhood and returned with fresh insights, ever aware of their own vulnerabilities. They are struggling to make sense out of life, sense out of faith, sense out of God's reign in this world. Their struggles and challenges are mine, and they nudge me along in my pilgrimage of faith.

"Though I have never met these women in person, I have come to know them through their writings. They are my "friends," and I call them by their first names: Kathleen, Madeleine and Annie. Kathleen and Annie are my generational peers. We survived adolescence in the late 1950s and were college "co-eds" of the 1960s. Madeleine is of the generation of our mothers. But for me, friendship has always easily spanned generations, especially as I have found friends—dead and alive—through my reading.

"[These are not] proofs for God that may bring someone to belief from a rational course. Those books have already been written. These are women's stories (though thoroughly ungendered in their appeal) that embody more emotion than rational argument, more mystery than certitude, and sometimes more humor than solemnity. They are stories of finding faith as well as stories of returning to faith—stories for the believer and unbeliever alike. None of the characters in the dramas below has arrived. They are all on journeys, with detours and traffic jams and accidents and breakdowns, studying the road maps and heading for the same destination. I too am on that same journey, helped along by their noted landmarks and scribbled directions."

Read the Stories