Blessed Are the Nones: Mixed-Faith Marriage and My Search for Spiritual Community
By Kielsmeier-Cook, Stina
I needed this book from Stina.
I needed her honesty, her courage, and her ongoing admission that this story is not over yet. I needed it because after 10 years of marriage certain things about my husband have come to light that I was never expecting to have to deal with. The whole concept of the courtship model, of the true love waits movement was that most of the issues that cause marriages to fail could be prevented, that they could be caught early. Instead I am dealing with heartbreak I could never have imagined possible, in a marriage that looks nothing like what my naive young self was promised.
Stina is writing from the place of having her own struggles, fears, and doubts. Sometimes I am wary of people sharing their story while they are still in the middle of it, but in this case I make an exception, because I needed to know that I am not the only one who has this experience and this fear.
There are parts of Stina’s story that may throw off some readers, being a Protestant connecting with Catholic nuns. I hope that prejudice can be set aside in order that compassion for suffering can prevail. Stina is learning how to give grace in her life to her husband. Learning that lesson is often a painful process, and may require repetition. I hope that many people will receive encouragement from the ongoing story of Stinas life.
This is not a story of a longsuffering wife redeeming her husband. We can go find those stories somewhere else. This is the story of a woman leaning into her own redemption thru Christ. That is the messy middle of faith. I thank her for writing this story.